Friday, April 29, 2005
Nuclear Memories
I let slip on Wednesday that I had been to Chernobyl, and have since received comments asking for some serious posting about that visit. I tend to shy away from the subject because I am such a geek about it. I have put many a dinner party to sleep with counts of roentgens and curries, generational radiative mutations, and whether I glowed after I left.
But it has been showing up in the press a lot lately. When my old acquaintance Alexi Yablokov showed up in this article, I decided it was time to speak. The story concerns the decaying shape of the "sarcophagus" that surrounds the giant pile of grossly radioactive material that used to be the reactor core. Dr. Yablokov is trying to raise money to keep the containment system in proper repair. Apparently huge funds have been embezzled from the fund designed for such maintenance. Not surprised, he told me it was happening in 1991. For reference, here is a picture of the sarcophagus:
It is just layers and layers of concrete and steel surrounding the pile of extraordinarily hazardous material, above, below and on all sides. Essentially, they kept building until the radiation levels on the outside were sufficiently safe. Steel corrodes, concrete does too, and then there is the need to poke holes in the casing to test what is going on inside, put these together and constant maintenance is required. Inside the radiation is so intense that it actually wears away the internal lining. Dr. Yablokov explains the problems well in the article linked above.
This article discusses the memories of the heroes of the mitigation and containment after the accident. Some of the statistics cited in that piece about illness and death cannot be verified due to a lack of epidemiological data from the period prior to the accident, when it comes to cancer and other chronic disease states. the heroes discussed are true heroes in every sense of the word. They knowingly exposed themselves to enormous levels of radiation to do what was necessary to put out an actual nuclear core fire and contain the remaining hazardous pile of dust and debris. The world owes these people a debt it may never fully understand.
Memories...I have stories to tell personal and scientific that could fill the blog for many days. Today I will share one. My wife and I love ghost towns -- old mining towns here in the western U.S. that were abandoned when the mines played out. Many were left relatively intact because they were in such remote locations that it was not worthwhile to try and bring out personal belongings. Probably the most spectacular is Bodie, CA.
Next to the Chernobyl power plant was the town of Pripyat. Built to house the workers for the plant, it was abandoned totally in a matter of hours after the accident. People left with a bare minimum of belongings, in the middle of a carnival, leaving the entire place with an eerie feeling that they had all just been "beamed up" without notice. Here's some pictures:
It's spooky, and disheartening. You can walk up to windows, or down halls and look into apartments and see pictures on the wall and rotten food sometimes still on the table. It is a ghost town unlike any you will ever experience, ghosted not from age, or depletion of resources, but ghosted because of a horrific miscalculation by some engineers. It is a modern ghost and as such has all the spookiness of an Old West ghost town, but none of the charm.
Please give me some feedback on this. Did you like it? What other things would you like me to share. Do you want techie stuff, or just more impressions? Would you like to hear how the accident happened, or how the mess was handled? Maybe you are interested in some of the heroes stories? I have read numerous studies on the effects of the radiation in the local flora and fauna, and can share about that. Are you interested in how the site is managed today? I get a little too excited by all of it and tend to get dull, but I will try and answer your questions and interests.
And please, do what you can to support the fund raising efforts of Dr. Yablokov, it is for the benefit of the world in a sense far more real than you may see in any other circumstance.
UPDATE
Here are parts two and three in my series on my Chernobyl visit.
But it has been showing up in the press a lot lately. When my old acquaintance Alexi Yablokov showed up in this article, I decided it was time to speak. The story concerns the decaying shape of the "sarcophagus" that surrounds the giant pile of grossly radioactive material that used to be the reactor core. Dr. Yablokov is trying to raise money to keep the containment system in proper repair. Apparently huge funds have been embezzled from the fund designed for such maintenance. Not surprised, he told me it was happening in 1991. For reference, here is a picture of the sarcophagus:
It is just layers and layers of concrete and steel surrounding the pile of extraordinarily hazardous material, above, below and on all sides. Essentially, they kept building until the radiation levels on the outside were sufficiently safe. Steel corrodes, concrete does too, and then there is the need to poke holes in the casing to test what is going on inside, put these together and constant maintenance is required. Inside the radiation is so intense that it actually wears away the internal lining. Dr. Yablokov explains the problems well in the article linked above.
This article discusses the memories of the heroes of the mitigation and containment after the accident. Some of the statistics cited in that piece about illness and death cannot be verified due to a lack of epidemiological data from the period prior to the accident, when it comes to cancer and other chronic disease states. the heroes discussed are true heroes in every sense of the word. They knowingly exposed themselves to enormous levels of radiation to do what was necessary to put out an actual nuclear core fire and contain the remaining hazardous pile of dust and debris. The world owes these people a debt it may never fully understand.
Memories...I have stories to tell personal and scientific that could fill the blog for many days. Today I will share one. My wife and I love ghost towns -- old mining towns here in the western U.S. that were abandoned when the mines played out. Many were left relatively intact because they were in such remote locations that it was not worthwhile to try and bring out personal belongings. Probably the most spectacular is Bodie, CA.
Next to the Chernobyl power plant was the town of Pripyat. Built to house the workers for the plant, it was abandoned totally in a matter of hours after the accident. People left with a bare minimum of belongings, in the middle of a carnival, leaving the entire place with an eerie feeling that they had all just been "beamed up" without notice. Here's some pictures:
It's spooky, and disheartening. You can walk up to windows, or down halls and look into apartments and see pictures on the wall and rotten food sometimes still on the table. It is a ghost town unlike any you will ever experience, ghosted not from age, or depletion of resources, but ghosted because of a horrific miscalculation by some engineers. It is a modern ghost and as such has all the spookiness of an Old West ghost town, but none of the charm.
Please give me some feedback on this. Did you like it? What other things would you like me to share. Do you want techie stuff, or just more impressions? Would you like to hear how the accident happened, or how the mess was handled? Maybe you are interested in some of the heroes stories? I have read numerous studies on the effects of the radiation in the local flora and fauna, and can share about that. Are you interested in how the site is managed today? I get a little too excited by all of it and tend to get dull, but I will try and answer your questions and interests.
And please, do what you can to support the fund raising efforts of Dr. Yablokov, it is for the benefit of the world in a sense far more real than you may see in any other circumstance.
UPDATE
Here are parts two and three in my series on my Chernobyl visit.
