Nation Topics - Chernobyl | The Nation

A postwar German novelist’s complicated legacy.

No matter how appalling the catastrophe, the nuclear industry will insist on the safety of nuclear power.

The spent-fuel pools at our reactors, containing thousands of tons of poorly protected but highly radioactive waste, are a catastrophe waiting to happen.

To mark the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl's disaster and the lessons it still holds for us today, The Nation has assembled a collection of articles from our archives.

On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine exploded, precipitating the worst nuclear disaster in history. Now, on the twenty fifth anniversary of the explosion, it is worth revisiting this horrific episode and to reflect on the lessons we still have not learned.

In Japan, fears about nuclear fallout have only been getting worse as disaster cleanup crews struggle with radioactive water leaking out of the Fukushima plant.

The catastrophes in Japan remain that country’s tragedy, so we need to keep our own anxieties here in the US in check—or harness them to make constructive changes in preparation for our own future disasters.

Even as Fukushima threatens to unleash the greatest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl, the president champions nuclear power in the United States.

When nuclear reactors blow, the first thing that melts down is the truth.