Russian nuclear physicist calls comparison of Japan to Chernobyl a misinformation

Today, a small distraction from the situation of Polish economy. This blog is trying to de-code propaganda themes in the world media. Majority of them are intended to stir up emotions in people to make them buy their local or national newspaper. Unfortunately frequently people are scared for a long time and media managers happy to sell their twisted stories to them.

In recent days the strongest of them was an attempt to enliken the nuclear reactors' failures in Japan to the catastrophy of Chernobyl. It was propaganda attack on the nuclear energy industry without any evidence in the Soviet style. (For instance here, here and there)

A daily newspaper printed even such opinion without any comment:

It is common rhetoric that U.S. reactors are much better designed, but it is a half truth at best. In 1986, Chernobyl 4 was state of the art and its lid was stronger than domes covering some plants in this country. Soviet engineers pronounced it meltdown proof and that even if the worst happened, the lid would hold.

What kind of the start of the art could have been Soviet machine RMBK?

Where in the world such reactors were installed outside Soviet Union? Answer: Nowhere. Today they are still operating in the Lithuania, Ukraine and obviously Russia.

Modifications have been made to overcome deficiencies in all the RBMK reactors still operating. In these, originally the nuclear chain reaction and power output could increase if cooling water were lost or turned to steam, in contrast to most Western designs. It was this effect which led to the uncontrolled power surge that led to the destruction of Chernobyl 4. All of the RBMK reactors have now been modified by changes in the control rods, adding neutron absorbers and consequently increasing the fuel enrichment from 1.8 to 2.4% U-235, making them very much more stable at low power. Automatic shut-down mechanisms now operate faster, and other safety mechanisms have been improved. Automated inspection equipment has also been installed. A repetition of the 1986 Chernobyl accident is now virtually impossible, according to a German nuclear safety agency report.


And here is Japanese modern BWR reactor:

Another journalist also assumed that the Japanese nuclear plant's reactor is the same like the one, which was in Chernobyl.

The most immediate risk is to the workers who are attempting to keep the reactors cool and bring the situation under control. High doses of radiation can kill cells, causing radiation sickness, a slew of acute symptoms that can come on in hours or days. They include nausea, vomiting, burns on the skin, bone marrow destruction, and even death. At Chernobyl, 28 emergency and plant workers died of acute radiation sickness.

And another expert:

While the situation in Japan arose from different circumstances, Hulse says the two are linked because of the potential for irreversible consequences.


"The real question is would you be comfortable raising your children there, and my answer is no," Hulse said nearly 20 twenty years ago discussing the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.


Perhaps such massive propaganda effort was nothing new only renewed efforts to promote certain lobbies for solar, water and maybe wind energy plant.

ABC Australia interviewed Russian nuclear physicist Leonid Bolshov who was in Chernobyl after explosion. He demolishes a myth of so-called similarity between a Soviet disaster and the Japanese nuclear industry problems.

In fact, when it comes to reactor design and safety systems, Fukushima and Chernobyl aren't even close. The Chernobyl reactor had no containment structure, just a thick concrete layer over the top of the fuel rods.


When the reactor exploded, highly radioactive fuel was released directly into the atmosphere.


The Japanese reactors are housed in pressure vessel tanks that are then encased in a reinforced containment structure. It's designed to stay intact even if the fuel begins to melt - a so-called meltdown.


All of that, in turn, is housed in a secondary containment building. Those were the structures destroyed when steam vented from the reactors caused hydrogen explosions.  


(...) For those such as Sergey Zaitsev, their lives would never be the same. He was sent to work at Chernobyl a month after the accident. He's suffered the health effects ever since.


(Sergey Zaitsev speaking)


"No one at that time understood how serious it was", he says. "They even told us what happened there but no one actually understood what it was".


In 1986 insiders from communist circles were saying that Soviets wanted to increased production of the plutonium for the military. That is why most probably the explosion was caused by excessive pressure buildup, hydrogen explosion and rupture of all containments, propelling molten core material into the environment (a “dirty bomb”).

It will not happen in Japan (the best explanation ever found why it is so) or anywhere else in the Western world.

Poland experiences goodness of carbon tax: electricity the most expensive in EU

Not long ago Polish politicians, who steer the country declared that free market is the solution for the economic problems. Their supporters thought that they won their prize in casino but it appears that in reality they lost in Russian roulette.

 Once Civic Platform (led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and FM Radek Sikorski - former employee of American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC) won elections it appeared to them that economic crisis passed somehow Poland hitting all of its neighbors. New government criticizing the Polish president and the fmr president of the National Bank of Poland, thanks to whose decision to postpone the euro adoption (now it seeems to be again euro fever - clearly someone wants to push the Central Europe to that totally failured system)  the state's economy survived financial tsunami, in the same time were creating more "jobs for boys (*)" enjoying stable situation. In effect an average increase in the government bureacracy was about 10 per cent.

When finally tsunami hit Poland, government reached for the reserves and the flexible credit line from the International Monetary Fund. The reserves were used to keep public debt at the end of 2010 on the psychological level a little below 55 per cent GDP.

In January however ruling politicians did not find new ideas except tax increase. Government increased taxes raising VAT rate from 22 to 23 per cent and from 7 to 8 per cent. Food tax and books/magazines tax increased from 0 to 5 per cent. Higher taxes are paying also taxi drivers. Government taxed more constructing materials increasing VAT tax from 22 to 23 per cent.

Economic crisis hits homes with higher food prices. For instance, only in one month average price of sugar increased about 35 per cent per kilo. (from 2.9 in Jan to 3.9 Feb.). More expansive is flower and salt, as well. The other reason for sugar price hike is the fact that EU imposed production limit on Poland and current government capitulated resigning from any negotiations.



Negative result of the EU policy is also increase of the electricity prices. In January 2011 Poland was forced to implement the white certificate, which is another name for a carbon tax. It is an obligation of the EU member to reduce their consumption of the electricity about 20 per cent to 2020. Poland has to support also renewable energy technology development and to purchase the CO2 credit. In effect government imposed on consumer 20 per cent of the new hidden tax in the price of an electricity to cover all of these obligations.

Looks like also the new bank tax will be imposed allegedly to provide more financial stability.

New president of the National Bank of Poland has the same view on euro adoption as his predecessor.

(...) backs the government's long-term strategy of taking Poland into the euro zone but says "we are not obsessed" with the common currency. The plan has moved to the back burner due to the global crisis and more recently the euro zone's own woes.

In such situation I wonder from where these people get so much optimism about the Polish economy, which seems to be nothing more than indeed Russian roulette. 

Poland has almost the worst unemployment rate in EU after Greece and Spain

Poland is losing economically or its economic foundation was not solid? One should know that Polish state's institutions were left unchanged from the final day of the communism. Walls were repainted, new furnitures arrived and even computers here and there appeared in the state's bureaucracy offices. However philosophy of government and what is more important the mentality of the people mirrors socialists' way of thinking. To prove or falsify that claim one can easily check political parties promises during elections and their popularity. There is sentiment for a strong state and deep disbelief in free market. Neo-marxists views are becoming increasingly popular among youth. Academia in its majority leans toward left views. Catholic Church talk about social justice does not help, either.

I agree with Mr Glassman assessment about Poland. I would only add that Poland is politically unstable because it has failed electoral system which promotes the weakest and punish winner. It cannot remain without influence on overall economic condition of the state.

James K. Glassman

Why Poland Matters

On a trip to Poland in 2003, I positively gushed over the nation’s prospects for the future. “Poland truly wants to get on,” I wrote in the Washington Post, “and that’s the first step to actually doing it.”

Aspiration, however, isn’t everything. Poland has certainly done well in the past eight years, but not as well as I had hoped. Currently, the economy is sputtering along with an unemployment rate of 13.1 percent – fourth-worst (after South Africa, Spain, and Greece) among the 43 countries surveyed by the Economist. Unlike its neighbors Hungary and the Czech Republic, not to mention the European continent as a whole, Poland is running a trade deficit, and its budget deficit (at 7.5 percent of GDP) isn’t a pretty picture either.

You are probably asking, “So what?” Or, to paraphrase Shakespeare, “What’s Poland to me, or me to Poland?”

Actually, Poland means a great deal. It stood a chance of teaching tired European economies – and maybe even our own – how to thrive. And I’m not giving up on it. There are problems to address, but they’re not difficult to solve.

To attract the investment it needs, Poland must become a place where businesses are comfortable investing. Some recent incidents are worrisome. The last thing Poland needs is a reputation for a casual attitude toward the rule of law. The country needs to be seen as Singapore, not Russia.

In 2004, after 15 years of negotiation, Poland was admitted to the European Union along with other Eastern European nations that had also thrown off the yoke of communism (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia). At the time, again perhaps caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment, I believed that these new E.U. members, as “New Europe,” would help drag “Old Europe,” in Donald Rumsfeld’s felicitous formula, into a more prosperous free-market future, providing a demonstration of the benefits of lower taxes, less onerous regulation, and more flexible labor practices.

Continue reading

Polish banks in trouble

Polish banks have the same problems, which their western parent organizations. At least five banks operating on Polish market will disappear soon. Among those intended to be sold are five linked to Greek, Spain or Portuguese. The situation changes very fast because only few days ago week BCP bank, which owns Polish Millenium bank meant to be sold, said that Warsaw bank is one of their strategic assets. Not, anymore...

Last week, BCP’s CEO Carlos Santos Ferreira told Reuters the Polish bank was a strategic asset. But with recent sales of its units in Turkey and the US, selling its Polish affiliate would boost BCP’s relatively low core capital ratio – currently 6.7 per cent, says Dariusz Gorski, an analyst at Wood & Co., in a research note.

More here.

Polish economy in Jan 2011 among the slowest growing in C. Europe

Central Europe countries may be in trouble again if high inflation will cause an increase of interest rates - says European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the recently published the report:Regional Economic Prospects in EBRD Countries of Operations: January 2011 (Polish Council for the Monetary Policy has already increased interest rates in January 2011).

In January 2011 Polish GDP (like Slovak and Hungarian economies) increased 0.3 percent as in the same month of previous year. Among faster growing economies in the region were also Albanian, Estonian, Georgian, Macedonian and Moldovian.

Russian economy in Jan 2011 stopped. (zero GDP).

From some reasons the EBRD report seems to be very optimistic although economic realities on the ground are much worse. EBRD analysts are convinced that the US stimuli will be especially an impulse for growth of Central European economies.

Stronger-than-anticipated growth in the core Eurozone and fiscal and monetary stimuli in the US are likely to especially boost external demand for Central and south-eastern Europe and the Baltics.

And, according to the EBRD analysts, further strength also the Polish economy:

Given the perceived fragility of the recovery in the US and the persistent difficulties in Eurozone financial markets, global liquidity is expected to remain abundant, with loose monetary policy in advanced countries. This may result in stronger net capital inflows into the region which may strain monetary policy frameworks of the larger and more liquid financial markets in the region (Poland, Turkey and Russia).

In the meantime The Wall Street Journal describes Polish government debt situation (which according the other local economists maybe even very optimistic):

Poland’s public debt measured according to European Union rules was 57% of gross domestic product at the end of 2010, Mr. Kazmierczak says. That’s a more pessimistic view than that of the government which said public debt, in a domestic measure that excludes certain categories, was about 53% of GDP.