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"However, you can't compare the Chernobyl reactor to western reactors of that day and age and certainly not to new types of reactors with passive safety."

Another point is that they disregarded the existing safety precautions to run tests. Further, while running the tests, they completely replaced the normal personnel. At least with Three Mile Island, the accident was under normal operating conditions and started with a mechanical failure. With Chernobyl, they deliberately disabled the emergency cooling system and removed almost all the control rods.

See http://www.chernobyl.co.uk/causes.html

I'm not sleuth of disasters, but how about these:

Italian dam causes tidal wave

Chernobyl

Space shuttle disasters (pretty worthless program, costing 145 Billion dollars)

Columbia
Challenger

Chemical explosion in India

Galloping Gertie

First of all, the SOVIETS took MANY shortcuts in making that reactor using 50's technology.

Two, Look into Pebbel Bed Reactors. This newer technology is much, much safer.

Three, compared to the radioactive, carcinegenic, poisonous shit spewed by coal, oil, and Natrual Gas plants, I'll take nuclear anyday!

And four, I'm also for Solar, Wind, and other sources of non-poluting energy energy that's out there. I think we're going to need a mix. Folks in Seattle would laugh at the thought of a solar farm as folks in the Midwest wouldn't be able to use energy from tidal movements.

The only problem with Nuclear is the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard). They don't want the waste in their neighbor...and with pebbelbed, that's going to be a much smaller issue.

Actually there was a little incident in the Ukraine that may ahve some impact on your theory - http://www.chernobyl.co.uk/

1) First off, Chernobyl exploded because of idiocy in the Ukraine. You do not conduct an experiment on a nuclear power plant and turn all the safeties off. That is asking for trouble. However, NO FALLOUT WAS EVER RELEASED FROM THE FACILITY. The facility was 100% lost, but everyone was safe that was not inside the plant.
Um... NO . Not only no, but hell fucking no, you're wrong. You're probably thinking about Three Mile Island. How this shit got modded up, I'll never know. That half-assed link of yours also glossed over Chernobyl, which was actually a quite major event. I'm not saying nuke plants aren't much, much better than Chernobyl was, but we need to be continually cognizant of the dangers inherent in things like nuclear power. That being said, the greater the risk, often the greater the reward. We just need to make sure the risk is managed.

"30 lives were lost during the accident or within a few months after it. Figures from the Ukraine Radiological Institute suggest that over 2,500 deaths were caused by the Chernobyl accident."
http://www.chernobyl.co.uk/

A smaller scale experiment can give insights to a larger problem. Thus, before the Wright brothers flew, they made (essentially) toy airplanes.

We already know that the earth's ecology more-or-less works (leaving aside some human intervention), but we don't have much understanding of how or why it works, or what might lead to our current niche in the ecology abruptly reducing in distribution and scope (aside from certain obvious threats). Small scale experiments in space allow us to get a better understanding of the principles, and possibly try some purturbation analyses.

Yes, in theory, this can be done on Earth as well. But there are other synergistic benefits to doing it in space (EG, getting free soup)... and just because it can be done on Earth, doesn't mean it will be done. How much biosphere research is done from NASA? How much of that would go away without the need to occaisionally keep some %^&%* lucky bastards alive up there every now and then?

(Disclaimer: I work with someone who was one of those %^&%* lucky bastards.)

Once the GPS system fails it will have repercussions on everything that depends on it. Hmmm, NTP for one. Some utility companies even use it to monitor electric load on the powergrid, the mass movement of charge, etc. Most complex control systems are useless without accurate inputs. So how big was the "margin-of-error" people designed in that lowest-bidder control systems for that Nuclear Power Plants ? If you look at what happened at Chernobyl with un-self-sustained Nuclear Powerplants you have to start worrying.

If that is not enough to worry about, what will the effects be on the worlds international food supply ? I think we have all started to notice the "Weird" weather. Zetatalk (of Planet X fame) has nice pictures correlating the changes in the magnetic field with changes in temperature. I mean evolution happens over millennia can a significant part of the Earth's food supply handle a severe step-function input, and what will the transient response be like ?

Also have a look at these:
http://www-ssg.sr.unh.edu/406/Review/rev6.html
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/LWS_GEMS/movies/6magne t.mov
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/LWS_GEMS/movies/6sec6. mov

Nobody cares about your data. They just want your money, which is easy enough to find.

[10] For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

-- 1 Timothy 6:10 of the King James Bible

[1] The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

-- Psalms 24:1 of the King James Bible

[20] But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
[21] So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

-- Luke 12:20-21 of the King James Bible

The fuel elements ruptured and the resultant explosive force of steam lifted off the cover plate of the reactor, releasing fission products to the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the core and allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames."

If I read my sources then the Chernobyl accident was the worst in the history of nuclear power, in fact it KILLED 10 TIMES the previos record holder of 3 deaths. Yes, 30 people died at the site. Another 10 have found to have thyroid cancer and have died. "An authoritative UN report in 2000 confirmed that there is no scientific evidence of any significant radiation-related health effects to most people exposed"
AND - if could of been avoided completely.

Not the biggest deal in the world... but since the conversation was here I thought I'd stick my nose in. Looks like for acciendent related deaths, Nukes are pretty damn safe, thus far anyway.

Tell you what, save a few lives and a ton of cash. Don't bother building your damn on one coast and your nuke plant on the other - next time both of you meet in the middle (Colorado) - I'll buy you both a beer.

Most fatalities from coal are not from power-plant accidents but from mining. Mining accidents mostly kill miners (who cares about them?), but also can kill many people who live near the mine. The 1972 flood at the Buffalo Creek Coal Mine in West Virginia killed 125 people living nearby, injured over 1000, and completely destroyed 500 homes.

Worldwide, tens of thousands of deaths per year occur from coal-mining accidents, and that doesn't count slow deaths from black-lung and other chronic conditions that afflict miners. In India, the death rate is equivalent to one Bhopal per month. In China, around 5000 people per year are killed in coal mining accidents.

Compare all this to the estimated 2500 deaths due to Chernobyl.

More government control doesn't necessarily help that much.

Some of the most serious problems with defective products in recent history have occured when government was entirely in control. In some cases they screw up because, like business executives, they want to cut costs (providing HIV/AIDS infected blood for example). Sometimes they wind up killing people because they are too cautious. Scandals usually occur when actions kill people, not so much when inaction kills people (delays in FDA approval for new treatments cost thousands of lives).

If you think this is a problem with Capitalism then you should take a look at the sorts of things that went on in Communist countries like the USSR and still go on in places like Communist China.

Cover-ups make me sick.

I think that the only effective remedy for this sort of problem is greater transparency in both business and government. These kinds of problems thend to occur when the people involved think that they can get away with a cover-up.

I think the map is a few years old but a lot of the radioactive material that Chernobyl released has a halflife of a few thousand years. From what the Ukranian Govt. has said(probably isn't true, however) the immediate area around Chernobyl is relatively radioaction free, with the exception of the Reacter 3/4 building.

Check out these site for more info
Chernobyl.com
Chernobyl.co.uk
WNA Chernobyl Info
Chernobyl Disaster Zone Site There's an english link on the bottom.

Those sites are defintely some good places to start. Chernobyl is actually quite an interesting subject.

Care to share some links?

Here is where I started. I'd never known the full story, and did some Googling that landed me there first.

I then modified my search to "Chernobyl Disaster" (with quotes) and found lots of information.

One site that explains quite a bit can be found here. If (like me) you don't know much about nuclear power, see his Nuclear FAQ linked at the top of that page.

I don't recall all of the other links I read; I followed a few from the Google results, and followed link after link from there. But the Stanford page is pretty informative IMO.

A lot of stories about the Chernobyl accident can be found here.

Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster On April 25th -26th, 1986 the World's worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the former USSR (now Ukraine). The Chernobyl nuclear power plant located 80 miles north of Kiev had 4 reactors and whilst testing reactor number 4 numerous safety procedures were disregarded. At 1:23am the chain reaction in the reactor became out of control creating explosions and a fireball which blew off the reactor's heavy steel and concrete lid.

The Chernobyl accident killed more than 30 people immediately, and as a result of the high radiation levels in the surrounding 20-mile radius, 135,00 people had to be evacuated.

1)Liberally pepper your post with oversimplified pseudoscientific pablum such as "...And, according to the World Health Org, only 31 people were killed in Chernobyl" thereby craftily distracting your audience's attention away from any actual facts about the true magnitude of the disaster. For instance that annoying little statistic of Thyroid cancer(yes I did specifically pick a site from the WHO as a jab at your laughably out of context quote) incidence increasing by oh, 10 times or so. Or maybe the statement by the Board on Effects of Ionizing Radiation and the International Commission on Radiation Protection that the collective dose of 600,000 person-Sieverts released from Chernobyl to the population of the USSR would correspond to 24,000 additional deaths(from the Federation of American Scientists) in that area?

2)Proclaim your unquestioned infinite knowledge on all things related to the topic at hand: "In Yucca mountain, the waste is stored inside these metal casks, which are in turn inside an ultra-thick concrete subterrainean room. Also, the storage place is 2,000 feet above the water table, so you're OK there." Phew good thing we have people like you to tell us such important things lest we waste millions paying doctors of geology to try to figure out such things.

3)Regurgitate amateurish propaganda supporting your cause which contains self-parodying scare tactics aimed at any opposing viewpoints: "Coal naturally contains some thorium and uranium. When you burn coal, this is realesed into the air. We burn so much fscking coal that we realease around 150 thousand tons of uranium and 350 thousand tons of thorium!!!". It's important to remember that while using this shoe-in of a tactic to attain your +5 that you should ignore all obvious holes in your strawman theory such as the fact that coal has BACKGROUND levels of radiation, and burning it has negligible effect on concentrating this radiation. By Spike hay's logic I could argue that the millions of human bodies incinerated every year in cremation ceremonies increases the radioactive pollution of the atmosphere and soil because of all that Carbon-14 and Potassium-40 released when your body burns. Why it must be thousands of tones total every year!!

4)Finally if all else fails, just make a link like he does to to the nearest nut job you can find whose home page should have the latest instructions on "How to Find Osama bin Laden with guaranteed anonymity" apparently using some whacked out pin number conspiracy theory or some such scheme.

That's all! Your're on your way to karma whore heaven! (p.s. i'm already at 50 so I don't really give a crap about what happens to this post)

Ya, tell that to the people that were affected by Chernobyl. not only in the USSR, but over Europe! Tell that to the children that were born malformed.
One nuclear accident makes for a few very bad centuries.

What actually happened was that the engineers were given orders to turn off all cooling on the reactor for a small period of time to check how quickly the reactor heated up. It turned out that the reactor heated up so quickly that they didn't have time to react and turn the cooling back on. For more info, see this site; Click on Causes Of The Chernobyl Accident.

Methinks you've seen Red October one too many times.

-- DigDug, who was within a 100km radius when it happened.

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