Slashdot Mirror
Putting A Lid On Chernobyl
slicer622 writes "Chernobyl is finally getting a containment structure (Washington Post). Billed as the largest moveable structure ever built, its designed to help take apart the wreckage and keep most of the radioactive material from spreading. It will be 800 feet across, and 300 feet high and will cost $800 mil."
Stable door finally closes!
I always wondered what a Quake 3 map would look like in real life... :)
:)
For those of you who map, you'll know what I'm talking about.
"The shelter is designed to keep water out and dust in for 100 years"
Great, in 2108 we are screwed again.
what happens if the existing "sarcophagus" fails after the bigger one is built over top of it? Couldn't this still be a disasterous problem? After all, I've heard before that if it were to cave in, it'd be like having the accident all over again.
Because Chernobyl Fallout.
Ties in nicely with the story today about radioactive Christmas trees being sold by russian businessmen.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Engineers are completing plans for what may be the largest stable door ever built. How many riders of the apocalypse?
I'm curious about how much the surrounding areas have been irradiated...as far as how much the 'hot zone' has grown. Has anyone given any concern to the groundwater contamination? The dome is a great plan to prevent atmospheric contaminants, but I've not seen any below-ground plans. This seems like a half-baked (no pun intended) plan to me...at least they're doing SOMETHING.
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
They want to reopen Chernobyl. This article states "Officials from the European Bank for Reconstruction have criticised plans by the Ukrainian authorities to reopen a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. They say they are concerned about the safety of reactor number three, which sits next to the remains of the world's worst nuclear disaster, because of a failure to put in place extra safety measures that had been agreed. " Here is a link about the facilities.
I'm pretty sure that Reactor 3 is shut down now, but that only happened recently.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Chernobyl is named for a small, bitter herb, "chernoblis", that grows in the region. Of course, that's the Ukranian word. In English, the herb is called "wormwood."
...
No joke.
Of course, to quote my father when he heard that, "That's nonsense. Chernobyl wasn't a star. A star is a
!!!
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Leave it to the Russians to come up with a solution that is, in essence, one big matrioshka doll.
Now I want to see the heir of the peasant who invented these things sue for IP infringement.
My
Limekiller
This reminds me of a "new" Twighlight Zone episode circa 1987, where a guy has a fallout shelter in his basement.
His wife and kid go to the grandmothers for the weekend. Meanwhile, he's chilling with his friend drinking a beer, and a nuclear bomb touches down. They both go into the fallout shelter. They guy thinks he's lost his wife and kid forever.
Months go by in the fallout shelter, and external radiation levels aren't going down. They can't tell if the detector is broken, or what. Eventually some "scavengers" come pounding on the door, and the father has to stop his friend from making any noise.
More months go by, there's an argument and the friend finally says fuck it and leaves. Now the father is by himself, and even more months go by... finally he decides it's hopeless, puts on his sunglasses and heads out of the fallout shelter.
Next scene, the wife and son are looking at the father's grave. Talking about him, etc. Then the camera pans up, and there's the city about 10 miles away with a huge glass dome over it.
I found this summary of the episode as well:
Shelter Skelter
Teleplay by : Ron Cobb & Robin Love
Based on a story by : Ron Cobb
Directed by : Martha Coolidge
Starring : Joe Mantegna; Joan Allen
Summary : A survivalist believes he has lived through a nuclear war in his shelter. In reality, it was an accident which destroyed his town and contributed to bringing peace to Earth, and he has been entombed for ever.
I'm sorry. Did you forget Lithuania? It seems to me that Lithuania, not Estonia, was at the center of the maximum fallout path. Right over Klaipeda, if I remember correctly.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Well, it happened. Thats partially why we have new saftey measures these days, and also why other countries are paying 768 million dollars to clean it up. To protect their own citizens.
It will be 800 feet across, and 300 feet high and will cost $800 mil.
The dome itself will not cost $800 million, the whole project, including cleaning up inside the dome once it's there, will cost $768 million.
- Peter
I stumbled (ok Googled) across some interesting and moving photos from Pripyat, the town where the Chernobyl workers were housed.
Shocking and worth a read / look.
Great, Bechtel. If the budget is $800M, Bechtel will blow $4B for evaluation and planning, never build the thing, then punt the project off to the next biggest bribery outfit. Bechtel's main accomplishments have been building a massively overpriced and non-standard rail system in the Bay Area, screwing up the water distribution systems of several nations, ripping off Malta, and repeatedly gassing the residents around the Carquinez Strait.
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.
I've seen more than enough movies to realize that this is a mere cover story to hide the real purpose of this "container" -- sheilding a priveleged few thousand against a rogue earthbound asteroid.
I'll bet you ten bucks that nobody knows where Bruce Willis is right now, either.
Can't fool ME.
My
Limekiller
Is there anything to the rumor that Bechtel does CIA work, is a CIA front company, etc??
-kgj
That's nothing. Just cruise around www.fuckedcompany.com for a while and look at executive compensation, not to mention the billions venture capitalists have tossed around each year.
Now, if the advertising market were still hot, and the owners sold lighted space on it... it'd sell itself.
Lethal gamma rays escaping from the reactor's damaged core would make the center of the arch too hot for humans to work.
;)
Not to mention the Hulk-tacular side effects.
It'd cost them a fortune in clothing repairs for the hulking-out workers!
Prisoner #655321
Hmm ' will keep MOST of the material from spreading '.
:)
Glad i dont live around there..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It will be 800 feet across, and 300 feet high and will cost $800 mil."
How cheaply could we hurl the whole thing out of orbit?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Also, in Soviet Ukraine (nor anywhere else in the right-minded world) people do not use feet to measure distance. Feet are strictly reserved for walking purposes.
Come on, you are supposed to be the information age intellects. Where is your nerd-pride? Pounds, feets and inches, oh dear!
-- Imperial units must die --
...The City of Cincinnati has offered the Bengals another new stadium 'out in the suburbs.' Mayor Charlie Luken Deemed the new stadium a 'multi-use facility' and plans are in place to have the team moved within the next 90 days.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
according to this article The impact on wildlife and even humans is not as worse as people thought it would be.
For example: Years ago, some researchers theorized that a severe nuclear accident like the one at Chernobyl would cause such severe genetic damage that animals would be born showing drastic changes in appearance. So far, the Chernobyl accident has not borne that out, the researchers note.
and
"For instance, there are probably two million people in the contaminated areas, and only a few thousand are actually sick from diseases than can be reasonably linked to the high levels of radioactive contaminants. We really don't know why this is yet," said Dallas.
I have been thinking about this for a very long time: since we have this exclusion area around the reactor since 1986, animals were exposed to the radioactivity and no doubt, many died. But did any survive? Did the radioactivity produce some major genetical changes (some believe that the increase of cranial capacity in the Homo Sapiens was due to mutations from increased gamma rays)?
Sigged!
I think they've got land cheap up at Three Mile Island that might be able to accomodate some of the waste.
--- have you healed your church website?
The episode of Millenium (by Chris Carter of X-files) about Chernobyl, that was one of the scariest things I've ever seen, despite being a sceptic and non believer in the supernatural.
...and ?
Great games
$20,000 American/pound.
Do you have a "plan B"?
KFG
Psssst - I know where you might be able to pick up a suitable enclosure really cheaply, if you don't mind using second hand equipment. As an added benefit - it seems to do a good job of discouraging tourists! ;-)
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
Read the article......
These photos are absolutely astounding. Looks like a fairly modern city, just abandoned for nearly 20 years. Anyone who has an interest in 'end of the world' type sci-fi, we've all seen 12 Monkeys and the like - THIS is what it really looks like when our modern structures are left completely to nature.
I've never seen anything like it. Awe-inspiring and incredibly sad.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I thought Russia was using it's citizens to soak up the leaking radiation?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
After this tragedy occured soldiers were volunteered
to go there and die fighting with fire and radiation. Many lost their homes and were evacuted to the town i lived in. We got lucky - the wind was in the other direction. Nevertheless streets had to be washed literally - trucks were spraying water everywhere trying to wash off the radioactive dust.
Many thousands of people died in Chernobyl. Many more are STILL dying from this disaster. It was a tragedy. Please don't joke about it. It's beyond "dark humor" IMHO.
the site has 18,497 visits (at this time today) since 1997. Watch that # double.
"In 1997, the Group of 7, plus Russia, the European Union and Ukraine, set up the Chernobyl Shelter Fund with the European reconstruction bank in charge. The bank established a shelter implementation plan, estimated the project cost at $768 million, and funded it with donations from 28 nations, ranging from $170 million from the United States to Iceland's $10,000."
Interesting: far too expensive for the Ukraine, but the consequences are global, therefore countries around the world share the expense. This gives me a modicum of hope that people will put aside their national differences for the sake of planetary survival.
-kgj
Chernobyl: The results of a Russian Homer Simpson working at a nuclear power plant :P
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
> A star is a ...
...
Huge nuclear reactor?
Must... resist... "in Soviet... Russia"... joke...
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
India?? Hell no. Try O&K instead if you want some serious machinery. If O&K can't handle it, then perhaps the makers of this little beastie can. Big Muskie was a 27-million-pound, 220-foot tall hydraulic walking dragline machine.
Wasn't there something like this in Clive Barker's Imajica? A building, owned by the Autarch, so large it contained weater systems? How cool is that? Sure, not as big as Slartibartfast's shop, but still....
*Weather Systems, that is
"If it weren't for the radioactivity, I could almost call the job 'a piece of cake,' but the radiation makes it hugely complex and extremely difficult."
Yea... and if it weren't for the radiation you wouldn't even be building the 'piece of cake'.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
come on, i live mere away 70km from the 'object' and i'm fine, actually i'm doing better than most people are. it has nothing to do with the incident - it was not SUCH a disaster after all. talking about some 'danger' from Chernobil is not even funny, it's like speculating about tv radiation effects on health while puffing a cigar.
incident was local, incident didn't spawn no monster populations (some mutants - yes, but those don't replicate, you know), that's it.
if anything is worth discussing in the story it's a technical side, so please reduce your speculations about 'Chernobyl danger' to a minimum - those make my bald head itch.
Practical Semantic Web Log
Quick question: Why do Russians always hang area rugs above their beds? Off topic, I know, but I'm really curious...
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
The project design consortium is headed by Bechtel. We should perhaps be concerned:
/ 10/mm1089_08.html
"Although Bechtel did not build the ill-fated Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant, as co-manager of the cleanup operation at TMI it did help make a bad situation worse. The NRC's Office of Investigations found that Bechtel schemed to avoid making the necessary repairs and that the company "improperly classified" modifications to the plant as "not important to safety" in order to avoid safety controls. When workers such as Senior Safety Start-up Engineer Richard Parks complained that Bechtel and TMI's owner were deliberately circumventing safety procedures, they were harassed and intimidated. In 1985, the NRC fined the two companies for this abuse. Bechtel also disregarded the health and safety of the cleanup crew at TMI. A 1985 series in the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed the details of the neglect: workers were sent into radioactive sections of the plant without adequate protective clothing or respirators; workers were routinely given clothing that was already contaminated; and equipment intended to detect radiation hazards often malfunctioned. Contamination incidents have been routine since the accident, averaging two a week.
Source: http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1989
-kgj
It will be 800 feet across, and 300 feet high and will cost $800 mil.
And after being used to move the Chernobyl remains, Cowboy Neal will be using it as a car.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
Actually, are you sure it didn't look like this even *before* the accident?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
did anyone else start thinking about the big shell when they saw the subject?
scary.
Check out how many countries were affected by the radioactive clouds!
From the article; The new shelter will not "contain" the core's radioactivity but will be weatherproof.
So the idea is to make it "weatherproof"
The article is very vague as to how much of the sarcophagus they are going to deconstuct, or how they are going to "stabalize" the core for the long term.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Amazing what people will do when ordered to by their supervisor. I would have demanded a lead lined space suit with its own SCBA system, and then I'd quit.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Any chance we could put one of these over Hilary Rosen?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's actually on-topic. The poster is correct: Chernobyl is in Ukraine.
B
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
The Twilight Zone is some of the most enjoyable entertainment I've ever had the pleasure of watching. Brilliantly done, didn't require a huge budget, and looks gorgeous.
Of course, I've only seen "old" ones, but it's one of the very few TV shows that I really enjoy.
May we never see th
You'd think for 800 million dollars, it would do more then just keep "most" of the radiation inside.
Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
Ain't got time to make no apologies
try this http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reac tion/readings/chernobyl.html
Astounding photographs.
Kindest thanks for drawing my attention to them by providing the link.
Is it fascism yet?
You said: "We already know how to do that. Evaculate all the people, detonate a neutron bomb at high altitude, move back in and operate normally. The spray of neutrons from such a bomb would make all the radioactive atoms decay on the spot."
This is not true. While some radionuclides would absorb neutrons and transmute (maybe or maybe not to a radioactive nuclide) and some would undergo fission (probably leaving radioactive fission products), there would exist some radionuclides that would not be affected at all. A stream of neutrons doesn't affect how long it takes for any radionuclide to decay, only time does (after all this is a one time stream, not a flux--so you can't do more than one transmutation). This doesn't mean that it wouldn't reduce the radioactivity at the site. It might (I highly doubt it though). But also remember that these neutrons will activate some other nuclides that are not at the site. Overall effect is likely more radionuclides released to the environment.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
We (the U.S.) learned this from the natural restoration at Bikini, which was well underway years before Chernobyl.
For more information about Bikini, visit here: http://www.bikiniatoll.com/home.html
I cannot find the information on the terrestrial information, as I originally learned of it in 1980's National Geographic, and only re-heard of it in the past couple years with a Nova episode.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
I have a russian medal for Chernobyl survivors that I bought at a swap meet. I figure the previous owner probably died of radiation poisoning and wasn't able to recieve the medal. That, or it's irradiated, which would explain the strange burns I get on my chest whenever I wear it...
Here's one link that a Google search of "Chernobyl wormwood" turned up:
d 1/ wormwood1.htm
http://www.yowusa.com/Archive/March2002/wormwoo
That said, I didn't get this from such a source. I got this from a Russian exchange student, back in 1993.
That said, *I consider that this site I mentioned goes way too far in tying a Biblical prophecy to "current events"*. That is not to say that they are wrong or right -- I don't know. Just suffice it to say that historically significant events usually have analogs everywhere.
But seeing such a thing *should* make a person stop and think twice, especially about whether their own lives are right.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Thus mutations which propagate are quite rare.
-
http://www.endtimeprophecy.net/~tttbbs/EPN-2/Artic les/Articles-Endt/wormwd-1.html
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I was seven at that time, lived about one hundred miles from Chernobyl. On that April morning (around 5 o'clock) we woke up. The air was too thick, hot... The skies were rather strange reddish color... For two weeks following the disaster the communist assholes in the government tried to tell all of us that nothing happened, and everything was just fine. However, our friends, coworkers, classmates, the people we knew started getting sick. Leukemia, lung and skin cancer were the most common by the end of 1987 in Belarus and Ukraine regions.
In 1986 the communist government sent local firemen, engineers, civilian and army construction crews to build the dome. Almost every one of these thousands of people either died of various forms of cancer or sick.
They said that the radioactive material that was expelled on 04/26/86 will become relatively harmless in approximately 300 years. I heard that they still have at least two reactors working in Chernobyl power plant, and people still live in the general area, despite the obvious danger. I seriously cannot imagine anyone willing to work at that site, especially in the hot zone near and inside the dome. It seems to me that the Ukrainian government once again is sending their people to die the horrible deaths in order to cover their mistakes or make up on empty promises.
You claim that having a special unit system is about "learning to live together". It is quite the contrary. Adopting the common unit system is all what learning to live together is about. Having an own unit system is stupid and most arrogant.
You should also learn the basics of the SI system. cm is not a recommended unit, mm should be used instead. So, that's 431.8 mm.
If your boss hits you, you should consider calling your company hot line for abuse. You have really no reason to tolerate behavior like that.
IMHO, Real Neards do not use imperial units. We know that standards are good, and even if people can, with some cost, to adapt several unit systems, they will cause additional costs for computer systems and may even create new expensive failure modes.
-- Imperial units must die --
Apologies for being an arse ;-)
I find the attitude on this site towards the Chernobyl disaster distressing. Thousands died in that disaster and many of those who died were people involved in rescuing others - who willingly put their lives at great risk for others.
I am sure the attitude will be less flippant towards events such as the WTC and Pearl Harbour disasters.
That's a good link but not very many photos, unfortunately. Not considering the tragedy itself, there is something eerily beautiful about abandoned, overgrown cities. I found it rather interesting how bad the condition of part of the city is (for example the stairs of the cultural ministry or whatever it was, totally falling apart). I mean, it hasn't even been fifteen years now and yet parts of this place really look like wilderness.
I feel old now.
That's a study primarily about fish.
Try reading up on what Chernobyl did to Ukraine's neighbor Belarus (where most of the radiation came down, partly thanks to the Russians seeding rain clouds so it didn't make it as far as them).
About 1/3 of Belarus is contaminated. In an already poor country people can't pick wild mushrooms, berries etc in contaminated areas because of it.
The biggest suffers from this are young children - there are much increased rates of blood diseases like Leukemia in Belarus as a result of it.
This is yet another patch on a dike that will one day burst.
Unfortunately the burst will not be visable as it would be with a water dam.
The only fix today, is the one that should have been put in place at the time of the original disaster. Time will not be a friend in fixing this problem, it will only make the fix impossible if the wait is too long.
The entire site needs to be encased in high lead glass.
Yes the lead provides a hazard, but one much lower than radioactive contamination of the water table, and bio-spread by insects and birds.
Quite touching...really. When I looked at those pictures I had a strange feeling - it was very unusual feeling that I can not explain. I felt something I have never felt before.
---
Nuclear power has never been worth it, nuclear power plants are often a monument to inefficiency and waste. At least they don't hold as much political power as the large oil companies.
--------
Free your mind.
Smoke some weed! It'll feel just like The Land Of Carmack :)
Oh, but not the weed around Chernobyl. That was planted to mop up the heavy metals. Don't smoke that. It would probably suck...
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
IANAU (I Am Not A Ukranian), nor do I play one on TV, but from what I understand, The Ukranians call it "Chornobyl". "Chernoblis" is wormwood. "Chornobyl" means "black water". The plant is built along the Prypiat River, which was once called "Black Water River".
A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt.
As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the
student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before
the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit
the student with a stick.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...