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Originally Posted by Commander Wallace
I knew of your visit and research into Chernobyl, Kapitan. I don't know that I would have wanted to visit and get that close as you did. I was curious if you knew how stable the damaged reactor is and the roof shielding placed over the damaged reactor.
There were reports that Russia was haphazard at best in stationing troops there and reported shellings of the plant itself.
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The actual area is pretty safe people do live within the exclusion zone, out side the new safe confinement structure the levels of radiation are quite near normal, I only visited after the new arch was put in place not when the old sarcophagus was there but im told by the people on the tour group that the levels even with the old sarcophagus were not that high.
There are areas however that are massively radioactive still even today, the trees and funguses that grow are extremely radioactive, the woods are out of bounds to everyone except permitted scientists due to the levels.
In my old thread you can see the tour guide holding up a dosimeter to the Ferris wheel and that wheel is quite heavily contaminated.
https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=229390
The Sarcophagus was designed to last 20-30 years no more in fact they even said before it was built that plans had to be made for its replacement.
The old structure was in a terrible state due to being built in haste and without solid foundation, it was built on the already broken walls of reactor 4.
There was a ABC (I think) documentary done in the 1990s called back to Chernobyl I will try and find it again but this documentary actually takes you inside the sarcophagus and around what was reactor 4 and up the containment lid.
They actually did this documentary in two parts several years apart think the first was 1990 the second about 1996 the lead scientist who was running around the reactor ultimately died, he also had to have the lens of his eyeballs replaced due to the radiation damage.
The current containment dome is sufficient to stop any further massive spread provided it doesn't suffer strikes by bombs rockets or missiles, its not in contact with the old structure and is on a solid foundation it is designed to last 100 years.
With Russian troops nearing the area most will likely be utterly oblivious and naïve to the danger, as long as they leave that containment arch plus the other 3 reactors alone then all will be well
The reality is Chernobyl if cleaned up can become somewhat more inhabitable in the future, also note its not just going to be the clean up of reactor 4 but also the decommissioning and removal of the now dead reactors 1,2 and 3. Don't forget Chernobyl even after the accident was still operational.
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I am not sure whether nuclear power is the lesser evil compared to the effects of global warming.
After all it is a steam engine, just powered by the heat of nuclear decay.. there are better methods
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Given what was learnt in SL1, TMI, Chernobyl, Fukishima, Kyshtem, Sellafield etc that nuclear power is safe if handled by a competent operations team that is trained alert and focused on the task.
Chernobyl from all the research I have done was simply an accident that was well overdue, I would have said the accident should have taken place in the early to mid 70s given that a lot of important documentation was withheld from operators, training wasn't the best, faulty design, faulty building and the need to meet the targets or quotas.
There's a good soviet joke about the whole system it goes like this
There was once a nail plant that had to reach its quota by weight, so instead of producing millions of nails they produced one large one and met the quota that way.
So that in itself tells you about the mentality of the society.
As for the KGB well we all know about them don't we fingers in every pie, even as a foreigner walking past Lubyanka is a bit unnerving.