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World's Largest Solar Power Plant Planned For Chernobyl Nuclear Wasteland (electrek.co)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Electrek: Chernobyl, the world's most famous and hazardous nuclear meltdown, is being considered for the world's largest solar power plant. Even though nearly 1,600 square miles of land around Chernobyl has radiation levels too high for human health, Ukraine's ecology minister has said in a recent interview that two U.S. investment firms and four Canadian energy companies have expressed interest in Chernobyl's solar potential. Electrek reports: "According to PVTech, the Ukrainian government is pushing for a 6 month construction cycle. Deploying this amount of solar power within such a time frame would involve significant resources being deployed. The proposed 1GW solar plant, if built today, would be the world's largest. There are several plans for 1GW solar plants in development (Egypt, India, UAE, China, etc) -- but none of them have been completed yet. One financial benefit of the site is that transmission lines for Chernobyl's 4GW nuclear reactor are still in place. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has stated they would be interested in participating in the project, 'so long as there are viable investment proposals and all other environmental matters and risks can be addressed to the bank's satisfaction.'"
Entering Chernobyl (the town) isn't instant death.
People have been working there almost every day since the disaster.
People are working there now.
People are building the shells over the plant itself still.
So long as you monitor your exposure levels and don't spend weeks at a time close to the place, you're fine.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious––
I don't know what the numbers are, but apparently not having to build the connection to the grid makes it worthwhile.
People have talked about building solar+wind in the Sahara, but the cost of constructing the connection to the European grid is prohibitive. You could produce a lot of electricity, but who would you sell it to? I.e. who would you sell it to at high enough prices to make an ROI that justifies doing it in the first place. It would appear that Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya aren't the answer.