vue666
join:2007-12-07
| Chernobyl
It's hard to believe this disaster occurred 22 years ago (April 26, 1986).
»afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gc9···dyJ3x-OQ
I suspect some of you maybe too young while others it seems like only yesterday... |
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Pepsi90919
join:2002-10-07
Hamilton, ON | I've done lots of research on it. Ugly situation, that. |
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wkendhippie
Premium
join:2004-02-16
Clarksdale | reply to vue666
check this out:
»www.kiddofspeed.com/ |
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Devanchya
Smile
Premium
join:2003-12-09
Pickering, ON | nice site.
God our planet is, small. |
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Thane_Bitter
join:2005-01-20
London, ON
| reply to vue666
Chernobyl Victims Monument |
said by vue666  :It's hard to believe this disaster occurred 22 years ago (April 26, 1986). The event was 22 years ago... the disaster is ongoing.
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...A bitter ray of sunshine |
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Wolfie00
Premium
join:2005-03-12
| reply to wkendhippie
That's an amazing website. Some of Elena's comments on the photographs help underscore the magnitude of the disaster:
... Radiation will stay in the Chernobyl area for the next 48,000 years, but humans may begin repopulating the area in about 600 years - give or take three centuries. [Moving in the other direction of time, 600 years ago Christopher Columbus had not yet been born, and the New World was almost a century away from being discovered.]
... Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping geiger counter inspires to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red - or 'magic" wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth. The readings on the asphalt paving is 500 -3000 microroentgens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, geiger counter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roentgens per hour - which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight.
... At first glance, Ghost Town seems like a normal town. There is a taxi stop, a grocery store, someone's wash hangs from the balcony and the windows are open. But then I see a slogan on a building that says - "The Party of Lenin Will Lead Us To The Triumph Of Communism" and I realize that those windows were opened to the spring air of April of 1986 ... Perhaps future archeologists will compare this town to Pompeii. The Soviet era is forever preserved here -- in the radiation that will last for many centuries.
... This old man lives in the Chernobyl area. He is one of 3,500 people that either refused to leave or returned to their villages after the meltdown in 1986. I admire those people, because each of them is a philosopher in their own way. When you ask if they are afraid, they say that they would rather die at home from radiation, than die in an unfamiliar place of home-sickness. They eat food from their own gardens, drink the milk of their cows and claim that they are healthy.....but the old man is one of only 400 that have survived this long. He may soon join his 3,100 neighbors that rest eternally in the earth of their beloved homes. It appears that the people with the most courage were the first to die here. Maybe that is true everywhere.
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"Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace" -- Dr. Albert Schweitzer
"A dog is like a child who never grows old ... always there to love and be loved" -- Aaron Katcher
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vue666
join:2007-12-07
| Another article about Chernobyl...
»www.cbc.ca/cp/world/080427/w042774A.html
I wonder if something like this could happen again? Have we learned anything from Chernobyl? |
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Warez_Zealot
Mr. Misanthrope
join:2006-04-19
St Catharines, ON
| Ummmm.... Long island.. Maybe even Chalk River thanks to our intelligent government. I'm sure the list could go on and on for other countries too. |
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vue666
join:2007-12-07 | Perhaps coal isn't a bad solution when you consider the risk of nuclear? |
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Warez_Zealot
Mr. Misanthrope
join:2006-04-19
St Catharines, ON
edit:
April 28th, @09:05AM
| said by vue666 :Perhaps coal isn't a bad solution when you consider the risk of nuclear? Well nuclear is soon to be a thing of the past regardless. Last I read, there is only about 20 years of easily accessible Uranium (mining wise).
I personally think coal is something only developing countries should use. What will probably take over is methane gas (Gas hydrates). Apparently we are slowly figuring out how to extract it from the permafrost in steady streams.
»nnsl.com/northern-news-services/···8ma.html
I seriously think this will be the new power source unless Fusion power via deuterium becomes viable (near term I highly, highly doubt).
»news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&cl···N&tab=wn |
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Hydraglass
join:2002-05-08
Kingston, ON
| reply to vue666
If anyone is really interested in actually learning about Chernobyl, the exclusion zone, the city of Pripyat, the long term changes that have happened, and some of the actual truths, misconceptions, and other interesting things that surround this terrible tragedy and the things that are involved with it, I highly suggest reading the book:
Wormwood Forest by Mary Mycio
»www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11318
If anyone is extremely interested and would like to read sections of the book, PM me, I have a PDF of the entire book available - I first was given the PDF by a friend of mine - I got so intrigued with the story behind it I eventually bought that book, and several other since, studied up on everything dealing with and surrounding the history, etc. In many ways I'm much less scared or worried about nuclear power and atomic energy after having seen this disaster and what happened leading up to it. The reality of it was, the workers at this plant went about a procedure that resulted in this tragedy that they never should have even thought about doing in the first place based on the design of that system.
Modern nuclear power systems, especially our Canadian CANDU system can't even be forced into doing what they were trying to do on purpose - the reactor, if it overheats, causes the shape and layout of the fuel tubes to change, and with the improper geometry the radioactive chain reaction can no longer take place and the reactor ceases creating energy.
People worry about the amount of nuclear waste created by these power plants, but if you saw the net resulting waste from an actual active reactor, anyone with any "oh no bad!!!" feelings would seriously have to rethink their ways. I took 3 tours of 3 different atomic energy facilities, 2 in the US and one in Canada, and I have to say right now, I think it's by far the best power generation option humans have. The fuel rods in a reactor are in a bundle of tubes, the bundle being about 10cm across and 50cm long (4 inches by 20 inches) - that bundle can create around 1GW-Hr of energy before it is "spent" - so with a little math it's figured out the average large reactor over the course of a year of operation creates about 3 cubic meters of high level radioactive waste - which when reprocessed properly, about 80% can be re-used again, so you have 20% of a 3 cubic meter waste pile that needs disposal - .6 cubic meters - that's a box 3 feet on each side and less than 2 feet high. That's ALL of the waste - no CO2 emissions, no NO2 emissions, no fly ash, nothing - essentially the waste from a large 3 reactor power plant could be trucked away each year in one transport truck. ONE. Not 5.. not 50.. not 500.. but one.
The nuclear spent fuel that is waste has to be stored for up to 10,000 years before it becomes inert enough to re-enter the environment. Well.. lets think about that... based on the amount of waste we have figured out one average reactor creates (.6 cubic meters), in 10,000 years it will make enough waste to not quite fill 3 olympic-sized swimming pools (2500 cubic meters each)... gee... that's sooo much waste for TEN THOUSAND YEARS of clean efficient power... hmmm... take every single nuclear reactor in North America, multiply out how much waste they create, and in 10,000 years you'll have filled an area about 500 meters on each side, 50 meters deep - assuming you kept all the waste in one location....
Figuring it's not going to be 10,000 years until we find something better - fusion, geothermal, something new none of us have ever thought of, etc. I can live with a storage of nuclear waste that big for 10,000 years of clean CO2 free power... switch to electric cars, electric heat, electric everything, and provide the power for that "electric everything" through clean safe nuclear energy, and we just might have a chance to save this planet. Go figure. |
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Wolfie00
Premium
join:2005-03-12
| Well said, Hydraglass . I was just in the middle of a similar but much less detailed response!
It would be unfortunate if what I took to be a respectful reflection on Chernobyl degenerated into an uninformed commentary on nuclear technology. In brief: Could something like this happen again? Not here, no. Have we learned anything? We already knew how to build safe nuclear power plants. Might it be better to burn coal instead? No, spewing million of tons of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere every day, poisoning our air and water and destabilizing the planetary climate is no comparison to a technology where a nuclear fuel bundle not much bigger than a loaf of bread can produce about a thousand megawatt-hours of electricity.
Chernobyl was due to a catastrophic series of errors that began, first and foremost, with a dangerous reactor design that needed explicit damping to prevent a runaway reaction, which was then followed by outrageously inept management that piled one mistake on top of another. CANDU and ACR reactors, as an example, are inherently failsafe, and while accidents of all kinds can happen, a Chernobyl type of event is about as close to impossible as anything can be.
--
"Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace" -- Dr. Albert Schweitzer
"A dog is like a child who never grows old ... always there to love and be loved" -- Aaron Katcher
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vue666
join:2007-12-07 | How about all the stories about 'Three Mile island'? Or was that just media hype... I'm not trying to be a smart arse, I just don't know...
Or the places Warez_Zealot mentions? |
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Warez_Zealot
Mr. Misanthrope
join:2006-04-19
St Catharines, ON
| said by vue666 :How about all the stories about 'Three Mile island'? Or was that just media hype... I'm not trying to be a smart arse, I just don't know... Or the places Warez_Zealot mentions? lol.. I just realized I typed Long Island.. I meant 3 Mile Island as you correctly put it. Guess I am really tired 12:30am here.. Or I have Long Island Ice Tea on the mind.. |
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EUS
Kill cancer
Premium
join:2002-09-10
Montreal, QC
clubs: 
| reply to Warez_Zealot
said by Warez_Zealot Well nuclear is soon to be a thing of the past regardless. Last I read, there is only about 20 years of easily accessible Uranium (mining wise).
[/BQUOTE :They have next-gen nuclear plants ready to be built that: 1) Use half the fuel that is currently needed for the same output 2) Use the existing "spent" rods the current plants cannot use anymore The are presently designing the plants that will replace the next-gen plants not yet built. Same scenerio; use the "spent" rods from next-gen plants. |
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wkendhippie
Premium
join:2004-02-16
Clarksdale
| reply to Wolfie00
It's an incredible site that Elena put together. I need to write her one of these days.
The pictures and story I see there is so horrific, beyond what I could ever imagine. What all those people must have suffered though my God.
This one photo seems to show the glow emanating from the reactor, I wonder if thats some radiation effect to the film / CCD of the camera |
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Hydraglass
join:2002-05-08
Kingston, ON
edit:
April 28th, @12:53PM
| reply to vue666
By the way in case you didn't know all the details, Elena and the "KiddOfSpeed" website are not "100%" true or accurate... it's a combination of artistic licence, creativity, and some reality. She has never traveled alone through the exclusion zone, all the pictures were staged on official tours through the exclusion zone, etc - so yes she really was there, yes she really took many of those pictures, but the stories are more than a little "embellished". Tour guides through the exclusion zone have come forward to tell the story of her and her friends "coming on a tour bringing props with them" and taking pictures as such to make a more interesting story. Still, the pictures of the area, the town of Pripyat, and the exclusion zone in general are if not 100% accurate, very close to what is really there and going on.
In general - if you read Wormwood Forest - you'll find the air itself and surrounding areas are now quite low in radiation - the vast majority of lingering radiation lays "just below the surface of the soil" - i.e. buried just under leaves and grass. Rain and wind have minimized the actual surface radiation, thus why it's safe to tour, walk the streets, and for that matter, if you didn't know - the nuclear power generating station at Chernobyl operated generating electricity until the year 2000 - long after the accident. Workers were brought daily by rail transport into the exclusion zone and actually worked at the power plant, for 14 years until it was finally decommissioned because of its poor design and outdated safety. The vast majority of life lost due to the tragedy were the firefighters and cleanup workers who - due to "Soviet Policy" weren't even told that they were building a concrete sarcophagus around radioactive nuclear material - they weren't given protective gear, they were bussed in and just told "you're building a concrete shell around this in a hurry - just because".
If you would like to learn a little more about Three Mile Island, and the events there in the 1970's read up here:
»www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle···sle.html
The vast majority of the scare over that event was due to the fact it happened approximately 2 weeks after the Jane Fonda movie "The China Syndrome" was released - scaring everyone about the smallest dangers of nuclear "meltdown". A "Chernobyl" couldn't have happened at TMI - again as that reactor, while not as safe and efficient as a CANDU reactor, still depended on water being present to moderate the neutrons (slow them down so they actually cause a chain reaction) - if all the water had boiled off and been gone, the fuel would have just slowly melted into a pile of slag and sat there (the fissionable fuel melts at a few hundred degrees C - without the moderating water, natural decay energy would warm it enough that it would "meltdown" - but it wouldn't and couldn't explode like the graphite reactor at Chernobyl). |
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vue666
join:2007-12-07 | Isn't Wormwood mentioned in the bible? |
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Thane_Bitter
join:2005-01-20
London, ON
| said by vue666 :Isn't Wormwood mentioned in the bible? Yes. »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormwood_%28star%29
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...A bitter ray of sunshine |
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Hydraglass
join:2002-05-08
Kingston, ON
| reply to vue666
Wormwood is artemisia absinthium - a herbaceous plant that grows in central Europe and is what the "potent" drink Absinthe is made from. Artemisia is an ancient plant used for millenia for different things, and is part of ancient greek and roman mythos, etc.
For the biblical reference:
Wormwood (Apsinthos in the Greek text) is the "name of the star" in the Book of Revelation (8:11) (kai to onoma tou asteros legetai ho Apsinthos) that John the Evangelist envisions as cast by the angel and falling into the waters, making them undrinkably bitter. Outside the Book of Revelation, there are up to eight further references in the Bible showing that wormwood was a common herb of the area and its awful taste was known, as a drinkable preparation applied for specific reasons.
The reference to the book I mention - wormwood forest - is a "2 prong" reference:
1. - wormwood is a common word in Europe because it's a common plant - and many people thought "Chernobyl" was the Russian word for Wormwood - it's not - Chernobyl actually means mugwort in Ukranian (chornobyl). It's literal translation is "black grass and weeds" - of which there's plenty of growing in the area of the power station.
2. - wormwood is considered to be synonymous with "bitter or bad taste" (because of the taste of artemisia absinthium) - and the forests and area in the exclusion zone are now "gone bitter" because of the radiation in the area.
It doesn't take a lot of reading or research to learn all about these things and dispel much or all of the "mythos" surrounding these disasters - but for some reason people like to pick up something "scary" and just run with it... Yes there have been 2 nuclear incidents resulting in the release of any radiation in the history of nuclear power - one was caused by bad training and "soviet pride" (i.e. we can't do anything wrong! we're the Soviet Union! - just keep going - it'll be ok!) - and the other was caused by poor training and poor documentation as well as a series of "unfortunate incidents" that all added up to create the perfect storm - the results of which - were far from a tragedy. |
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