First of all, I must thank Gerri Decher for her thread
in support of Elena Filatova, an author who, as a young girl, lived not far from Chernobyl, when nuclear reactor, Chernobyl-4, blew up in 1986. Her story is a sad legacy of what can happen when humans think they have all the answers while forgetting that we all make mistakes and that some of them are disastrous. You can read about it at
elenafilatova.com and
Nuclear Flower
I found viewing the pictures and reading the articles brought tears to my eyes. In the west, the stories of the disaster were downplayed considerably from reality and are still being downplayed today. Here are several quotes that stood out:
"There are more than 2,000 dead towns and villages within a radius of 250 kms (155 miles) around Chernobyl reactor. Each year I travel and I see more and more ruined places." http://www.nuclearflower.com/spring2007.htm
"Radiation will stay in the Chernobyl area for tens of thousand of years, but humans may begin repopulating the area in about 600 years - give or take three centuries. The experts predict that, by then, the most dangerous elements will have disappeared - or been sufficiently diluted into the rest of the world's air, soil and water. If our government can somehow find the money and political will to finance the necessary scientific research, perhaps a way will be discovered to neutralise or clean up the contamination sooner. Otherwise, our distant descendents will have to wait until the radiation diminishes to a tolerable level. If we use the lowest scientific estimate, that will be 300 years from now...some scientists say it may be as long as 900 years.
I think it will be 300, but people often accuse me of being an optimist." http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter2.html
The centre of the disaster, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, was covered with a steel and concrete sarcophagus, and "experts" assured the world with it would last for hundreds of years, perhaps giving future generations time to either move the material or render it harmless.
Recent studies, however, show that the sarcophagus is full of holes and leaking radiation into the air:
"Recent studies find the Sarcophagus covering Reactor No. 4 to be full of holes. An engineering report stated that the stone coffin would collapse in an earthquake measuring 6 or more on the Richter scale. It is estimated that an earthquake of that magnitude should hit the Chernobyl region once every century. If this were to happen, it would release large clouds of radioactive dust that could once again blow around the earth." http://library.thinkquest.org/3426/data/chernobyl-today/sarcophagus.conditions.html
In the 1990s, a joint multinational task force was organized to try to deal with the ongoing leaking and potential immediate disaster of the aging sarcophagus.
"At the Vienna Chernobyl Conference in April 1996 Germany and France declared to support the international cooperation in view of a solution of the Chernobyl related issues.
In 1998 the multinational Sarcophagus Project was launched in the frame of this initiative.
The aim of the project was the collection, analysis, selection and verification of all safety relevant data concerning building constructions, systems and equipment, radiological situation, nuclear fuel, radioactive waste and environmental impact in a comprehensive data base.
ArcView® GIS, ArcView® Spatial Analyst™ and ArcView® 3D Analyst™ serve as a navigation system to retrieve the information from the data base using different cross sections of the Sarcophagus." http://gis2.esri.com/library/userconf/proc02/pap0658/p0658.htm
On February 18, 2005,
Mosnews announced that the work had begun. It is interesting (and scary) to note that the new cover is designed only to last 100 years. The last one was supposed to last at least 30 years and didn't last twenty without leaking.
So much radiation was leaking out at the site that it was reported that workers would only be able to work on the site for a few minutes at a time.
On April 21, 2006,
Mosnews reported the following:
"A shelter over a reactor in Ukraine’s Chernobyl is crumbling, birds and rainwater are getting inside. Officials worry about what is getting out too.
The “sarcophagus” over reactor No. 4, which blew up 20 years ago, is reaching the end of its lifespan. A multinational $1.1 billion project to build a new shelter — a giant steel arch designed to last 100 years — is still on the drawing board.
Yulia Marusych, a spokesperson for the power station quoted by AP, said “the risks and the hazards posed by the reactor are still there.”"
By late 2006, yet another source was optimistic that a contract to finish the new shelter would be signed by February, 2007. According to
Ukrainian experts, the completion of the project, while reducing the risk somewhat, does not completely remove the threats.
What is quite astonishing is the most recent report (today) in
Mosnews on a study done by a "top British scientist" whose research was funded by Britain’s government-backed Natural Environment Research Council. The report claims that living in Chernobyl is less risky than passive smoking (second-hand smoke) or breathing the air in a modern city! This report flies in the face of all other information available (never mind plutonium, the fuel used in the reactor - do some research on americanium, the highly radioactive material that the plutonium decays into in far less time than you might think!)
To call Chernobyl a safe place to live is to completely deny reality! (do I smell politics here? or perhaps big energy-sector money??) The fact is that there is a huge pile of radioactive material lying under a shelter that is sitting on top of Who Knows What (it's too dangerous to properly assess what the shelter is sitting on!) Many factors, including water seepage, soil stability and earthquakes make this a very dangerous place even now, and it will still be dangerous for many hundreds of years unless some way of rendering it harmless is discovered.
Yes, nuclear power when it's working properly is a relatively clean source of electricity. Air pollution from a nuclear power plant is virtually non-existent. However, very dangerous waste IS produced and is a constant problem to dispose of safely (if, indeed, it can be disposed of safely!) Furthermore, if nothing else, Chernobyl has shown us the tragedy, both past and present, of what happens when you mix even the possibility of human error with something that can cause such immediate and ongoing disaster.
Before we blindly ignore the dangers of nuclear power, we need to be informed! There ARE other far more environmentally friendly ways of generating electricity. The problem may only be that they are far costlier to build, less profitable, and may cost the end consumer a little more. Maybe. But I would rather sit in the dark a few minutes longer every day if I knew that my children and grandchildren weren't going to sit in the snow of a nuclear winter.
God bless,
Dave