By David Wright
Pripyat, Ukraine, April 19, 2006 — I'm writing this from an old Russian train headed north toward a nation that President Bush has labeled an "outpost of tyranny." A place that journalists, especially Americans, rarely get to go.
On that, more in a minute. But first, let me tell you a little about Chernobyl. We spent the day there Tuesday, and it was an eerie sight. A ghost town, tended by a small community of brave people struggling to keep it safe. Reactor Number 4, which exploded 20 years ago next week, is surrounded by an exclusion zone five times the size of New York City. Not many outsiders choose to venture in.
I don't want to give away too much from the stories you'll see on ABC starting next week. But among the people we met are a few Americans — nuclear engineers doing their best to make sure Chernobyl doesn't jeopardize the world again. Locked inside its crumbling cement sarcophagus, the failed Reactor Number 4 is still full of enough radioactivity for dozens of atom bombs.
Scientists say the sarcophagus, built in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, wasn't built to last this long. There are already so many holes in it that when we held up a Geiger counter, the numbers were off the charts.
Nuclear power scares me. The thought of the bomb is bad enough, but a real thing like nuclear power just freaks me out.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
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8 comments:
Nothin like making shit that will still be deadly when our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grand children are around. That is the only problem I have with that technology. How do we keep it safe when its half life is longer than all know civilization… we are putting a lot of faith in the future?
I think you left a great out scott!
did you actually type all those greats, or did you cheat by copying and pasting them. fess up. Isn't compleatly fucking our desecendants what we do? sounds like a bumper sticker. "I'm destroying my kids world"
Pete,
I believe the full bumper sticker says, "I'm destroying my kids world, but damn I love my Hummer."
Who names a car after a blowjob anyway? I'd rather get a hummer than drive one any day.
Devils advocate...
What's better then nuclear power? Coal is dirty, dam's change the ecosystem (deliverence was a cool movie though) oil is going away, wind is real fuckin pricey, burning trash looked promising (who has more then USA) but the mercury emisions inhibit that(talk about dirty).
but Nuke is fairly clean, and except for a couple of glaring exceptions safer then we might think.
It's pretty easy to hate Nuclear power sitting in our warm dry houses.....
worm, ministry
I appreciate your differnt insight into the nuclear power issue, PJ. I just always have a tendancy to think of the worst in most cases, this included.
So much for being positive. My bad.
my goal is not to chastise, but to learn, and see and try to understand things from more then one angle.
Cause your right as rain when you say that harnessing the power of the atom is scary as hell. but is it unnatural???
If we as humans are (evolved)creatures of nature then doesn't that automaticly make anything we do natural?
I don't pretend to know, but I am certainly willing to learn more.
one of the posters on this site will probably start learning more (or posting current smarts) about power plants just to prove me a loud mouth blowhard.
One word, Chernyoble (or however the hell you spell it).
And you're not a loudmouth blowhard. Good to look at all sides at all times.
About coal, I did just work on a documentary about bootleg coal miners ( www.harcoalmovie.com )
I learned that anthracite coal (less common) burns with insanely low emmissions compared to the more common bituminous coal. ALso, they are working on a process to turn coal into gas, called of all things coal gassification. To me this sounds like a process already occuring naturally in Frank after visiting a McDonald's franchise. Talk about possibilities to harness wind energy. I'm just glad Frank wasn't the subject of supersize me!
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