Ruined Chernobyl nuclear plant will remain a threat for 3,000 years

[jpak]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article73405857.html

PRIPYAT, UKRAINE

Before the fire, the vomiting, the deaths and the vanishing home, it was the promise of bumper cars that captured the imagination of the boys.

It will be 30 years ago Tuesday that Pripyat and the nearby Chernobyl nuclear plant became synonymous with nuclear disaster, that the word Chernobyl came to mean more than just a little village in rural Ukraine, and this place became more than just another spot in the shadowy Soviet Union.

Even 30 years later – 25 years after the country that built it ceased to exist – the full damage of that day is still argued.

Death toll estimates run from hundreds to millions. The area near the reactor is both a teeming wildlife refuge and an irradiated ghost-scape. Much of eastern and central Europe continues to deal with fallout aftermath. The infamous Reactor Number 4 remains a problem that is neither solved nor solvable.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article73405857.html#storylink=cpy

[kadaholo]

1. Fabulous Website on Nuclear Power that "Helps Shine A Light On Nuke Risk" and My Experience with TMI

I became aware of Arnie Gundersen (http://www.fairewinds.org/about-us/) just after the accident at TMI here in Pennsylvania. On the morning of March 28, a problem in the Number 2 Reactor at TMI triggered a series of mishaps that led eventually to the meltdown of half of the uranium fuel and sparked uncontrolled releases of radiation that were literally "off the charts" of monitoring devices.

Working as a teacher within the 50 mile radius of the accident, I was blithely traveling to school on the morning of the March 28th TMI event when I happened to roll down the windows of my bright orange VW Beetle on that warm March morning. What I encountered as the windows opened was unlike anything I had experienced in my life. I had the unmistakable sensation "sweet metallic particles" landing in my nasal passage and throat. The best description I could articulate at the time was it was as if "sweet metallic powdered sugar" had been landing in my nose and throat.

Only later did I learn that there had been incident at Three Mile Island. Of course, we were getting only bits and pieces of what was actually happening there. Everyone, of course, was beyond frustrated by the pallid assurances that TMI posed no threat.

We had teachers secretly keeping radios on throughout the teaching day to eke out any updates on the changing condition of the reactor and TMI site. Our science teacher immediately sent his pregnant wife as far as possible from the 50 mile radius where we taught our students each day. Each morning I would pack my car before going to school with clothes and food in preparation of a possible evacuation in the event of a total meltdown. Going to and from work I checked the roadways for any sign of police that might suggest organization for such an evacuation. When pressed by staff about whether to even send our district's elementary students out to recess, the Superindent responded that the kids "needed fresh air" more than any hidden threat of the evolving TMI incident.

Often when I would go outdoors, I would become aware of a dull ache in my thyroid area and my heart would begin to skip beats. In addition, there were numerous reports of animal anomalies following the accident, some of which are recorded in the book Three Mile Island: The People's Testament, which is based on interviews with 250 area residents done between 1979 and 1988 by Katagiri Mitsuru and Aileen M. Smith. Additional overview here: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/04/03/startling-revelations-about-three-mile-island-nuclear-disaster

Having stood teaching in front of my guileless students under the minute-by-minute threat of a possible meltdown and evacuation of the entire region within 50 miles of TMI, I can only ask the question, "Who in their right mind ever thought this technology should have been developed?"

How many more sites like Chernobyl, nuclear waste facilities, and nuclear power plants will sit like monsters threatening life for the next 3000 years?

Thanks for the post, jpak!

[Hydra]

2. And thank you for your post!

Although it gives me shivers. The pro-nuke crowd pretends none of these things happened, that fission power is utterly safe.

"Who in their right mind ever thought this technology should have been developed?"

Who indeed? And after all of this, and now that we have viable clean options...why are we doing it still?

[kadaholo]

4. Those who...

As Edmund Burke stated, “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” (all in the name of money, of course!)

[mackdaddy]

3. If the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs had used Nuclear Energy to build the Pyramids

- then the Nuclear waste would still be an extreme Hazard.

This is what we have already set up our future children to deal with. If they survive global warming....

[NickB79]

5. Add 20,000 years to that number, and it will almost be as much of a threat as hunter-gatherers were

The area near the reactor is both a teeming wildlife refuge and an irradiated ghost-scape.

Throw a dozen megafauna species in there (lions, elephants, rhinos, etc), and we might begin to re-wild the area into the Pliestocene Park idea and undo the damage cavemen with spears did millennia ago.

It's deeply disturbing that the worst nuclear meltdown in human history is still less of a threat to flora and fauna that even Stone Age human civilization was. The common day-to-day human acts that society relies upon to exist, of farming fields, cutting lumber, mining ores, driving cars, building homes, and operating factories is apparently less injurious to the natural world than fucking Chernobyl.

[Nihil]

6. "less" -> "more"

I believe you have the wrods all mxied up in your last line?