Any chance there's a Russian version of this somewhere?
Not what your asking for but these are stories from the same event in Russian: https://whatisnuclear.com/chernobyl/memories_ru.html
Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
21–30 of 132 posts
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a number of problems with nuclear power. 1. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1]. 2. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're seismically active). 3. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants. Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reaso…
> in terms of cost, risks, environmental impact and power output, hydro is hard to beat if it's an option. The death tolls tell a different story. You aren't alone in this belief, but I've never really understood it. Banqiao dam bursts and kills 170,000 people: hydro is fine, we should do more. Chernobyl melts down and kills 30: nuclear power is inherently unsafe! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.…
You're not taking into account all the people who didn't die immediately but long before their time because of cancer.
“I know three women my age (between 30–40) who have experienced thyroid cancer. When one of them was surprised to get the diagnosis, her doctor told her they see women our age from the Soviet Union very frequently with the same. Not a coincidence.” — Z. K.
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a number of problems with nuclear power. 1. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1]. 2. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're seismically active). 3. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants. Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reaso…
Notice how reprocessing or fast breeders solve problems 1 and 4. As for 3 the US has never had an release of radioactivity to the environment from a nuclear reactor aboard a ship or submarine in several thousand years of operation time.
That's not correct, there have been several releases of radioactivity from US military vessels. This is all prior to the late 1980s, since the mid 1970s many controls and monitors were added to prevent releases.
Personally I'd attribute this to lack of awareness rather than lack of budget. The Soviet program looks quite different.
December 12, 1971, The USS Dace spilled 1,900 litres of radioactive coolant water in to the Thames River, Connecticut.
Undisclosed location, radioactive resin being dumped at sea from the USS Guardfish blows back on to the vessel.
May 22, 1978, USS Puffer releases another 1,900l of radioactive water near Puget Sound, Washington, United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...
Apparently 'millions of gallons' of primary loop coolant was released in to the environment prior to 1973. This even references some sources if you want to dig deeper http://www.environment-hawaii.org/?p=3836
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#24The interviews are interesting. I was a kid those days, and my mother keeps telling me that diary products were suddenly put on a sale (before the news release). I live in Eastern-Europe, in the former Warsaw Pact bloc. My father worked in a research institute, so managed to get a hold of the information before the official announcements. He told her not to buy any diary or vegetable for a while. ---- What troubles m…
There are a number of problems with nuclear power. 1. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1]. 2. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're seismically active). 3. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants. Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reaso…
Hydro is great, so great that around 90% of dammable rivers are already used for power generation. Further hydro generation is not really possible so it will never fulfill more than a fraction of energy needs.
Wind is an excellent source for some countries. Much of the US is great for wind generation and unlike hydro the resource is largely untapped. Wind is unpredictable but averages out over large areas. It will never be a base source but has much potential remaining.
Solar is held back by cost alone. All predictions point to solar providing the majority of our electricity in the future.
Nuclear fuel is essentially unlimited. Uranium is in seawater and if prices rise high enough we can extract from that and basically never run out. On top of that thorium is also usable as fuel if we ever get around to building anything that uses it.
In some countries the best power source is nuclear. If you don't have a lot of wind, water, or sun, your options become limited to fossil fuel or nuclear.
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#25I was five in Estonia when it happened. I remember:
- being told not to keep water in my cup anymore in kindergarten.
- dad going to grandparents farm for a few weeks (to hide from mobilisation into cleanup crew).
- a few frames of TV news about the helicopters flying over the reactor (tho this memory could be from years later).
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
> in terms of cost, risks, environmental impact and power output, hydro is hard to beat if it's an option. The death tolls tell a different story. You aren't alone in this belief, but I've never really understood it. Banqiao dam bursts and kills 170,000 people: hydro is fine, we should do more. Chernobyl melts down and kills 30: nuclear power is inherently unsafe! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.…
You're not taking into account all the people who didn't die immediately but long before their time because of cancer. “I know three women my age (between 30–40) who have experienced thyroid cancer. When one of them was surprised to get the diagnosis, her doctor told her they see women our age from the Soviet Union very frequently with the same. Not a coincidence.” — Z. K.
I think it should be kept in mind that the design of Soviet reactors was incredibly unsafe compared to their western counterparts. Fukushima had four meltdowns with only a few casualties.
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not taking into account all the people who didn't die immediately but long before their time because of cancer. “I know three women my age (between 30–40) who have experienced thyroid cancer. When one of them was surprised to get the diagnosis, her doctor told her they see women our age from the Soviet Union very frequently with the same. Not a coincidence.” — Z. K.
I think it should be kept in mind that the design of Soviet reactors was incredibly unsafe compared to their western counterparts. Fukushima had four meltdowns with only a few casualties.
This is not true in this form. There were unsafe soviet designs, but also there were unsafe western designs. Soviet designs were not all categorically unsafe. The design used at Chernobyl was a problematic design, but still many layers of human error had to be involved to create the accident.
Military reactor designs are generally less safe. Civilian designs were usually OK in the USSR.
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#28This really strikes chord with how Fukushima was treated - nothing to be concerned about, citizen, move along and enjoy swimming on a Fukushima beach a year later... One would think this would happen only in communist societies but seeing it happening in Japan and everybody being fine with that was shocking. And then there were people pointing out xkcd and bananas, downplaying the effects and conflating radiation dust effects you can wash away with inhaled/ingested particles that get incorporated to bones and tissues with grim long-term effects.
Comparing to Japan, even USSR behaved in some way more responsibly as they threw a couple of million people at the problem at the cost of waging a war just to clean up what they could. All we got from Japan was there is no issue, TEPCO saying all is fine and then suddenly a big hole in the reactor where all robots stop functioning and who knows how much water continuously being contaminated for a few years already. All because panic is the bigger evil (is it? or just the "fat cats" decided it is?)
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#29Chernobyl is the earliest memory I recall. I was less than 1y old, but I can remember staring through the window into the garden not comprehending why I was not allowed to be outside like usual and everyone being in a strange mood.
Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl
#30The interviews are interesting. I was a kid those days, and my mother keeps telling me that diary products were suddenly put on a sale (before the news release). I live in Eastern-Europe, in the former Warsaw Pact bloc. My father worked in a research institute, so managed to get a hold of the information before the official announcements. He told her not to buy any diary or vegetable for a while. ---- What troubles m…
There are a number of problems with nuclear power. 1. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1]. 2. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're seismically active). 3. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants. Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reaso…
Hydro is not an option at many places. Also dams also have negative environmental impact, which is often simply ignored.
Fusion will work eventually, but currently it is in the constant "we'll be there in 30 years" since the 1970s. Yet we are not getting further, but closer to it. Just thnik about it: now you have technology in your pocket that was used in putting humans on the Moon. More and more durable and special materials becoming cheaper and affordable. We are getting close to handle the heat, EM and possibly the neutron flux. It is doable in the near future (Breeder reactors and Thorium based fuel cycle will mitigate the problem of running out of U235. Radioactive residual reprocessing will eventually be solved. Maybe peak-uranium will make it economically desireable. Btw there is current work on reprocessing spent radioactive fuel in reactors, at least in Russia and China.
I firmly beleive that while solar and wind will stay with us, they cannot be the fundamentals of our energy mix, and nuclear is here to stay. Simply many politicians are not ready to admit it yet.