Cs Form 211 Revised 2018: Fill & Download for Free

Boeing’s decision to file a Trade Dispute suggests otherwise. The question is a good one but I doubt any one opinion has all the facts - including this one. Allow me to offer an opinion that will no doubt, prove to be somewhat controversial and allow me to offer some background information along with my reasoning rather than just a blunt answer.Boeing once owned one of Bombardier’s subsidiaries, de Haviland (DHC) during the 1980’s and sold it after losing a contract to Airbus for airliners for Air Canada. They are fierce competitors (Boeing vs. Airbus) and overall, Boeing financially did not want to commit to upgrades to the tiny Twin Otter or the Dash 7 or new Dash (8) 100 and didn’t see a good fit between the two organizations and lots of overlap in expertise and suppliers once the Air Canada contract was finalized with Airbus. It took 4 years before the company was sold to Bombardier in 1992 and integrated with Canadair operations the Bombardier acquired in 1986. Little did anyone know at the time, that the Canadiar business jet, the CL-604, would begin the company’s path into the regional jet market.Boeing has not done well with any company it has acquired since it bought McDonnell Douglas. Every one of MD’s designs were eventually phased out and post sale support of existing airframes has been considered poor except for military products such as the F-18 and C-17. Boeing during this era was about marketshare and sales volume. It excelled at filling aircraft plants with orders and focused on large scale production that could number in the thousands.Boeing has never had good a stable relationship with any Canadian partnership except one in Manitoba and it’s small fry in the grand scale of Boeing’s international scope of sales, support and suppliers. Everything is literally - too small to be serious recognition to those in Chicago or Renton.A corporate mistake is a decision made by senior management of an organization that fails to recognize an opportunity that could be leveraged for value and financial gain. From Boeing’s perspective, why would it consider being a white knight for the C-Series if the pressure to move the company to the U.S. would not have been politically viable in Canada. Boeing has never entered into a licensing deal for complete aircraft. It will facilitate direct partnership stakes for sections for development of aircraft but not the entire platform. Each one was based on risk sharing both in terms of capital investments and profit sharing for each component. Many analysts still wonder if selling the fuselage manufacturing plant for its B-737’s and B-777’s to Spirit Aviation was a smart move. For Boeing it was brilliant given the era and labour union environment the company was facing. The engineering of the aircraft could be kept in house, had a successful track record and eliminated some long term pension liabilities the company needed to get off its balance sheet. That ultimately lead to how Boeing’s management would seek out other risk sharing partners in Japan, China abroad and internally inside the U.S. in South Carolina and Washington State. It would maintain control of design, production facility management and component integration while sub-contracting as many sub-assemblies as possible for all future commercial aircraft models. Legacy models no longer needed additional risk partners given the limited amount of capital costs involved. Once the B-767 and B-747 are phased out, the way Boeing will design, manufacturer and sell aircraft will follow a standard template as is being carried out with the B-737 Max and B-777 Max platforms.Boeing has no experience in buying or investing into a platform that is already completed as a finished product and would be only interested if it could buy the entire company - which would not be feasible given the market Bombardier is in (Business Jets and Regional airliners). Boeing made the decision to exit the MD-90 program not only because it overlapped with the B-737 but also because supporting two low cost, thin margin platforms made little financial investment sense where returns on capital are measured in single digits these days. Many believe Boeing hasn’t heavily discounted the B-737 to maintain marketshare - but they have for several key buyers of the airplane. If published accounts are true, the level of discounts that are actually higher than Bombardier and could also be considered predatory in nature.Boeing’s choices were clear when the company filed the FTC complaint and the current administration gladly went along with it. I seriously doubt Boeing executives predicted Airbus coming to rescue Bombardier for a very specific purpose and market segment. For Airbus, they are also banking on other opportunities including military and long term development collaboration in addition to keeping their new Alabama U.S. plant filled with orders. Boeing’s risk in not building a smaller airliner than the B-737 is marginal.If there has been a serious error made, it was by Bombardier. Their relationship with Pratt & Whitney is the primary reason the C-Series has lead a financial wrecking ball to Bombardier’s balance sheet. The terms of the deal were not well written and financial penalties were clearly limited. Pratt & Whitney itself is also suspect in its management leadership. They have not been a serious player in the high by-pass turbine market for several years as GE and Rolls Royce dominate the market. P&W’s military sales are what have kept the company afloat along with its famous turboprop PT-6 and PW100 series turbines, which ironically are designed and manufactured by Pratt & Whitney Canada. The decision to design a compact size geared high bypass ratio turbine, the new PW 1500G was a good decision but has clearly had some engineering, technical, production and material availability problems that did not have liability consequences. Airbus is using the same engine platform for the A318/319 NEO series and more importantly, has an alternative engine in the CFM International LEAP (which is not gear driven) and could afford to wait while Bombardier could not. CFM has outsold the PW 1000 / 1100 / 1200 / 1400 / 1500 / 1700 / 1900 series by a wide margin. CFM didn’t escape unscathed in new turbine development but they certainly have had less development problems than Pratt & Whitney. Bombardier did not consider offering two different engine platforms, which is not unusual but clearly high risk when both are brand new products.The C-Series development and production have followed a similar path as the Lockheed L1011 and Rolls Royce with its RB-211 engine. RR ultimately did have to declare bankruptcy and be bailed out by the British Government in 1971. Bombardier has required several government grants, loan guarantees (Federal and Provincial) including interest free loans to stay afloat.It can be easily argued that Boeing saw a weakness and wanted to exploit it after seeing what Delta Airlines paid for the C-Series airplane without investing any money other than a few phone calls by its lawyers to the FTC. Boeing doesn’t forecast serious need for a regional airliners in the 110 - 145 passenger segment that warrants a short haul version of its current B-737 Max and doesn’t want any sales being chipped away at by a competitor Airbus, Bombardier or Embraer. Others such as Comac 919 are not considered international threats (U.S. domestic consumption and some regional sales) to Boeing. Bombardier has a technical engineering partnership with Comac for the 919. More on that later.From a Boeing sales analysis position, it knows that leasing companies make up a large portion of their sales in the budget airline B-737 market. They want high production of capacity aircraft that in turn only require a 65% load factor for an airline to break even. That’s where many believe the threat exists, which is where the C-Series 300 can hit Boeing in the pocket book. When the prices that Delta paid are converted into lease payments and require far less passengers to break even - the equivalent of 40 - 45% load factor of a B-737 Max 8 or 9 model, at far lower lease payment rates. If a C Series 300 can be filled at 90% or more, the airplane would be a money maker for the airline and Bombardier almost immediately because lease payments instead of capital costs, are dramatically different in scale and volume (number of aircraft leased vs capitalized with large down payments).Bombardier has with the C Series, the same range for a given passenger configuration - with the new geared turbine engines. Airbus NEO / LEAP variants of the A319 - 321 and Boeing’s Max 737’s are all capable of 5,500+ km’s. That put Boeing on edge given the potential market opportunities that Bombardier would now have access too. This is particularly true around the Pacific Rim. Given that the U.S. has announced its withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, Bombardier could be in a better position regarding import tariffs than Boeing. If Boeing could eliminate Bombardier’s C-Series from the market, it would be easier for them to compete against Airbus. Asian carriers that fly low volume routes during non-peak times of the year would greatly benefit buying a lower opex cost aircraft that Bombardier could fulfill.It is surprising that Embraer has (so far) escaped an FTC complaint by Boeing. Without a doubt a key reason is currency exchange rates, which has hurt Boeing more with Canadian currency than Brazilian because Canada’s trade with the U.S. exceeds a billion dollars per day and given current U.S. dollar value, enables Bombardier to give far larger discounts than Embraer can. When the U.S. dollar was at par with the Canadian dollar between 2008 and 2013, I doubt Boeing would have submitted a case to the FTC. It could be argued that Embraer has smartly waited out the decision to enter the 145 - 160 passenger configuration market.Addendum December 21, 2017 - Boeing and Embraer have entered into acquisition discussions. Boeing is in talks to buy Brazilian plane-maker Embraer?In my opinion, Boeing set in motion a low risk option to hurt its competition - even if it means Boeing’s commercial and military sales to Canada are significantly reduced by 50% or more. Boeing doesn’t see Canada as a significant revenue source over the next 10 to 20 years when compared to other market opportunities. It has sufficient contracts for Aircraft into Canada that future net new sales will be minimal. It will probably close down its facilities in Manitoba in less than 5 years time anyway.Addendum insert from CBC News: Boeing acknowledges Super Hornet sale to Canada effectively deadAirbus has nothing to lose with this deal and could expand into the U.S. with a North American built design that opens new opportunities that did not exist before. Bombardier is the ultimate loser in the program while Boeing will simply look at it as a low risk gamble that may or may not pay off. It is not clear if Bombardier has the option of buying back any share of the C-Series platform and regain control of the program in the future. One report states that Airbus has the option to buy out Bombardier’s ownership of the CS Series in 7.5 years and the Quebec Government stake in 2023. The terms of the deal are not well known or published other than the fact that Airbus will own 50.01 percent of the program and Airbus will invest funding to complete all final development and production costs. Because the Quebec Government and Airbus will actually own (either as collateral or actual ownership rights) more than Bombardier will, it is not clear how Bombardier will continue as an aircraft supplier to the airline industry. Airbus has its own problems integrating subsidiaries and working with risk partners as has been proven with the A400 and A380 platforms.Some experts are confused why Airbus would buy into the program when it has a very good product and sales program with its own A318/321’s. It hasn’t been as successful selling single aisle models into the U.S. compared to Boeing but it still has done reasonably well given the market environment it faces. Hidden strategic financial value to the deal with Bombardier is one of the key motivations for Airbus to make the deal including the new plant in Alabama, lower production costs than it currently has in Europe along with better EBITDA potential, which Boeing already enjoys. Those that think this can position Airbus to move the A321 upscale and bigger is questionable. In the end, it will have two aircraft platforms that compete in the same segment and one will be eventually dropped if the Airbus acquisition of the C-Series is allowed and completed.I seriously doubt Boeing will enter the fray if the deal does not proceed, as a buyer of the C-Series and do not believe it considered buying it before the Airbus deal was announced. It believes the B-737 platform is the minimum size the majority of airlines desire and given the cost of ownership, scale of production and level of acceptance, having a smaller model made no financial sense and it was easier to attempt to kill off the C-Series and let Embraer fill the smaller 100 to 125 passenger market that still exists for the near future.In the end, Bombardier’s days are numbered as a standalone competitor to Boeing and Airbus and Embraer will gladly fill the lower market that Bombardier can no longer afford to support given its balance sheet is depleted. If the Airbus deal is killed off, expect Bombardier to file for bankruptcy within a month of the announcement in which case, expect Comac or another Chinese firm to make a bid for the assets.While I’m at it, here is what ultimately has lead to Bombardiers predicament;Planned development of the C-Series began in 1996 after it withdrew from acquiring Fokker’s regional airliner platform (which itself went bankrupt immediately afterwards) believing it would be cheaper to develop from scratch when the market was already flooded with regional jet airliners it developed with th CRJ.Development began in 2004 but was halted not long after given the estimated capital costs and long sales cycle in 2006. This delay increased development costs that could not be contained given the specifications desired by airlines (passenger load and range).Using only one supplier for engines with limited partner liability and risk sharing penalties.Canadian dollarPoor middle management and cost controls including under estimating capital development costs and ability to access to capital markets on the same scale as its competitors.Distracted leadership at senior level which began to split Bombardier’s management in 2003, as all were vying for access to capital between its recreational products (ATV’s, Snowmobiles, Marine), Transportation (Commuter and long haul trains) and Aviation (Regional Jets and C-Series and Partnerships such as Comac) groups. The Bombardier family which was still the majority shareholder, finally had enough as the recreational products group was sold off as BRP with most of the family shares winding up in BRP.Pierre Beaudion’s leadership of the aviation group has never been stellar and finally resigned earlier this year (2017). For some reason he excelled at managing trains but not airplanes.The company did not roadmap or plan its future on an even keel. It did not commit resources that focused on continued improvements and new variants during successful years. Once it built the main platform, only minor revisions were planned or updated and frequently limited to new models and not capable of being retrofitted to early models.Production forecasts have never been achieved without heavy discounts because the company was never considered a serious competitor to Airbus or Boeing. It has never established long term contracts that included fleet management with stakeholders to the same level as Boeing and Airbus have achieved. When it did achieve mass production levels, it could never capitalize or leverage it for new aircraft models soon enough because of the lack of access to capital markets.Scale matters when it comes to producing and building large products that cost over $25M USD. The break even point between development costs and actual profits on capital return (ROI) diminish when production numbers are less than 300 aircraft per year. Airbus has learned that lesson with the two I mentioned earlier, the A380 and A400M.Addendum: Feb 2, 2018 - Boeing and Embraer continue merger talks. Source: Reuters -Boeing proposes Embraer tie-up excluding defense unit: sourceWith this recent news, it is possible that several nations may object to both the Airbus / Bombardier CS Series deal and the possibility of a Boeing / Embraer acquisition as this would reduce the number of world players with revenues that exceed 10 billion dollars, from 4 vendors to 2.Some experts and regulators are already concerned that Boeing and Airbus control approximately 80% of the commercial aviation market space.Have a nice flight!

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.I'd say the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl was the worst man made diaster in historystill to this day theres radioactive substance that cause people to not be able to stay for more then 1 hour even with protective gear onBelow is information about the nuclear diaster at Chernobyl found fromChernobyl Disaster - World Nuclear AssociationThe April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture.The accident destroyed the Chernobyl 4 reactor, killing 30 operators and firemen within three months and several further deaths later. One person was killed immediately and a second died in hospital soon after as a result of injuries received. Another person is reported to have died at the time from a coronary thrombosisc. Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) was originally diagnosed in 237 people onsite and involved with the clean-up and it was later confirmed in 134 cases. Of these, 28 people died as a result of ARS within a few weeks of the accident. Nineteen more workers subsequently died between 1987 and 2004, but their deaths cannot necessarily be attributed to radiation exposured. Nobody offsite suffered from acute radiation effects although a significant, but uncertain, fraction of the thyroid cancers diagnosed since the accident in patients who were children at the time are likely to be due to intake of radioactive iodine falloutm,9. Furthermore, large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and beyond were contaminated in varying degrees. See also sections below and Chernobyl Accident Appendix 2: Health Impacts.The Chernobyl disaster was a unique event and the only accident in the history of commercial nuclear power where radiation-related fatalities occurrede. The design of the reactor is unique and in that respect the accident is thus of little relevance to the rest of the nuclear industry outside the then Eastern Bloc. However, it led to major changes in safety culture and in industry cooperation, particularly between East and West before the end of the Soviet Union. Former President Gorbachev said that the Chernobyl accident was a more important factor in the fall of the Soviet Union than Perestroika – his program of liberal reform.The Chernobyl site and plantThe Chernobyl Power Complex, lying about 130 km north of Kiev, Ukraine, and about 20 km south of the border with Belarus, consisted of four nuclear reactors of the RBMK-1000 design (see information page on RBMK Reactors). Units 1 and 2 were constructed between 1970 and 1977, while units 3 and 4 of the same design were completed in 1983. Two more RBMK reactors were under construction at the site at the time of the accident. To the southeast of the plant, an artificial lake of some 22 square kilometres, situated beside the river Pripyat, a tributary of the Dniepr, was constructed to provide cooling water for the reactors.This area of Ukraine is described as Belarussian-type woodland with a low population density. About 3 km away from the reactor, in the new city, Pripyat, there were 49,000 inhabitants. The old town of Chornobyl, which had a population of 12,500, is about 15 km to the southeast of the complex. Within a 30 km radius of the power plant, the total population was between 115,000 and 135,000 at the time of the accident.Source: OECD NEAThe RBMK-1000 is a Soviet-designed and built graphite moderated pressure tube type reactor, using slightly enriched (2% U-235) uranium dioxide fuel. It is a boiling light water reactor, with two loops feeding steam directly to the turbines, without an intervening heat exchanger. Water pumped to the bottom of the fuel channels boils as it progresses up the pressure tubes, producing steam which feeds two 500 MWe turbines. The water acts as a coolant and also provides the steam used to drive the turbines. The vertical pressure tubes contain the zirconium alloy clad uranium dioxide fuel around which the cooling water flows. The extensions of the fuel channels penetrate the lower plate and the cover plate of the core and are welded to each. A specially designed refuelling machine allows fuel bundles to be changed without shutting down the reactor.The moderator, the function of which is to slow down neutrons to make them more efficient in producing fission in the fuel, is graphite, surrounding the pressure tubes. A mixture of nitrogen and helium is circulated between the graphite blocks to prevent oxidation of the graphite and to improve the transmission of the heat produced by neutron interactions in the graphite to the fuel channel. The core itself is about 7 m high and about 12 m in diameter. In each of the two loops, there are four main coolant circulating pumps, one of which is always on standby. The reactivity or power of the reactor is controlled by raising or lowering 211 control rods, which, when lowered into the moderator, absorb neutrons and reduce the fission rate. The power output of this reactor is 3200 MW thermal, or 1000 MWe. Various safety systems, such as an emergency core cooling system, were incorporated into the reactor design.One of the most important characteristics of the RBMK reactor is that it can possess a 'positive void coefficient', where an increase in steam bubbles ('voids') is accompanied by an increase in core reactivity (see information page on RBMK Reactors). As steam production in the fuel channels increases, the neutrons that would have been absorbed by the denser water now produce increased fission in the fuel. There are other components that contribute to the overall power coefficient of reactivity, but the void coefficient is the dominant one in RBMK reactors. The void coefficient depends on the composition of the core – a new RBMK core will have a negative void coefficient. However, at the time of the accident at Chernobyl 4, the reactor's fuel burn-up, control rod configuration, and power level led to a positive void coefficient large enough to overwhelm all other influences on the power coefficient.The 1986 Chernobyl accidentOn 25 April, prior to a routine shutdown, the reactor crew at Chernobyl 4 began preparing for a test to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power to the main circulating pumps following a loss of main electrical power supply. This test had been carried out at Chernobyl the previous year, but the power from the turbine ran down too rapidly, so new voltage regulator designs were to be tested.A series of operator actions, including the disabling of automatic shutdown mechanisms, preceded the attempted test early on 26 April. By the time that the operator moved to shut down the reactor, the reactor was in an extremely unstable condition. A peculiarity of the design of the control rods caused a dramatic power surge as they were inserted into the reactor (see Chernobyl Accident Appendix 1: Sequence of Events).The interaction of very hot fuel with the cooling water led to fuel fragmentation along with rapid steam production and an increase in pressure. The design characteristics of the reactor were such that substantial damage to even three or four fuel assemblies would – and did – result in the destruction of the reactor. The overpressure caused the 1000 t cover plate of the reactor to become partially detached, rupturing the fuel channels and jamming all the control rods, which by that time were only halfway down. Intense steam generation then spread throughout the whole core (fed by water dumped into the core due to the rupture of the emergency cooling circuit) causing a steam explosion and releasing fission products to the atmosphere. About two to three seconds later, a second explosion threw out fragments from the fuel channels and hot graphite. There is some dispute among experts about the character of this second explosion, but it is likely to have been caused by the production of hydrogen from zirconium-steam reactions.Two workers died as a result of these explosions. The graphite (about a quarter of the 1200 tonnes of it was estimated to have been ejected) and fuel became incandescent and started a number of firesf, causing the main release of radioactivity into the environment. A total of about 14 EBq (14 x 1018Bq) of radioactivity was released, over half of it being from biologically-inert noble gases.** The figure of 5.2 EBq is also quoted, this being "iodine-131 equivalent" - 1.8 EBq iodine and 85 PBq Cs-137 multiplied by 40 due its longevity, and ignoring the 6.5 EBq xenon-33 and some minor or short-lived nuclides.About 200-300 tonnes of water per hour was injected into the intact half of the reactor using the auxiliary feedwater pumps but this was stopped after half a day owing to the danger of it flowing into and flooding units 1 and 2. From the second to tenth day after the accident, some 5000 tonnes of boron, dolomite, sand, clay, and lead were dropped on to the burning core by helicopter in an effort to extinguish the blaze and limit the release of radioactive particles.The damaged Chernobyl unit 4 reactor buildingThe 1991 report by the State Committee on the Supervision of Safety in Industry and Nuclear Power on the root cause of the accident looked past the operator actions. It said that while it was certainly true the operators placed their reactor in a dangerously unstable condition (in fact in a condition which virtually guaranteed an accident) it was also true that in doing so they had not in fact violated a number of vital operating policies and principles, since no such policies and principles had been articulated. Additionally, the operating organisation had not been made aware either of the specific vital safety significance of maintaining a minimum operating reactivity margin, or the general reactivity characteristics of the RBMK which made low power operation extremely hazardous.Immediate impact of the Chernobyl accidentThe accident caused the largest uncontrolled radioactive release into the environment ever recorded for any civilian operation, and large quantities of radioactive substances were released into the air for about 10 days. This caused serious social and economic disruption for large populations in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Two radionuclides, the short-lived iodine-131 and the long-lived caesium-137, were particularly significant for the radiation dose they delivered to members of the public.It is estimated that all of the xenon gas, about half of the iodine and caesium, and at least 5% of the remaining radioactive material in the Chernobyl 4 reactor core (which had 192 tonnes of fuel) was released in the accident. Most of the released material was deposited close by as dust and debris, but the lighter material was carried by wind over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and to some extent over Scandinavia and Europe.The casualties included firefighters who attended the initial fires on the roof of the turbine building. All these were put out in a few hours, but radiation doses on the first day were estimated to range up to 20,000 millisieverts (mSv), causing 28 deaths – six of which were firemen – by the end of July 1986.The next task was cleaning up the radioactivity at the site so that the remaining three reactors could be restarted, and the damaged reactor shielded more permanently. About 200,000 people ('liquidators') from all over the Soviet Union were involved in the recovery and clean-up during 1986 and 1987. They received high doses of radiation, averaging around 100 millisieverts. Some 20,000 of them received about 250 mSv and a few received 500 mSv. Later, the number of liquidators swelled to over 600,000 but most of these received only low radiation doses. The highest doses were received by about 1000 emergency workers and on-site personnel during the first day of the accident.The effects of radiation exposure fall into two main classes: deterministic effects, where the effect is certain to occur under given conditions (e.g. individuals exposed to several grays over a short period of time will definitely suffer Acute Radiation Syndrome); and stochastic effects, where the effect may or may not occur (e.g. an increase in radiation exposure may or may not induce a cancer in a particular individual but if a sufficiently large population receive a radiation exposure above a certain level, an increase in the incidence of cancer may become detectable in that population). UNSCEAR, 2011.Initial radiation exposure in contaminated areas was due to short-lived iodine-131; later caesium-137 was the main hazard. (Both are fission products dispersed from the reactor core, with half lives of 8 days and 30 years, respectively. 1.8 EBq of I-131 and 0.085 EBq of Cs-137 were released.) About five million people lived in areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine contaminated (above 37 kBq/m2Cs-137 in soil) and about 400,000 lived in more contaminated areas of strict control by authorities (above 555 kBq/m2Cs-137). A total of 29,400 km2was contaminated above 180 kBq/m2.* supposedly correlating with 1 mSv/yr dose with continuous exposure. About 23% of Belarus was contaminated to this level, with 7% of Ukraine and 1.5% of European Russia.The plant operators' town of Pripyat was evacuated on 27 April (45,000 residents). By 14 May, some 116,000 people that had been living within a 30-kilometre radius had been evacuated and later relocated. About 1000 of these returned unofficially to live within the contaminated zone. Most of those evacuated received radiation doses of less than 50 mSv, although a few received 100 mSv or more.In the years following the accident, a further 220,000 people were resettled into less contaminated areas, and the initial 30 km radius exclusion zone (2800 km2) was modified and extended to cover 4300 square kilometres. This resettlement was due to application of a criterion of 350 mSv projected lifetime radiation dose, though in fact radiation in most of the affected area (apart from half a square kilometre) fell rapidly so that average doses were less than 50% above normal background of 2.5 mSv/yr. See also following section on Resettlement.Environmental and health effects of the Chernobyl accidentVideo: Experts talk about the health effects of Chernobyl (Recorded 2011)Several organisations have reported on the impacts of the Chernobyl accident, but all have had problems assessing the significance of their observations because of the lack of reliable public health information before 1986.In 1989, the World Health Organization (WHO) first raised concerns that local medical scientists had incorrectly attributed various biological and health effects to radiation exposureg. Following this, the Government of the USSR requested the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to coordinate an international experts' assessment of accident's radiological, environmental and health consequences in selected towns of the most heavily contaminated areas in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Between March 1990 and June 1991, a total of 50 field missions were conducted by 200 experts from 25 countries (including the USSR), seven organisations, and 11 laboratories3. In the absence of pre-1986 data, it compared a control population with those exposed to radiation. Significant health disorders were evident in both control and exposed groups, but, at that stage, none was radiation related.Paths of radiation exposurehIn February 2003, the IAEA established the Chernobyl Forum, in cooperation with seven other UN organisations as well as the competent authorities of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine. In April 2005, the reports prepared by two expert groups – "Environment", coordinated by the IAEA, and "Health", coordinated by WHO – were intensively discussed by the Forum and eventually approved by consensus. The conclusions of this 2005 Chernobyl Forum study (revised version published 2006i) are in line with earlier expert studies, notably the UNSCEAR 2000 reportjwhich said that "apart from this [thyroid cancer] increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 14 years after the accident. There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality or in non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure." As yet there is little evidence of any increase in leukaemia, even among clean-up workers where it might be most expected. However, these workers – where high doses may have been received – remain at increased risk of cancer in the long term. Apart from these, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) says that "the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the populations that are not related to radiation exposure."The Chernobyl Forum report says that people in the area have suffered a paralysing fatalism due to myths and misperceptions about the threat of radiation, which has contributed to a culture of chronic dependency. Some "took on the role of invalids." Mental health coupled with smoking and alcohol abuse is a very much greater problem than radiation, but worst of all at the time was the underlying level of health and nutrition. Apart from the initial 116,000, relocations of people were very traumatic and did little to reduce radiation exposure, which was low anyway. Psycho-social effects among those affected by the accident are similar to those arising from other major disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and fires.According to the most up-to-date estimate of UNSCEAR, the average radiation dose due to the accident received by inhabitants of 'strict radiation control' areas (population 216,000) in the years 1986 to 2005 was 31 mSv (over the 20-year period), and in the 'contaminated' areas (population 6.4 million) it averaged 9 mSv, a minor increase over the dose due to background radiation over the same period (about 50 mSv)4.The numbers of deaths resulting from the accident are covered most fully in the account of health effects provided by an annex to the UNSCEAR 2008 report, released in 2011.5Some exaggerated figures have been published regarding the death toll attributable to the Chernobyl disaster. A publication by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)6lent support to these. However, the Chairman of UNSCEAR made it clear that "this report is full of unsubstantiated statements that have no support in scientific assessments"k, and the Chernobyl Forum report also repudiates them.A particularly sad effect of the accident was that some physicians in Europe advised pregnant women to undergo abortions on account of radiation exposure, even though the levels concerned were vastly below those likely to have teratogenic effects. The foetal death toll from this is likely very much greater than directly from the accident.UNSCEAR in 2011 concludes: In summary, the effects of the Chernobyl accident are many and varied. Early deterministic effects can be attributed to radiation with a high degree of certainty, while for other medical conditions, radiation almost certainly was not the cause. In between, there was a wide spectrum of conditions. It is necessary to evaluate carefully each specific condition and the surrounding circumstances before attributing a cause.5According to an UNSCEAR report in 2018, about 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed 1991-2015 in patients who were 18 and under at the time of the accident. The report states that a quarter of the cases 2001-2008 were "probably" due to high doses of radiation, and that this fraction was likely to have been higher in earlier years, and lower in later years. However, it also states that the uncertainty around the attributed fraction is very significant – at least 0.07 to 0.5 – and that the influence of annual screenings and active follow-up make comparisons with the general population problematic. Thyroid cancer is usually not fatal if diagnosed and treated early; the report states that of the diagnoses made between 1991 and 2005 (6,848 cases), 15 proved to be fatal9.Conifers in about 10 square kilometres of forest close to the plant were killed by the high radiation levels, but regeneration got underway from the following year. The net environmental effect of the accident has been much greater biodiversity and abundance of species. The exclusion zone has become a unique sanctuary for wildlife.Progressive closure of the Chernobyl plantIn the early 1990s, some US$400 million was spent on improvements to the remaining reactors at Chernobyl, considerably enhancing their safety. Energy shortages necessitated the continued operation of one of them (unit 3) until December 2000. (Unit 2 was shut down after a turbine hall fire in 1991, and unit 1 at the end of 1997.) Almost 6000 people worked at the plant every day, and their radiation dose has been within internationally accepted limits. A small team of scientists works within the wrecked reactor building itself, inside the shelterl.Workers and their families now live in a new town, Slavutich, 30 km from the plant. This was built following the evacuation of Pripyat, which was just 3 km away.Ukraine depends upon, and is deeply in debt to, Russia for energy supplies, particularly oil and gas, but also nuclear fuel. Although this dependence is gradually being reduced, continued operation of nuclear power stations, which supply half of total electricity, is now even more important than in 1986.When it was announced in 1995 that the two operating reactors at Chernobyl would be closed by 2000, a memorandum of understanding was signed by Ukraine and G7 nations to progress this, but its implementation was conspicuously delayed. Alternative generating capacity was needed, either gas-fired, which has ongoing fuel cost and supply implications, or nuclear, by completing Khmelnitski unit 2 and Rovno unit 4 ('K2R4') in Ukraine. Construction of these was halted in 1989 but then resumed, and both reactors came on line late in 2004, financed by Ukraine rather than international grants as expected on the basis of Chernobyl's closure.