Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
...and it's not as if there isn't anyone there who's happy to fritter away amounts like that on rubbish
-- Mod me down. I am not a karma tart. ffs,gag
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.