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Arctic Radiation Levels From Chernobyl Declining
jangobongo writes "Nearly 20 years after the Chernobyl meltdown and much longer since Soviet nuclear weapons testing, radiation levels in the Arctic landmasses are finally declining. But nuclear disaster is still lurking on the horizon. The Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia is home to Russia's aging, decomissioned (and sinking) nuclear sub fleet as well as a depots of nuclear weapons and an old nuclear power plant. Estimated cost of clean up to prevent further toxic leakage is millions of euros."
Well, "millions" of euros aren't exactly much, for instance the new train station in Berlin costs 3 billion euros ...
Estimated cost of clean up to prevent further toxic leakage is millions of euros.
While millions of Euros is nothing to scoff at, this is a clear problem and we need to fix it. In proper perspective, millions of euros is a small price to pay (the world can chip in if needed, but even cash-strapped Russia can pay the millions of Euros alone if necessary) to clean this mess up.
If we can spend hundreds of billions of dollars to "clean up" a country with no pending nuclear disaster, surely we can spend far less than 1 billion dollars on this.
IMHO, this indicates that airborne radiation levels only are declining. Data from the artic would not seemingly have anything to say about the contaminated soil and water in the polluted areas of the Ukraine.
Since the Chernobyl plant exploded and burned for days, large amounts of radioactive material was spread over a broad surrounding area, borne aloft by wind currents. The highly contaminated radioactive smoke that poured out of the plant may have now settled out of the planet-wide atmosphere, but that still leaves a lot of radioactive waste embedded in the soil and water surrounding the plant for (tens of? hundreds of?) miles.
I do not object to nuclear power generation. It does not generate CO2, NO2, SO2, or other nasty pollutants that are spread widely and cause other effects. Rather, it concentrates the waste in a nasty form that we then have to safely cope with. I believe the best place for this stuff is probably off-planet, but until we get that capability, let's put it in a well-guarded, well-controlled area.
I also am willing to help pay for the cleanup of Soviet-era radioactive waste - it may affect my children.
The LONG TERM SOLUTION would seem to be SOLAR or aneutronic (non-neutron-emitting) Fusion. I will vote for a candidate who has solid development of those. My great great grandchildren (God willing) will thank me for saving the planet for them.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Currently the page says:
> Estimated cost of clean up to prevent further toxic leakage is millions of euros.
Millions of euros is small change.
However, the actual article says: Strand said it will take billions of dollars (euros) to clean up.
Since the source is ABC news, I assume that they use the American billion (10^9).
Now that is a whole different story, considering the fact that the projected revenue for the Russian Y2005 budget is only ~92 billion Euros.
A conservative assumption of single digit "billions" results in something like 10% of the total budget revenue.
Just for comparison, this would be akin to the US spending 200 billion dollars on a similar task.
They're designed to do that.
I apologize to all who caught the mistake of "millions", when it should have said "billions". I would offer an excuse such as, "It was late at night when I submitted this story, so I was very tired at the time and it slipped through even though I previewed the story three times," but I don't think anyone wants to hear excuses. Again, sorry!
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest