Chernobyl exhibition

[Mr Pig]

It is safe to visit for a day, provided you listen to the guide and are sensible

The sad thing is that the area is safer because the radiation is being spread out to other places. We'll never know how many people will die world wide without even knowing that it's because of Chernobyl.

 

[CopperBrompton]

As you probably know, the then-USSR government made one huge mistake in the early days, demolishing three villages very close to the reactor and burying the rubble.

As soon as it rained, the water passed through the incredibly radioactive rubble and soil and carried radioactive particles into the groundwater.

Ben

 

[Mr Pig]

the government made one huge mistake in demolishing three villages and burying the rubble.

I didn't know that, but it doesn't surprise me. I still remember the outcry as radiation levels rose in surrounding countries whilst Russia continued to deny anything was wrong. The whole incident was just one cock-up after another.

The last I heard, there are still areas of Scotland where cow's milk is not considered safe to drink!

 

[CopperBrompton]

The really scary thing? Chernobyl was the exact twin of an earlier reactor, also with the same design faults, and also without a containment dome. That one is still operating today, well past its design life, near St Petersberg.

 

[Mr Pig]

The thing about the disaster though was that it wasn't really down to the reactor, it was operator error. You can never totally factor that out.

I think it's inevitable that there will be other accidents. What I find amazing is that they continue to build nuclear stations despite knowing the risks and having no real solution to the waste problem. I guess building reactors is just simpler and cheaper than finding alternatives.

It's also sobering to think that Chernobyl could easily have been worse!

 

[CopperBrompton]

It was a combination of two major design flaws, an ill-advised test and astonishingly poor communication between two different shifts of reactor workers.

I am not anti nuclear power in general. It's actually safer than coal-mining, for example. Even with the other design flaws, even with the test, even with the communication failures, Chernobyl would not have affected anyone outside the power station itself had it had a standard feature of almost every other nuclear power reactor in the world: a containment dome. It's outrageous that Russia continues to operate reactors without containment domes.

Ben