Allen Lane imprint Penguin Books 2019

ISBN-13: 978-0393652512

The shocking truth about Chernobyl is how few people were killed or made ill by radiation.

I’m getting an adrenaline rush watching HBO and Sky TV’s five-part dramatisation of the Chernobyl accident, because in 1995 I spent six months working at the heart of the disaster. At that time, I was the only Westerner permanently based at the site. So I’m pleased that – so far – the Chernobyl drama has delivered a riveting portrayal of blundering bureaucrats and their betrayal of plant operators. It stirs my heart to see proper credit given to those involved in the heroic effort to contain the accident and clean up the mess. The scale of the fallout, which displaced hundreds of thousands of people, affecting millions living in designated contamination zones, was massive. The response to it was courageous and inspirational.

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The media says Fukushima is awful because it is worse than Three Mile Island (TMI), even if it’s nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl. But the case for nuclear power survived TMI and Chernobyl, so it can easily survive Fukushima. In fact, even with its accidents, nuclear energy is still worth the cost and it remains the safest of all the major energy sources. Here are some PR messages we need to get out… Read on ›

Working at Chernobyl in 1995 was an amazing experience. I was the only westerner living in the new town of Slavutych that was built to replace the abandoned city of Pripyat. In addition, I was the only westerner working full time at the power station. This gave me an insight into a closed world that was as thrilling as it was unique. Read on ›

In 2006 I exposed the myth-making of an important, Swiss state-funded, UN sponsored website Chernobyl.info. As part of my work for the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster I’ve revisited the issue and discovered things have got worse. Read on ›

Chernobyl was my Big Story: it was my life for a while. But it must fascinate any PR. It has it all: crisis communication, reputation management, single-issue campaigners and misleading media reporting. Read on ›

Terrorists are spoiled for choice. Their targets are very varied: wedding parties in Jordan; tourists in Bali; train and bus passengers in Madrid and London; skyscrapers in New York. Radioactive material from nuclear power programmes is bound to be in the frame, not least because the public has a horror of it. Read on ›

Horizon, the BBC’s science flagship has – rather belatedly – reported research which suggests that low-level radiation is not a risk to humans. This should reassure people worried about the “victims” of Chernobyl and the danger posed by the rest of the nuclear power industry. Read on ›

On Saturday 25 March, 2006, The Guardian published a front page story by John Vidal, its environment editor. Headlined, “Chernobyl ‘may have killed 500,000‘”, it cited a forthcoming report by Greenpeace International and various scientists and institutions in Ukraine and Belarus. Read on ›

Ukraine is piggy-in-the-middle, caught between Russia and the West. Its nuclear prospects are exciting on several fronts – but its overall energy-dependency means it has to be diplomatic. Read on ›