Tuesday 11 December – The Chernobyl Accident, Then and Now; annual Christmas Science Lecture
Professor Nigel Bell, Professor of Environmental Pollution, Imperial College, London.
Speaker profile
Nigel Bell is Professor of Environmental Pollution at Imperial College London, where he has worked since 1970. His degrees are in Botany and Plant Ecology from University of Manchester and University of Waterloo, Ontario (where he also has an honorary doctorate in Environmental Studies). Nigel has worked on effects of air pollution on ecosystems since 1970 and on pathways of radionnuclides in the environment since 1980. He is Director of the MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College, which has around 150 students per year and has produced some 2700 graduates in the last 30 years.
Nigel has been specialist adviser seven times to House of Commons and House of Lords select committee enquiries, including that in 1988 on MAFF’s response to Chernobyl. He has been UK representative on the Chernobyl International Radioecology Laboratory, which has involved him visiting the contaminated area in the Ukraine. He is a member of numerous societies and a fellow of both the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and the Royal Society of Arts.
Lecture summary
The world’s worst nuclear accident occurred at Chernobyl in the Ukraine on 26 April 1986. This had devastating consequences for a large area contaminated by radioactivity in both Belarus and the Ukraine, but the contamination was dispersed around the northern hemisphere, causing problems in many other areas, including the UK, where there are still farms where sheep movement is restricted due to their containing high levels of radiocaesium.
In this lecture the effect of the accident will be described, both around Chernobyl and in the UK. In the latter case consideration will be given to the reasons why radiocaesium behaved differently in upland UK from what was predicted by the authorities. Both the scientific and political aspects will be covered, with conclusions as to the lessons to be learned for any future accident.