Putting A Lid On Chernobyl 293
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."
Quake 3 mapping. (Score:5, Funny)
For those of you who map, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Re:Quake 3 mapping. (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty much the same. But maybe the frame-rate will be a little lower, and textures won't be as detailed.
Most of the "real world" was actually produced for viewing using the ATI Rage 128. That's why computer games have become more and more attractive compared to the "real world" since nVidia unleashed the GeForce3.
Making matters worse, the physics model in the real world is also limited. For instance, rocket jumps are impossible because of improper collision detection between shards of the rocket casing and the jumper, resulting in shards improperly embedded in the body.
Unfortunately, the world was intended for full simulation on what was considered powerful in the 1980s. (The world existed before that, but only in a 2-dimensional form suitable for reproduction on thin, 35mm film.)
Re:Quake 3 mapping. (Score:2)
Re:Quake 3 mapping. (Score:2)
Hundred Years? (Score:5, Funny)
Great, in 2108 we are screwed again.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:3, Funny)
That won't be our problem, though.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:5, Funny)
Early indications are that kids from the Chernobyl fallout area will live to be at least 200 years old. The third arm comes in pretty handy, too.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually really good design.
The first sarcophagus was built in great haste over a hot reactor. The article points out there there are huge holes in the roof, but doesn't point out that the holes are a feature of the design, not a bug. If it were air-tight it would melt.
It has been nearly 20 years, and the sarcophagus has done its job well. Conditions are much better, and it is time for a new containment structure that addresses the current requirements.
In 100 years when the new structure is worn out, it will be time to reevaluate the conditions, and build a permenant enclosure. Suggestions I've heard are that a simple (but large) sand pile might be the best option at that time (presumably waterproofed on the outside).
The requirement for a 100 year lifespan for the current enclosure is a good one. Any longer, and you end up designing something that has to perform two very different jobs.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
So, reactor #3 is still in operation, which means that plant workers show up to work several feet away from a nuclear pile reacting in open air. I wonder what they have to be thinking every time a warm breeze wafts over from the sarcophagus.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:4, Funny)
why not just build a pyramid around it? They've lasted 2000 years, haven't they? (Dead pharaoh, nuclear reactor... pah... big difference)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:3, Interesting)
The other flaw of the article was it writes as if the core exploded which is incorrect. The explosion was a steam explosion when all the coolent boiled. This is what blew it apart. By some reports the rods from the core went for miles all around. It wasn't a nuclear blast. Thats why it was so bad from a radiation point. There was never a proper reaction to deal with the radiation. Now granted the explosion was caused by people doing something they shouldn't have causing the melt down. They had turned off all safty messures and were running an un-authorized experiment. It got away on them and there was no stopping it. This meltdown wasn't an accident. It was an orginized effort at being stupid. This is why chernobyl is a poor reason to call Nuclear power unsafe. It wasn't an accident, it wasn't a function of the reactor. Granted if they had a good containment dome everything probably would have been ok. Also if they hadn't done something they should have never been doing.
3 mile island had and accident, though once again it was do to something stupid, a pump turned off and no one knew. A good part of the core melted. But since there was a proper dome no radiation was released. And because of what was learned there plants are even safer now.
Nuke power is very safe, and clean. I much prefer one of them then a coal plant around. Also considering how shady reactors in countries like russia are it's very impressive there has only been one bad incident and it wasn't do to a design flaw.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
> They had turned off all safty messures and were
> running an un-authorized experiment. It got away
> on them and there was no stopping it. This
> meltdown wasn't an accident. It was an orginized
> effort at being stupid.
[and later...]
> 3 mile island had and accident, though once
> again it was do to something stupid, a pump
> turned off and no one knew.
In 1999 in Tokaimura, Japan had its greatest plant accident. Again, it was stupidity: discard all safety measures to save money and mix uranium power with nitric acid in a bowl with a great big spoon until it boils from the uranium spontaneously reacting. Two people died, and Tokaimura got a nice dose of radiation.
It isn't that surprising that stupidity would be at the root of these disasters. After all, stupidity is at the root of a lot of factory accidents too. Budgets get cut, people get complacent and lazy, and bad things happen.
Of course, inviting Godzilla over to film an attack on your plant on location, while engaging in bad safety practices is the height of stupidity. Life has a nasty habit of imitating his movies. Take, for example, Godzilla's love for power plant cuisine and the nuclear accident the Russians have in "Gojira", 1984 (Japanese version, the American version is a hatchet job as it was in the original movie).
> Nuke power is very safe, and clean.
We discovered fire thousands of years ago; but last summer's rampaging wild fires are testament to how much we don't have that under our control. What makes you think that our control of the fire of the atom, after a paltry few decades, is somehow perfect? There will be accidents, because humans are stupid, lazy and greedy. There will be accidents, because nature is chaotic, and the fire of the atom is not truly tamed. And there will be accidents, because our knowledge is imperfect and our experience is lacking.
Then there is nuclear waste, which is neither safe nor clean. Especially when you have a Godzilla sized lump of it to sock somewhere, and your President wants to put it in a heap of volcanic ash with many fault lines and seven young volcanos nearby, 100 miles from a major city.
> I much prefer one of them then a coal plant
> around.
I live near a coal plant, and my sinus problems are a serious pain. On the other hand, I'm kind of glad that when three trains collided in my town, turning their engines to scrap metal (they looked like they were made of crumpled tin foil), they were carrying coal, not nuclear waste. (And yes, I know coal can have a little uranium in it.) That accident was another example of monumental stupidity, with extra credit for the creativity needed to get three coal unit trains to collide head on, considering the limitations of train tracks.
I don't care what kind of container they put waste for Yucca Mountain in, it is not going to be able to withstand an accident like that.
Sonora:"New Godzilla reading. He's moving inward toward Tokai."
Shinoda: "The nuclear plants, I knew it.
Sonora: "Afraid so."
Yuki: "Well, that's just lovely. Another Chernobyl."
"Godzilla 2000" (US version dialog)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
That's because many environmentalists chose to have the forrest burn "naturally". With a little bit of preventative maintenance, those wild fires could have been prevented.
http://pushback.com/ [pushback.com]
http://greenspirit.com/ [greenspirit.com]
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
Nuclear waste containers are designed (and have been tested) to survive any train crash. Train engines are not.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:3, Interesting)
How many people die every year as a result of coal mining, and respiratory related illnesses due to our use of coal as a source of energy?
How many people die every year in oil extraction & refining? How many from petroleum based airborn pollutants released when petroleum products are burned in generating stations? (In fact, to make it easier, just look at Nigeria. One country alone is more than sufficient to make my point.)
Now I'll do this bit for you.
If this is not enough to persuade you, consider this. Oil funds terrorism. It is that simple. It was oil money that allowed Sep. 11 to take place. If you are going to follow the full cycle "toll" of using fossil fuels, you had better tally in another 3000 dead for the year 2001, and who knows how many in the future. Bush's claims that drugs fund terrorism is a red herring - the Taliban had banned and actively executed those who cultivated opium poppies. It was the Northern Alliance that was exporting heroin as a means of funding their civil war. (Hint: they are our ALLIES).
"Nuclear" has become a bogeyman, when you look at the facts, it is the safest alternative.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
I'm still wondering how anyone gets the three trains in the previous post to collide head on, but I've seen photos of (empty) nuclear fuel containers after a deliberate test train crash, and they were still intact. The little uranium in coal is no problem in a train crash, but it does mean that most (all?) coal burning plants release more radioactivity than nuclear power stations are allowed.
On the other hand it's hard to see how a coal power station can do as much damage in a single incident as Chernobyl when the people in charge do something really stupid (long term effects on climate change from continuous normal operation of lots of coal and gas powered plants compared with nucleur is another question).
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
The first part of the plan is to re-enforce the current structure (specifically the stack that could potentially collapse). From some reports I've read, it seems it's not nearly as unstable as was thought when the 10-year report was made (1996).
Anyone know why they are NOT building the new structor to keep radioactivity in?
I thought they were. They will be sliding the arc-shaped thing over top of the area in four chunks. One end will be sealed off, and the other (which meets Reactor #3) will be closed off somehow. I couldn't find specifics on how that will be done, or whether it will be completely sealed or what.
There's a river that flows nearby as well, and a wall was constructed underground about 30 meters deep to prevent (or reduce?) contamination. I also read that they don't want to do any digging near the site, to avoid uncovering any radioactive material; the "rails" (lack of better word) that the arc will slide on will be mostly above-ground.
Basically I got bored and did a ton of reading about the whole Chernobyl disaster. Interesting stuff...
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
Here [chernobyl.co.uk] is where I started. I'd never known the full story, and did some Googling that landed me there first.
I then modified my search to "Chernobyl Disaster" [google.com] (with quotes) and found lots of information.
One site that explains quite a bit can be found here [stanford.edu]. If (like me) you don't know much about nuclear power, see his Nuclear FAQ linked at the top of that page.
I don't recall all of the other links I read; I followed a few from the Google results, and followed link after link from there. But the Stanford page is pretty informative IMO.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well first of all we did learn how to split the atom [nuclearfiles.org] and how to fuse several of them together [doe.gov]. We also learned how to make materials that can conduct electricity without resistance [superconductors.org] at fairly high temperatures. We can travel underwater [ussnautilus.org] for months at a time without coming to the surface. We managed to get to outer space and visit the moon [nasm.edu]. Some of our creations have even left the solar system [nasa.gov].
Not only that, we also have devices [about.com] as small as a match-head that can do billions of calculations every second. These devices can be put together into a machine that can hold their own [com.com] against the best chess players in the world. People can not only fly, but many do so for less than a week's wages and they travel from one part of the world to another in just a few hours, going faster than sound can travel in some instances. There are now devices [bell-labs.com] which can create light so intense and organized that it can cut through just about any substance. Many diseases which have killed billions of people in their childhood have been eradicated [who.int]. We have managed to learn how to replace broken-down organs [applesforhealth.com] in order to prolong life and even how to make copies [howstuffworks.com] of people and animals.
In short, we have come a long way in the past 100 years. If you were to bring someone from 1902 to the present they would most likely be utterly astounded by what we have accomplished in so short of a time. Many theorists already have some ideas of how we might be able to eventually "teleport" physical objects, they have done it for information [caltech.edu] and are seeking to expand it further. Where will we be in 100 years? 1000 years? I'm not sure, but judging from the past 100 years it would not surprise me to find out that a lot of the discoveries that you have just scoffed at are around in a century, or even less.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, no.
First of all, neutrons are stopped fairly easily by minimal shielding. Most of the irradiated debris would not get bombarded by a single neutron from that neutron bomb.
Secondly, adding a neutron to an atom will have wildly differing effects depending on many factors such as the speed of the neutron, the geometry of the collision, and the nuclear structure of the atom. Some atoms, such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and other light elements tend to form stable or long-lived isotopes that give off fairly low levels of radiation. Others, such as uranium, can form highly radioactive elements and can start limited chain reactions - not a good idea in a closed environment. Take a look at this site [chemcases.com] for more information on nuclear chemistry.
One last thing you should know is that a neutron bomb is not a totally "clean" bomb. It still has a pretty decent amount of radioactive fallout, it just tends to produce quicker forms of radiation which will dissipate more easily. There will still be a fairly "hot" zone which will only add to the bad situation in Chernobyl.
Still, this is probably just a troll judging from your comment about the whole mess being cleaned up in a week. I thought you trolls were attending some sort of training sessions on how to be subtle? If you are then you had better take a refresher course on troll techniques, the first one didn't take.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
True, I misspoke there. I meant to say that the neutrons would most likely be shielded in this instance due to the collective effect of the water and the debris in which much of the radioactive material is immersed. Not only is there an undetermined amount of water, there is also TONS of concrete, steel, sand, and other materials surrounding the radioactive debris. The sheer amount of material above the radioactive elements would have a pretty good shielding effect on neutron radiation, even if it is inefficient at blocking neutrons.
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:2)
It was in Science magazine last year. As far as can be discerned, in the fifteen years after the accident, nine people died of cancer which might have been caused by the radiation. Added to the thirty people who were directly killed by the radiation, plus one fireman who fell from a ladder while fighting the fire, a total of forty people died. Not too bad, considering that was the worst accident in the forty+ years history of commercial nuclear power.
Countries that have outlawed nuclear energy based on it supposedly being "dangerous" should also consider outlawing air travel and most other forms of transportation, as well as most human activities.
Thats All Great but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Thats All Great but.... (Score:3, Informative)
what happens if the existing "sarcophagus" fails after the bigger one is built over top of it?
If the existing sarcophagus fails inside the new one, the dust and debris that are kicked up will remain inside the outer structure. The purpose of the outer structure is to prevent this dust from being picked up by the wind and contaminating the surrounding countryside.
Re:Thats All Great but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see how having a new one over it could make it any
Re:Thats All Great but.... (Score:2)
Just my two cents.
Why Shouldn't You Wear Russian Pants? (Score:5, Funny)
Radioactive Christmas trees (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Radioactive Christmas trees (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmm. Reindeers with glowing noses may not be myth after all.
Re:Radioactive Christmas trees (Score:2)
Heh, at least you don't have to worry about the lights burning out on those trees. The tree is its own light, glowing eerily over your Christmas presents.
Re:Radioactive Christmas trees (Score:3, Funny)
Only on Slashdot could this be modded as 'Funny'. I suggest doing a Google search for "Chernobyl Pictures".
Surrounding areas (Score:2)
Re:Surrounding areas (Score:2)
Re:Surrounding areas (Score:5, Informative)
This map [brama.com] shows the "hot zone." It actually covers quite a large area.
Re:Surrounding areas (Score:2)
From Chernobyl.com:
"To stop rising ground water (Chernobyl is next to the Prypiat river) a concrete wall was built 30 meters into the ground between the riverbank and the reactor. That wall is now acting like a dam."
Re:Surrounding areas (Score:2)
Re:Surrounding areas (Score:2)
Re:Surrounding areas (Score:2)
Check out these site for more info
Chernobyl.com [chernobyl.com]
Chernobyl.co.uk [chernobyl.co.uk]
WNA Chernobyl Info [world-nuclear.org]
Chernobyl Disaster Zone Site [ic-chernobyl.kiev.ua] There's an english link on the bottom.
Those sites are defintely some good places to start. Chernobyl is actually quite an interesting subject.
And that's not the REALLY scary part (Score:5, Interesting)
Old article. (Score:2)
Tim
Re:And that's not the REALLY scary part (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not as scary as it sounds. Two reasons:
Re:And that's not the REALLY scary part (Score:2)
The RBMK reaktor design is a piece of crap. It has a positive void coefficient, which means that coolant failure could lead to a strong increase in power output from the fission process. Worse still, the design has no containment dome. If Three Mile Island didn't have a containment dome there would've been a serious radiation release there as well.
maru
maru
Re:And that's not the REALLY scary part (Score:2, Informative)
They were running a low power test yes, that required them to turn off many of the plants exteranious support devices yes.
What caused the reactor to blow up was a FUNDAMENTAL design flaw which allowed for pockets of gas to get trapped within the core when operating in low power mode.
What happend was that during the low power test a system failed and the "operators" turned the reactor back to near full power (to get the emergency backup systems online) without purging the gas pockets they had created.
Boom.
The accident was caused by design flaw, broken system, followed by human error. Reving #3 back up is like blowing on dice for luck.
Re:And that's not the REALLY scary part (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And that's not the REALLY scary part (Score:2)
Obvious Russian Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Now I want to see the heir of the peasant who invented these things sue for IP infringement.
Twighlight Zone (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Twighlight Zone (Score:3, Informative)
The wife and kid are out of town at a relative's house.
The nuclear detonation is from an accident at a nearby airbase while the crews were preparing the planes in case of war.
The 'scavengers' Joe Mantegna and his buddy hear are actually recovery crews looking for survivors, and bulldozing the contaminated rubble into as small an area as possible prior to encasing it in the concrete dome later to be known as the "Peace Dome."
Eventually Joe Mantegna's buddy goes stir crazy and leaves the shelter, against Mantegna's wishes. He later returns and begs for readmission to the shelter, but Mantegna refuses because the buddy is now contaminated.
The ending is great-- the camera focuses in on Joe Mantegna, sitting alone in his shelter/tomb... it slowly pulls back, 'through' the door and into the dead world outside. Mantegna's buddy is lying dead outside the door, IIRC. We get to see a lot of blackened rubble and destroyed cars (think the scenes from 2029 in the Terminator flicks), and it's dark as night. The camera keeps pulling back, and then goes through another wall, and boom, suddenly there's birds singing, green grass, blue sky, and sunshine. Cut to a reporter who fills the audience in on the Peace Dome. Then we see the wife and kid. Presumably the wife knows Mantegna is still in there, but has decided that since he was so overbearing and loved the shelter so much, she'll just let him die in it so she can be free.
~Philly
The Twilight Zone is fantastic (Score:2)
Of course, I've only seen "old" ones, but it's one of the very few TV shows that I really enjoy.
Re:Twighlight Zone (Score:2)
Yeah, they were at the grandmothers house, very far away from the city.
Cost (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Photos and Poetry from Pripyat. The worker's town. (Score:5, Insightful)
Shocking and worth a read / look.
Re:Photos and Poetry from Pripyat. The worker's to (Score:2)
I've never seen anything like it. Awe-inspiring and incredibly sad.
Re:Photos and Poetry from Pripyat. The worker's to (Score:2)
Re:Photos and Poetry from Pripyat. The worker's to (Score:2)
Re:Photos and Poetry from Pripyat. The worker's to (Score:2)
I feel old now.
Bechtel (Score:2)
Re:Bechtel (Score:2)
Chernobyl accident information (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Cover Story (Score:3, Funny)
I'll bet you ten bucks that nobody knows where Bruce Willis is right now, either.
Can't fool ME.
Most? (Score:2)
Glad i dont live around there..
I wonder (Score:2)
How cheaply could we hurl the whole thing out of orbit?
Current costs are ~ . . . (Score:2)
Do you have a "plan B"?
KFG
Re:Current costs are ~ . . . (Score:3, Funny)
And in an unrelated story..... (Score:2, Funny)
Changes not as big as people thought (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Changes not as big as people thought (Score:2)
I don't know squat about nuclear radiation, so I'm honestly curious about this. How bad would it be? We all know "blinky", the three-eyed fish...
Mutation is a normal and necessary component of evolution. Is the kind of mutation caused by radiation inherently bad, or is it possible that there might be some positive long term side effects (at the expense of some organisms dying because of the radiation poisoning)?
most mutations (Score:2)
Thus mutations which propagate are quite rare.
Re:Changes not as big as people thought (Score:2)
This is going to sound like a joke, but it isn't. One of the primary mutations found in animals was missing anus. The detectable mutations weren't of the kind that would benefit the evolutionary process, they were of the type that would commonly rapidly result in death: absence of one or more extremities, deformation of the skull or spine, absence of eyes, overgrowth of the eyelids, lack of hair, exposed internal organs, or absence of an anus.
maru
Look at humans, not fish (Score:2)
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.
Mutants? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mutants? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mutants? (Score:2)
Re:Mutants? (Score:2)
> That's why I was mentioning the animals, who were
> exposed to the radiation all the time.
>
> I still think we might find some surprise in the
> wildlife around that reactor.
My guess: you are mostly going to find genetic defects. Most mutations are not beneficial. The most likely beneficial mutation would be resistance to radiation. After all, that is the negative factor introduced to their environment, and the ones to overcome that factor will be most likely to be selected to survive and reproduce.
You are *not* going to find a Godzilla there. Every origin story Toho has ever given has either explicitly specified or at least implied some sort of divine or supernatural element in his creation. Godzilla the god predates Godzilla the mutated dinosaur. In "Gojira", the dance the characters watch on the island is a Shinto sacred dance, meant to placate Godzilla by worshipping him. As the old man says, in days of yore they sacrificed girls to Godzilla. Apparently, Godzilla prefered the sacrifices.
"All our tomorrows, Great Sun, by the Light, are very forgotten.
The Light dies. We pray and it sleeps."
"Oh Peace Oh Light Return" (national song of mourning)
from "Gojira" 1954
Why build another one (Score:5, Funny)
How wonderful... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Widespread Payment (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Heh. (Score:2)
barker (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
Re:barker (Score:2)
Expert's Input... (Score:4, Funny)
Yea... and if it weren't for the radiation you wouldn't even be building the 'piece of cake'.
the subject is overhyped (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:the subject is overhyped (Score:2)
Bechtel: Poor Safety Record (Score:2, Informative)
"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
largest moveable structure ever built (Score:3, Funny)
And after being used to move the Chernobyl remains, Cowboy Neal will be using it as a car.
This is not a "containment structure" (Score:2)
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.
Order two please! (Score:2)
-
No Fix but One (Score:2)
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 [www.nea.fr].
Riders of the Apocolypse? No joke. (Score:3, Interesting)
No joke.
Of course, to quote my father when he heard that, "That's nonsense. Chernobyl wasn't a star. A star is a
!!!
Re:Houston, we have a problem. (Score:2)
Re:Reactor covers, build it before the accident! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Reactor covers, build it before the accident! (Score:2)
Re:Reactor covers, build it before the accident! (Score:2)
Re:Reactor covers, build it before the accident! (Score:2)