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Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

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Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#61

Post by rdslw »

dweekly wrote: post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

Knowing many Belarusians, they recommend reading book by Aleksievich which is a written down summary of 500 individual discussions with first hand eye witnesses/victims of the event.

Highly recommended.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#63

Post by yareally »

trhway wrote: post #50
tptacek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belarus is different from its neighbors in more significant ways than its proximity to Chernobyl; it's famously "the last dictatorship in Europe". Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it's economy has been weaker than its neighbors, as has its ties to the European Union.

That isnt a factor here for at least two reasons: 1. It doesn't have geographical distribution correlation that the Chernobyl fallout has with the cancer rates increase. 2. The Belarus per-capita GDP is more than 2x that of Ukraine.

I believe much of that drop is due to the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, followed by the invasion of Donbass. The drop off can be seen in the link below starting in 2014 when the invasion was initiated:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...

You're technically correct (depending on where you find the GDP data), but I don't believe it would be the case if the invasion and annexation had not happened. The numbers prior to 2014 show Ukraine with a much higher GDP than Belarus

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#64

Post by wefarrell »

legitster wrote: post #12
gukov wrote: post #3

Highly recommend the HBO's new miniseries Chernobyl. One episode left. It's already at the top of IMDB TV show rankings. [1] https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/

A bit over-dramatized, but very, very good. Although I do not really like the decision to reduce the entire engineering team to a single character. I get that it simplifies the writing and casting, but it just perpetrates the lone scientist myth. It could have been really compelling to take the time to show the group effort.

The lone scientist hero myth is hardly unique to science, it's an abstraction that you see in all narratives that use a leader to represent a group.

There are few scientific characters because the show chooses to focus on the political/systemic failure rather than the technical one. It shows us the leaders who bury their heads in the sand, the clueless residents who suffer as a result, and the liquidators who are aware of the dangers and make the sacrifice regardless.

It's more a show about communism than it is about nuclear power, and I really like their take on the disaster.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#65

Post by equasar »

legitster wrote: post #12
gukov wrote: post #3

Highly recommend the HBO's new miniseries Chernobyl. One episode left. It's already at the top of IMDB TV show rankings. [1] https://www.imdb.com/chart/toptv/

A bit over-dramatized, but very, very good. Although I do not really like the decision to reduce the entire engineering team to a single character. I get that it simplifies the writing and casting, but it just perpetrates the lone scientist myth. It could have been really compelling to take the time to show the group effort.

It amazes me how there can be a small digit number of people that always will be complaining for something that is truly remarcable well done.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#66

Post by tptacek »

yareally wrote: post #63
trhway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isnt a factor here for at least two reasons: 1. It doesn't have geographical distribution correlation that the Chernobyl fallout has with the cancer rates increase. 2. The Belarus per-capita GDP is more than 2x that of Ukraine.

I believe much of that drop is due to the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, followed by the invasion of Donbass. The drop off can be seen in the link below starting in 2014 when the invasion was initiated: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... You're technically correct (depending on where you find the GDP data), but I don't believe it would be the case if the invasion and annexatio…

Poland is also a neighbor of Belarus and a former Eastern Bloc country. But I will cop to not researching this carefully; if I had the comment to write over again, I would have stopped at "last dictatorship in Europe".

I have never been to Belarus or Ukraine and have no real desire to, though Poland is pretty high on my list.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#67

Post by rootusrootus »

moxie wrote: post #19
dweekly wrote: post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident. One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear…

> One thing I've found interesting in talking about > Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often > willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they > confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively > "safe" even in case of disaster.

I figure it balances out the people who are extremely critical of nuclear power and accept that there could actually have been a 5 megaton explosion.

I'm not a strong advocate of nuclear power myself, but I tend to discount the value of Chernobyl as an argument for/against nuclear power. It was a terrible design in addition to being old, had little in the way of containment, and the games the operators were playing with the plant were off-the-charts stupid. Compared even to the oldest commercial Western-design reactors, it is a horrid contraption.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#68

Post by trhway »

yareally wrote: post #63
trhway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isnt a factor here for at least two reasons: 1. It doesn't have geographical distribution correlation that the Chernobyl fallout has with the cancer rates increase. 2. The Belarus per-capita GDP is more than 2x that of Ukraine.

I believe much of that drop is due to the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, followed by the invasion of Donbass. The drop off can be seen in the link below starting in 2014 when the invasion was initiated: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... You're technically correct (depending on where you find the GDP data), but I don't believe it would be the case if the invasion and annexatio…

>The numbers prior to 2014 show Ukraine with a much higher GDP than Belarus

Not really. Even back then the Ukraine per capita was still noticeably below Belarus - having 4.5x population it had 3x GDP at best.

Anyway, my point is that the macro-economical/macro-social things like for example per-capita GDP or government style have nothing to do with cancer rates there (overwise Poland, Russia, Ukraine would have huge differences among themselves), and definitely those macro-factors dont have geographical distribution like Chernobyl fallout to explain the Belarus cancer picture.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#70

Post by vonmoltke »

wyldfire wrote: post #57

> This cost $1.8 billion to construct, $60 million a year to maintain, What are the maintenance costs for The Object? Is it monitoring/auditing or is there active construction/repair?

If you are talking about the New Safe Containment structure, then the plan is to disassemble the original sarcophagus and remove as much as can be done safely. Its not merely a static entombment structure (though that is its failsafe function).
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