Chernobyl Politics and Market Share: Possible Motives Behind Emphasis

Another motive for emphasizing the accident has received little attention. With all the talk about national energy policies, renewable energy goals, efficiency and conservation, people often forget that selling fuel is a huge and profitable business.

When nuclear reactors are shut down or when planned reactors are converted to fossil fuel power plants, one predictable result is increased revenues for the company or country that sells replacement fuel. Replacing the output of a single Chernobyl sized unit can require the consumption of several hundred million dollars worth of fossil fuel per year.

Since the price of fossil fuels is determined by supply and demand balances that are maintained by production quotas enforced with varying degrees of success by international cartels and government bodies, increased sales from replacing nuclear output can improve the profitability of all who are involved in the business.

There is little doubt that fossil fuel marketers and their political friends understand this supply and demand relationship. There is also little doubt that there are highly trained public affairs specialists employed by the companies and their industrial associations who know the value of press attention to the perceived weaknesses of the nuclear industry.

It is interesting to note that continued international efforts to shut down the remaining operational reactors at Chernobyl are led by interests that want to sell replacement fuel and by organizations that want to sell power generating equipment. The Ukraine desperately needs the power supplied by the reactors; it does not need to spend money that could be used for other industrial development on replacement power systems and fuel.