Environmental Justice and Nuclear Accidents: The Case of Chernobyl Disaster

Abstract

Nuclear energy is one of the most important components of the world electricity supply in today's world. It provides approximately 21% of electricity in OECD countries. However, there has been a growing social and academic debate over the use of nuclear energy because the fact that there have been serious incidents and accidents at nuclear power stations indicates that the security risk associated with NPPs is not low. Particularly major nuclear accidents, Fukushima and Chernobyl, can cause the release of radiation into the environment. However, environmental contamination is not shared equally among people which triggers environmental injustice issues. There has been no comprehensive research that investigates nuclear accidents from the perspective of environmental justice theory so far. The main purpose of this study is to argue whether or not nuclear accidents cause environmental injustice. The results show that the major nuclear accident, the Chernobyl, has caused distributive and intergenerational environmental injustice.