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Lone_Star_Dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 03:54 PM
Original message
Chernobyl to be covered in steel
Source: BBC News

The authorities in Ukraine have approved a giant steel cover for the radioactive site of the world's worst nuclear disaster - Chernobyl.

Ukraine has hired a French firm to build the structure to replace the crumbling concrete casing put over the reactor after the 1986 accident.

The casing project is expected to cost $1.4bn (£700m).

It will take five years to complete and the authorities say they will then be able to start dismantling the reactor.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko hailed the project:

"Today is probably the first time that we can openly look into the eyes of the national and international community and say that a solution to the problem that has long been called the Chernobyl problem was formally found," he said.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6999140.stm
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hang a left Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:04 PM
Response to Original message
1. Crazy people willing to work on the project.
Amazing what hunger will do to a man.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:22 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. Or drug addicts
I knew a junkie who worked as a "jumper" installing sleeves in reactor cooling systems at the San Onofre plant here in Cali. He had three different IDs so he could expose himself to triple the maximum amount of radiation allowed by federal law.
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Lone_Star_Dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:24 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Why?
I'm sure there's a reason behind wanting to be exposed to radiation and being a drug addict. However, whatever it may be I'm not aware of it.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:27 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. He did it for extra money so he could buy more heroin
He was not afraid of the radiation.
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Lone_Star_Dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:29 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Thank you
For some reason my brain couldn't make that connection. I was stuck on he may have been suicidal or some such thing, and couldn't get beyond that.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:41 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. The pay was pretty good - About $75 for a two-hour day
So my friend could get about $225 by working as three different people.
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Lone_Star_Dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 07:42 PM
Response to Reply #7
16. That equals enough heroin to get him through the day I guess
No matter what dangers he exposing himself to.

That's a really heartbreaking story.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 07:43 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. He murdered someone in about 1987, got out nine years later
Now he works for Cirque de Soleil, 'cuz just about nobody else except meat-processing companies will hire convicted felons.
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Javaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 10:12 AM
Response to Reply #17
22. What's his job with them? the glow in the dark guy? nt
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:52 PM
Response to Reply #22
29. I think he works as a grunt and a bouncer
Well-qualified for both positions.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy like a brother. I used to go nightclubbing with him. We were members of an informal Wednesday night poker group for years. He's even gotten me out of difficult situations a few times.

Great guy, as long as he isn't doing drugs.
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Demeter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 06:03 AM
Response to Reply #6
20. Doesn't the Definition of an Addict MEAN Suicidal?
After all, if one wasn't suicidal, one would stop the actions that were killing one, no?
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Lone_Star_Dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 12:20 PM
Response to Reply #20
28. Which came first, the addiction or the suicidal behavior?
The addictions makes them suicidal or being suicidal led them to the addiction?

I would imagine there are some who fall into each category. Either way the end effect is the same.
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wuushew Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 05:01 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. Did he even keep track of his culmative REM dosage?
Surely using heroin doesn't impede a person from rationally examining the dangers of radiation exposure.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 05:15 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Being addicted to heroin rewires your brain so all you think about is scoring heroin
It's bad shit. Don't do it.
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hunter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 10:28 AM
Response to Reply #3
24. That was one way to get inside a nuclear power plant...
It really was that easy.

;)
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Journeyman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:10 PM
Response to Original message
2. Good. The first cap lasted over 20 years (25 years after new construction). . .
They'll probably only need to build oh. . . let's see. . . at a half life of 700 million years, that'd be. . . uh . . . wait, wait. . . my calculator's given me a error here, a bunch of 9s and 5s. . . move to this machine, plug the numbers. . . okay, got an E with what looks like Pi times infinity. . . here, try it with paper and pencil and. . . ok. . . uh, , carry the 9 . . . then. . . scratch that. . .

Yeah. That should keep those Frenchmen working overtime until sometime just before the Sun fizzles out. Good plan.
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Xipe Totec Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:48 PM
Response to Original message
8. Will this be the fourth or fifth sarcophagus?
I lose track of how many times they've tried to encase this monster.
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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. In talking to a euro-based expert,
the undelying problem is that the HUGE steel cover on top of the original structure is slowly getting ready to topple. When it does, it will fall and collapse the whole rest of the graphite and Uranium mess below. For some post fire technical reasons, the resulting cloud would be worse than the original fire and explosion. Worse yet, it would probably begin to burn again, spewing even more little nuculars into the atmosphere, but this time, there would be no way to put it out.

What they hope to accomplish is to contain the fallout just when the cover falls by keeping it inside a larger "container".

Time is running out, and there are no good alternatives, only worse ones.
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Xipe Totec Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 05:23 PM
Response to Reply #9
12. Yes, I know
If ever there was a cluster-fuck, this is it.

That was the reason for the previous n sarcophagi.

Each one has bought only so much extra time, but the underlying problem is still there.

And there is no permanent solution.
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ChairmanAgnostic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. I regularly communicate with some Ukrainians and baltics
who got a pretty nasty dose from the first explosion. They still keep photos of farm animals who showed lots of weird growth patterns.
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Xipe Totec Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 05:36 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. My only knowledge of the event is through Piers Paul Read's Book



What a harrowing experience.

What bravery from those involved.

What terrible sacrifice.
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daleo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 05:32 PM
Response to Reply #9
14. Will they need an even bigger containment in the future?
It sounds like this could go on for a long time.
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kurth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 10:31 PM
Response to Original message
18. Time to replace the hardiplank
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Algorem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Sep-17-07 11:54 PM
Response to Original message
19. Glad they'll have that all ironed out then.
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Javaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 10:01 AM
Response to Original message
21. Read the book, "a world without us" and it will give you a really
scary peak into the state of the current "concrete housing" around chernobyl. It might as well be completely open to the elements. Whole areas are open to the elements.

And given that steel rusts, it will be really interesting how the poor schmucks saddled with this mess deal with it 100 years from now.
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bigworld Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 10:20 AM
Response to Original message
23. Neat photo essay
from a motorcyclist who drove through the exclusion zone. http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html
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Occulus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 10:35 AM
Response to Reply #23
25. I remember that site
There was YADD* over it, as I recall. Some people were saying that there was "no way" she could have biked through the area because the authorities weren't into allowing anyone at all anywhere near it.

I'd say the photos put the lie to that, but what do I know?

*Yet Another DU Dustup
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hunter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 11:33 AM
Response to Reply #25
26. She went on an ordinary tour.

Chernobyl and the surrounding area isn't a place you'd want to live, even though some people have moved back, but it's not a difficult place to visit.


Q: If the Chernobyl area is so dangerous how are we actually getting reports from there?
Martin Barry, Reading, United Kingdom

Stephen Mulvey: Gas masks are essential inside the sarcophagus erected over the ruins of the reactor which exploded in 1986. However, they are not necessary in the rest of the plant and in the evacuated zone around it. Some visiting journalists wear simple cloth or paper masks when in the zone (similar to the sort that might be used for DIY), and some also wear a disposable outer layer of clothes.

Most of the radiation is no longer on the surface, but has sunk to a depth of between 5cm and 10cm. The most important thing is not to eat contaminated food - in particular, mushrooms, berries, game animals or fish from contaminated areas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4946456.stm
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Feron Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-18-07 11:57 AM
Response to Reply #23
27. That was exposed as a hoax a long time ago..
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/chernobyl_trip/
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,11034749
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