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    Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
    Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
    Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
    Audiobook18 hours

    Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters

    Written by Kate Brown

    Narrated by Susan Ericksen

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In Plutopia, Kate Brown draws on official records and dozens of interviews to tell the extraordinary stories of Richland, Washington, and Ozersk, Russia-the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium. To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias-communities of nuclear families living in highly subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society, while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia-they lived in temporary "staging grounds" and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant. Brown shows that the plants' segregation of permanent and temporary workers and of nuclear and non-nuclear zones created a bubble of immunity, where dumps and accidents were glossed over and plant managers freely embezzled and polluted. In four decades, the Hanford plant near Richland and the Maiak plant near Ozersk each issued at least 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment.

    An untold and profoundly important piece of Cold War history, Plutopia invites listeners to consider the nuclear footprint left by the arms race and the enormous price of paying for it.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 19, 2017
    ISBN9781541489608
    Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters

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    Reviews for Plutopia

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” These were Oppenheimer’s oft-quoted recitation of the Bhagavad Gita following the first nuclear weapons test in New Mexico in 1946, Trinity.There are two kinds of death: regenerative death—such as the microbial decomposition of plant matter which creates a rich humus for new life, and degenerative death—the sort that saps the vibrancy from living systems. Fission products (the refuse from nuclear fission, such as those resultant from plutonium production, atomic bombs, and nuclear accidents) contribute to the latter.Unlike many deadly hazards, such as fire, our bodies have no significant reaction or awareness to radioactivity until we’ve received extremely high doses, such as the kind that result in radiation poisoning. For me, this make them both fascinating and scary.I came across this book when reading a chapter in Michael Lewis’ “Fifth Risk” on the Department of Energy, and the fact that it oversees the US nuclear arsenal. Having grown up within the fallout radius of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, I’ve had a personal interest in learning more about this world.The author, Brown, is a Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In this book, she tracks the parallel histories of Hanford (near Richland in Washington State), and Mayak (near Ozyersk in the Ural Mountains of Russia). These were the first two sites in the world to produce plutonium, supplying materials necessary for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the nuclear arms race of the Cold War. Brown chose a somewhat surprising angle, choosing to focus on social ironies and parallels of the two projects. The title, “Plutopia,” refers to a utopia created by plutonium production. Although employees in both facilities received higher pay than locals in the surrounding area, any wish of a utopia was dashed by the chronic exposure to radiation and the resultant diseases.I read this book as a process of mourning of the practically eternal damage we’ve done to our peoples and ecosystems through radioactive pollution. Plutonium 239—the sort produced at Hanford and the Mayak plant—has a half-life of 24,110 years. 13.5% of fission products have a half-life exceeding 1.5 million years. In other words, much of the radioactive pollution we’ve created will endure on a geological time scale.The book illustrates an impossible logic under which our governments operate on a daily basis. The only way to justify the immeasurable loss of life and vitality caused by plutonium production was the threat of loosing a nuclear war. Both projects have permanently contaminated thousands of square miles of land and water bodies.In high doses, radiation leads to painful death. At moderate doses, radiation leads to leukemia, failure of the thyroid, autoimmune disorders, as well as numerous other ailments. At low doses, radiation leads to infertility and genetic mutation, resultant in genetic mutations and physiological disfigurement in offspring.How did the USSR and United States manage unmanageable risks?In the US, we hired corporations to run plutonium production, beginning with DuPont, followed by GE, followed by a series of other entities. When corporate and government scientists found that the plant was resulting in unaffordable environmental costs, they hired new scientists to produce new studies refuting those claims.In Russia, they just didn’t tell anyone. Hundreds of thousands of villagers lived in deadly zones for decades without any assistance.How did these governments run these projects?Both were highly secretive. We failed to be secretive enough, in that Russians nuclear program directly copied our blueprints, rather than developing their own methods.In the USSR, Mayak was run by the Gulag, which had 5 million prisoners at the end of World War II and employed one quarter of non-agricultural workers. Whereas in the US, we had some semblance of precaution, the USSR was able to burn through hundreds of thousands of soldiers and prisoners without even the most basic safety measures. The fate of this class of workers is poorly documented and likely atrocious.Ultimately, our nuclear projects were morally repugnant, and their results be with us for the indefinite future. If you’re looking to bask in every detail of this misery, “Plutopia” is an excellent book on the subject.
    • 4/5
      A somewhat rambling account of how the United States and the Soviet Union both managed to create planned communities that embodied the apparent public virtues (and the actual social prejudices) of their respective societies, which at the same time put a public relations band-aide on the running sore of the radioactive pollution these sites were producing; to the point that the favored inhabitants of these regions were loathed to give up their privileges even as their way of life was destroying the health of them and their loved ones. Frankly, Leslie Groves and his NKVD counterparts would preferred to have simply built installations with all the living amenities of a third-rate military post to save resources, but these projects took on a life of their own once the actual controllers of the means of production took over day-to-day operations; if only to make living in an area cut off from the wider culture look attractive to the high-level managers and skilled upper crust of the onsite workforce. While gaffs like how the author refers, at one point, to a "navy" general can make one's eyes roll the basic depressing point remains that even if the powers-that-be had had a better sense of the dangers that they were playing with you know that they would have still gone forward with these projects.
    • 4/5
      "We are all citizens of Plutopia."This book presents the parallel stories of Richland Washington, near the Hanford nuclear facility, and Ozersk in the former Soviet Union, the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium for the nuclear arms race. Parts I and II discuss the creation of the two production facilities. Part III discusses the effects of plutonium production on people and the environment, including the environmental catastrophes which occurred at both these sites. Part IV discusses the aftermath of the contamination.Both communities were reserved for the elite employees and their families, and were highly subsidized and had limited access. Both cities had adjacent areas where migrants, soldiers, and, in the case of Ozersk, prisoners lived. These were the workers who performed many of the more menial and more dangerous tasks in the production of plutonium.The nuclear accidents, leaks, and deliberate dumps that have occurred at both facilities over the years are truly horrifying. Over the years these plants have issued radioactive isotopes exceeding that released by multiple Chernobyls, and both areas are ongoing environmental disasters.This was an important look at Cold War history, as well as the enormous environmental cost of the nuclear arms race. Anyone who thinks nuclear power is the answer to the energy crisis should read this book.3 1/2 stars
    • 2/5
      If you are going to write a non fiction book you should have real passion for the subject not just an axe to grind. I bought this book hoping to learn more about what went on at Hanford, how plutonium was manufactured, as well as the accidents that took place. Instead you get a book written by someone who seems to know nothing about science, nothing about how the world was in the 1940's during WWII. the first 8 or so chapters are all about how sleazy DuPont the company was in the way it operated as well as the way it and the military handled hiring women and minorities to work at the factory. Who cares? You can't take your liberal social belief system from 2013 and blanket it over something from 1943. Richard Rhodes is no fan of nuclear weapons but his book "the making of the atomic bomb" is an amazing achievement in chronicling that event. Kristen Iversen the author of "Full Body Burden" is no fan of the manufacture of Nuclear weapons, having grown up next to the Rocky Flats nuclear trigger plant. But her book was interesting well detailed, and had the element of being about people. Plutopia, is written by a woman with zero science background who throws together a bunch of meaningless statements and thinks it is ok because she used footnotes. ( in chapter 7 footnote 15 she is discussing how experts knew how dangerous radioactivity was and ignored it for the sake of the project, and cites the famous example of the women who had radioactivity poisoning who worked at a watch company. What she failed to point out is that those women working there would wet the tip of the brush in their mouth repeatedly every day as they painted the watch face with radiated paint to make the watch face glow. To this day science can tell us that uranium, plutonium and all the other dangerous radioactive elements can kill you, what science can't do, is tell us why some die and some don't, why some get cancer and some don't. But this author couldn't be bothered with honesty if it lessened her point. This author has done a major disservice in pretending to chronicle what happened at Hanford, because she was more concerned with laying out her modern political beliefs, and editorializing at every opportunity to document the injustices she perceives took place. In addition to the two books I have already cited another far better book is "The Girls of Atomic City" by Denise Kiernan, who does a wonderful job detailing life and the work that took place in Oak Ridge, another huge Manhattan project endeavor. Plutopia winds up being a jumbled bunch of documented facts, none of which are questioned, rather than being a book about plutonium and the places where it has been manufactured in the world. To ignore these two aspects is to gloss over the fact that if it weren't for the manufacture of plutonium there would have been no Hanford or similar sites in the USSR, and no book to write.
    • 4/5
      Revealing work on the carelessness of the atomic energy industry in monitoring and regulating plutonium and its destructive effects on humans, animals, and the environment. The areas in question are the Hanford facility in eastern Washington during and after WW II, and the fits and starts in the Soviet chase to catch up. The chapters alternate focusing on each site. Very informative and horrifying.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely brilliant, highly readable and totally appalling. This is the story of the world's first plutonium production plants - Hanford in the USA and Maiak in the Urals - and the environmental and human health disasters that they caused.