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Chernobyl

The Chernobyl disaster (also referred to as the Chernobyl accident or simply Chernobyl) was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Pripyat, then located in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe.

The Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and casualties. It is one of only two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011. The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. During the accident itself, 31 people died, and long-term effects such as cancers are still being investigated.

Direct and indirect deaths have been estimated at over 1,000,000.

Cleanup has barely started and the area will be uninhabitable for 3,000 years.

An occurrence I well remember at the time!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-d ... chernobyl/

Photo's of the remnants!...>>>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picture ... me=2161229

A nuclear wake-up call!

Paul.

A nuclear wake-up call!

I thought Windscale was supposed to be our nuclear wake-up call!

I remember not finding out about Chernobyl until about three days after it happened, and I had already been out and about, breathing in the nuclear contamination from it

This sort of thing will just keep on happening from now on, if not from accidents then from terrorism / war! We'll just have to evolve to cope with nuclear contamination 'cause it sure ain't going away!

Has anyone else played Stalker? Loved the final scene when he gets into the reactor!

Sinkrate wrote:
Has anyone else played Stalker? Loved the final scene when he gets into the reactor!

Hello Sink!

Got the nice, metal box version; "Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl".... ...!

Plays nicely on my Gaming Tower PC!

Like all my zillions of computer games, I just need "Invincibility" to enjoy it....

..I am an sneaky-old computer game cheat!.... ...!

Paul.... ...!

All US reactors use containment vessels so this type of accident would be impossible here.

Florida is home to three nuclear facilities and I have never felt in danger.

As long as nuclear reactors will be run by businesses who want to make a buck and cut costs, then it could and will happen again. And we all know how corrupt and unreliable authorities are in the post-Soviet countries. There's at least four Chernobyl-style reactors, without containment vessels, still online in Russia. My wife's home country of Armenia still has a nuclear reactor running in one of the worst earthquake zones of all Eurasia.

Considering the dangers, perhaps Germany did the right thing and pulled the plug on fission reactors after Fukashima showed the world, again, what can and will happen.

I remember industry's promises about electric power "too cheap to meter" made by the utilities back in the 1960s, and how accidents could "never happen" with all the safeguards. All lies, of course, made by people who had financial interests, who wanted to make money and ignore the risks.

Here in Indiana, my home state, many years ago the Marble Hill nuclear plant next to the Ohio River was never completed after repeated violations by construction contractors, using cheap, out-of-spec cement and other stupidities. Why did they ignore safety regulations? To save a buck and boost profits. When the state forbid the utility from passing on the outrageous project costs to consumers, the utility walked away.

We love big ideas and great science, and people will forget what happened over time, make the same mistakes. But at what a terrible cost.

By the way, that Fukashima accident was much worse than they told us .... we'll find out more in July, this summer. Note the clear evidence of radiation damage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_Po ... ng_Station

To give an idea of the proximity of this plant, the University of Miami is about 24 miles NNE of the Turkey Point plant. I'm somewhere in between. There have been some incidents, I think fairly minor, at the Turkey Point plant described in the Wiki article that I had not been aware of until now. The Wiki article above is short and to the point and worth reading for anyone interested in potential nuke plant problems.

There's another nuke plant straight upstate east coast on Hutchinson Island (about half way between Miami and Canaveral. Hutchinson Island is paradisaical, been there many times long ago, I guess tho that was the best or only place to build it since they all have to be near a body of water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lucie ... ower_Plant

But, as Webb said, "All US reactors use containment vessels so this type of accident would be impossible here."

Let's hope so.

I have to say, I would love to have a tramp around Pripyat with a camera. Some of the images that are coming out of their are quite stunning, however I also have a great sence of self preservation, so I wont be doing it any time soon............in this life......

Matt

But, as Webb said, "All US reactors use containment vessels so this type of accident would be impossible here."

I think you might be missing the point guys. THE EARTH ROTATES! Chernobyl ain’t just Ukraine; Fukushima ain’t just Japan, Windscale ain’t just UK. The crap spreads throughout the globe and once it spreads, it stays there. The contamination will steadily build up globally each time there is an incident. Unless we all go around with Geiger counters, we’ll never know if we’re being nuked or not That’s what scares me about Chernobyl; UK must have caught a packet from that and they didn’t even tell us until it was too late