Slashdot Mirror
Chernobyl 25th Anniversary
ZwedishPzycho writes "Twenty-five years later, and yet again we are worried about a nuclear disaster. There will be plenty of stories out there discussing the 25th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident; here is just one."
According to this, Chernobyl will be cleaned up by 2065.
Loading...
Now get out of here, STALKER.
GET OUT OF HERE STALKER
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Who wants some cake?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
After the Chernobyl disaster, a Russian organization of Chiropractors volunteered their time and set up shop in a nearby Ukraine school gymnasium.
Over 3,500 people visited and had spinal adjustments which helped improve nerve function to the thyroid gland, which is so important with radiation poisoning. NOT A SINGLE PERSON WHO VISITED GOT CANCER!!!
Think about that next time you visit an "MD". Chiropractic is where it's at.
I'm not quite sure of that yet.
...looking for a Gravi artifact near these old buildings, see. And the detector keeps pointing me inside, so I go. The roof is gone and the moon is out but I'm staring at the detector instead of looking around.
All of a sudden I bump into this bloodsucker, and he's taking a leak. I look at him and go "hey, buddy, why are you pissing in the middle of the building?" And he looks back at me and goes "what the hell are you doing in my house?"
So I look around and realize we're in the middle of a converter room for a substation of the nuclear power plant. There's got to be 10 million volts on the wires in there.
About then I realize that only in the Zone can you walk right past a bunch of giant warning signs, into a room full of enough electricity to kill you faster than the speed of light, and the only thing out of the ordinary enough to make you notice is a blood sucking mutant taking a whiz."
This is a great example of a troll of the "I'm an idiot, please call me such and angrily correct me" type.
Because we all chiropractic is not where it is at. High colonics are where it is at. Remember, the key to life is to have a healthy colon.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
you can see it in postings on this website: technological overconfidence. the inflated sense of mastery over a technology due to technophilia and deriving much personal worth from one's mastery of technology
which is fine when you are talking about space exploration or computers. but nuclear power?
the problem is, accidents happen. they always do. no long winded speech on safety will alter the inevitable. corners are cut, economic considerations bypass longterm challenges, things break and fall apart over time. eventually, you have a nuclear accident. well now, it's a matter of the consequences of the accident. well: you blow up an oil supply depot, collpase a coal mine, undermine a dam, etc: these are awful cataclysmic events. and 5 minutes after it happens, its over. but nuclear power, when you have an accident, it stays with you for centuries. that's the big problem with nuclear power
mankind being too confident in his technological mastery, combined with longterm effects outside of the realm of mankind's normal psychological considerations, and you can see the problem with nuclear power. mankind, in a way, isn't built to handle nuclear power safely, and so we just shouldn't use it
i'm not saying we have better alternatives. and nuclear is great, when it works. and it works 99% of the time. but the problem with nuclear, when it doesn't work that 1% of the time? unlike every other power source, really terrible consequences stay with you for centuries. and so that 1% changes everything about nuclear power in ways that any conscientious person finds very troubling and sobering
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...and still no superheroes :(
I recently heard that studies show exposure to LOW level radiation makes the body's immune system more resistant. i.e. Someone downwind of Chernobyl would be less likely to develop cancer. I wonder if there's any truth to this idea? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17867496
There was a time when people refused smallpox vaccinations, believing it to be stupid to inject a disease into the bloodstream, but it later proved to be beneficial.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Doesn't really work like that. Some people have yet to get cancer, for example. Here is a reasonable estimate: http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary
A saw a link earlier today to an interesting portfolio of pictures of the modern site. It's actually surprising that there are people still living there. Most of them are nuclear workers and associates. But a few eccentrics have apparently moved back to their villages too (the article talks about an encounter with one old lady who lives there, completely cut off and on her own). I also didn't realize that the other reactors of the plant were kept online long after the #4 reactor was entombed (the last reactor wasn't shut down until 2000). It's also amazing to see how much work has really been done to clean the place up (it's now safe to walk around most of the area, with a guide who knows the really nasty "hot spots" anyway).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...and we still haven't been able to top it? What's wrong with the youth today?
"Nuclear blast"?
Whoever wrote the article had no clue. Chernobyl consisted of a steam explosion followed by a graphite fire of the exposed reactor core. There may have also been a subsequent brief prompt criticality incident that released less energy than the steam explosion, however the article implies that Chernobyl's radiation release was entirely by a bomb-like nuclear explosion.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Disregard link above. This is the right PSA .
You're welcome.
Coal poisons and it is sad it is not getting any press.
1. What is the feeling in Russia of their own disaster in Chornobyl? - It is in UKRAINE
2. It is ChOrnobyl, not ChErnobyl (russian spelling)
I was a child in Germany when this event occurred and it did manage some interesting changes. I was six at the time and the school I went to had several tents set up outside the school where men in interesting orange, white or yellow suits would give you a once over with a geiger counter before you were allowed in. I know there was another tent set up a distance away for kids who came in 'hot', but I don't honestly remember what went on in the tent as I was always 'clean'. No recess outside for a whole year (a bunch of pent up 6 year olds is a scary thing) and if you were outside, under no circumstances were you to touch anything or put any of the plants (like blades of grass) in your mouth to make whistles. I know there were probably more rules, but I was six at the time and didn't care much outside the "some Russians made it so we can't play outside" angle. Was a military brat. I say this because since then I have read up as much as I can on the incident and am extremely interested in the history behind the disaster. I have even looked into getting one of the CHERNOBYL LIQUIDATOR medals to add to my small collections of all things Chernobyl. The lead up to the actual disaster itself is very fascinating and I encourage people to read into it. It wasn't so much a sudden 'oops!' as it was a lapse in several security and communications measures that lead up to the eventual steam explosion. The descriptions from some of the poor unfortunate first responders is enough to send chills up anyone's spine. Particularly the one I read (looking for link now actually) from a firefighter that died shortly there after describing the sensation as 'millions of hot pins and needles all over ones body'. Other interesting aspects from this were talks of the plant design itself, as well as photos of the nearby towns and abandoned villages. If anything this disaster was a wake up call for a more standardized plant design and communications methodology. My mind doesn't serve me well but the Russians had a habit of making each plant unique (someone correct me if I'm wrong?) and thus how to contain this particular disaster was by the seat of the pants moment. Oh, and if you get a chance, find the remains of the plant via google maps. I am not sure if it is still up but a year ago you could see the concrete tomb from the skies. Also look for some of the 'on site' photography done. The picture of a pipe 'oozing concrete lava' was morbidly fascinating.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
You don't know how it works, and you guessed wrong.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/26/chernobyl-radioactive-fires-global-danger
I actually want safe, clean nuclear power, but I think people like you are out to destroy any trust normal people might have in the nuclear industry. By continually downplaying any dangers, you make yourself sound like a shrill shill.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Chernobyl was one reactor melted down, only 3 months operating (only 3 months worth radioactive waste, rest uranium).
Fukushima is 3 reactors, with 4 years of operation (radioactive waste in the fuel) have melted down, and at least 4 more reactor cores in the spent fuel pools are melting down.
Fukushima is by far the worst disaster of all time by multiple times.
The denial is disgusting. Every delay done to 'help' their ability to deny costs more people's health.
I have to say I'm very much on the fence on this one. In my youth I was definitely against nuclear power, then later I was a strong supporter. Now I'm back to being not sure.
There's a big problem if, for example, you had perfected the containment process, then out of the blue, a Tunguska sized event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event) happened nearby (or on top of) your nuclear sites.
The fallout from that would be impressive.
A Tunguska sized event is a "lesser risk" that we all live with every day, yet it did happen, and very probably will happen again within a few generations.
I think the quote you are looking for goes something like this:
"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
I think Katrina; and the World Trade Center; and the Coal fires in Centralia, Pennsylvania (burning since '62); and the 1969 oil Spill in Santa Barbara; and the 89 Valdiez spill; and the Heyope tire fire (burned for 15 years;) and the Deepwater oil spill; the Bhopal disaster, etc. etc. etc. all disagree with your statement that nuclear desasters are the only energy/transportation disasters that have a long lasting impact.
Regarding the Centralia coal fires:
"This was a world where no human could live, hotter than the planet Mercury, its atmosphere as poisonous as Saturn's. At the heart of the fire, temperatures easily exceeded 1,000 degrees [Fahrenheit]. Lethal clouds of carbon monoxide and other gases swirled through the rock chambers." - David DeKok (1986)
"5 minutes after it happens, its over" Is a very myopic statement, that could easily be rectified by walking the beaches of Santa Barbara.
good pic thanx alot its seems so refliction
good pic thanx alot its seems so refliction
n
good pic جات عراقي thanx alot its seems so refliction
good pic <a href="http://www.iraq3.com/">صبايا العراق</a> thanx alot its seems so r
Wow, times flying. Seems like this was just happening. Don't get old, kids!
A Tunguska sized event may happen somewhere "within a few generations", but I'd guess there is a 99.9999% chance that it won't happen close enough to a nuclear power plant. That means that a Tunguska sized event close enough to a nuclear power plant is more likely to happen "within a few million generations". Plus, if a Tunguska sized event happens, you already have a much bigger problem to worry about.
"the 25th anniversary of the worlds worst nuclear accident"
It hasn't been 25 years since Fukushima, in fact it's still going on now. Oh wait, maybe /. is making a statement that Fukushima was not an accident. Technicalities...
Other 2 responses were AC, so I'll pitch in -
As stated, Chernobyl sure as heck DID melt down, the core now existing as a sort of glass slurry in something like the 3rd sub-basement.
I don't read AC A human right
Personally, I'd have phrased it more as 'the anti-nuclear crowd blocks further research, much less implimenting the new developments'.
I guess we don't need wars as long as there are apologists like you around.
Apologist? It's pretty much a fact. Imagine if anti-gasoline nuts had blocked the implimentation of fuel injection, unleaded gas, and catalytic converters because their goal was the complete elimination of gasoline as a fuel.
I don't read AC A human right
If a Tunguska sized event happened over the middle of london or washington DC we'd be wishing it had happened over some remote nuclear plant instead.
hell if one had happened during the cold war over a city it probably would have started world war 3.
some things are unlikely enough and catastrophic enough that we'd all be fucked no matter what energy source we use.
Fukushima is worlds worst man made.nuclear event.
also true
The Chernobyl disaster was part of the plot inspiration for the sixth star trek movie. Just substitute 'Klingon' for 'Russian' and 'Praxis' for 'Chemobyl'.
Only the Klingons managed to blow up 3/4's of their moon and knock out the power plant for an entire planet.
Asteroid and comet monitoring got slightly better since 1908.
So, although nothing makes another similar event impossible, at least we should be able to see the celestial body in advance and predict the possibility of impact, with increasing accuracy as the date of incident approaches.
If another Tunguska-like comet is going to impact near a nuclear plant, we will probably see it coming in advance and have enough time to shut down the plant and remove the radioactive fuels.
There are plenty of other natural catastrophes which are harder to predict. Hence, we need to use technologies which are "designed for failure".
There are lots of possible designs for nuclear plants. Some of them are able to shutdown passively by themselves alone in case of problem.
Sadly lots of the designs which where the most developed at first were designs which gave the fastest and cheapest possibility to obtain interesting by-products like enriched uranium and plutonium. Not necessarily those which don't need to be attended in case of problems.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
unlike every other power source, really terrible consequences stay with you for centuries.
How long does CO2 emitted from burning fossil fuels stay in the atmosphere? How long does the greenhouse effect keep warming the planet even after CO2 emissions are stabiliized? Are there any long-term consequences of global warming that some people would consider "terrible"?
Blowing up a frog with a stick of dynamite is a lot more dramatic than putting it in a pot of water and gradually increasing the temperature to a boil, but the consequences for the frog in both cases are that its life ends.
Say that a Tunguska-sized meteorite hits a nuclear power station, pulverises the reactor and blasts the dust into the air. Say that this is comparable to Chernobyl (where the radioactives entered the atmosphere as ash from a fire), and the fallout causes cancers that kill a few thousand people. But there's just been a massive meteorite strike in or near a major urban centre! That's going to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people - the additional hazard of fallout is trivial by comparison.
I have concerns about nuclear power, but meteorite strike isn't one of them.
animals, radiation is bad, but not as bad as humans
In 2004 Slashdot had a story on an interview published in New Scientist. The interview was with Alexander Yuvchenko, a Chernobyl nuclear engineer on duty that night. The article is behind a paywall but you can find a free version of it here. Absolutely fascinating read.
Everybody knows it was the aroma therapy, IN CONJUNCTION with the chiropractic that prevented the almost-certain cancer/mutations/zombie apocalypse.
Yes it's just amazing how few people know this! The aromatherapy component was almost certainly responsible for drawing radioactive nucleotides out via the patients' morphogenic field channels.
Literally tens of thousands saved, but so called "modern" medicine [read: BIG pharma] still refuses to acknowledge the contribution of aromatherapy, used in conjunction with chiropractic, in the aftermath of Chernobyl.
Fallout from a meteor strike, and fallout from an entire reactor core after being vaporized are two completely different things.
Yes, while a Tunguska sized event would be catastrophic for New York, or Washington, it's effects are mainly localized except for some atmospheric dust. This is the exact example of what happened at Tunguska. Now imagine if all four Fukushima reactors were at ground zero of the Tunguska strike. All those radioactive isotopes could have been vaporized into the atmosphere. Possibly making a much larger area uninhabitable for thousands of years. Tunguska has already recovered, in well under a hundred, and with no lasting radiation.
If that Tunguska event had hit Chernobyl in 1986 instead of the simple explosion that happened, we may very well be seeing things much differently today.
Also remember, Plutonium is not natural.
Here is a reasonable estimate:
There's nothing reasonable about it! For a start it makes no attempts to separate those who received chiropractic in the aftermath of the disaster from those who didn't.
They are predicting up to 60,000 worldwide dying from Chernobyl, yet reasonable estimates run only at about 1,000 to 4,000. This demonstrates clearly that chiropractic therapy saved between 39,000 to 56,000 people from the fatal effects of radiation.
Vaccines kill bacteria.
Had the chance to trapse through Chenobly / Pripryat a few years back - thought some of you guys might appreciate seeing what's what there.
http://ninjito.com/2008-08-16 [Selection of about 20 photos]
http://ninjito.com/2008-08-12-PANO/qx-pano-pripyat-1.jpg [ the famous hotel ] ..
http://ninjito.com/2008-08-12-PANO/qx-pano-pripyat-2.jpg [ roof of said hotel with the reactor in the background
simon