THE LONG SHADOW OF CHERNOBYL: The Zone
On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 am, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant blew up after operators botched a safety test, triggering the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date. Twenty years later, the long shadow of Chernobyl continues to darken lives - socially, environmentally, and physically.
From the first day, officials downplayed the damages of the Chernobyl disaster and the politics of misinformation continues:
A recent United Nations report claims as the result of the disaster an estimated four thousand people will eventually succumb to cancer-related illnesses. But, Greenpeace and other environmental organizations have accused this report of whitewashing Chernobyl’s impact and state that 200,000 people have already died between 1994 and 2000 as a consequence of the accident.
The Chernobyl Power Plant, located 65 miles northwest of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, sits inside the fenced 30 km Exclusion Zone. Radioactive remnants of the failed reactor linger inside the so-called sarcophagus, a 24-story concrete and steel encasement hastily erected after the accident. Radiation levels are so high there that heavily protected workers are only allowed one shift of 15 minutes per day. The evacuated town of Prypyat, once inhabited by 50,000 Chernobyl plant workers, is a chilling ghost town still littered with the remnants of its hasty abandonment. Within the Exclusion Zone, in dozens of abandoned villages collapsed houses are disappearing under overgrowth; stray dogs - looking more like wolves - maraud for food. Ignoring radiation levels, 400 elderly people have returned to their homes.
And the conservatives in this country want nuclear power , when we have the worlds best supply of renewable energy.Hard to make money out of renewables , better to dig everything up and sell to China.Might start learning Mandarin.
The fear and loathing of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island persist, but the "big city, trendy, I can beat you on a moral issue over a $10 cup of coffee, political correct, greenie, intellectually driven without practical knowlege" voter assumes that scientists have learned nothing about nuclear power and it's waste management since.
Poor them and their egotistical ignorance.
I believe there should be two power grids. The "Domestic Power Grid" and the "Industrial Power Grid".
As it stands the domestic user is subsidising the industrial user.
The "Domestic Grid" should be powered by renewables such as solar, wind tide, etc so that they (who are they) can stop bugging us with their "guilt complex, save the planet agenda".
The "Industrial Grid" should be powered by whatever means available provided strict environmental requirements are met and a (say 10%) surcharge is paid for R&D into development of sustainable energy scources to the benefit of all man and natural kind.
The "Domestic Grid" should be available to all domestic power users but optional in that if a user wants to have a "Stand Alone" system, there is no compulsion to be connected to the grid but available by choice.
The C.S.I.R.O., that you and I fund through taxes, proved that a "Stand Alone" power system for modern inner city households WORKS, some 30 years ago.
The gubnment doesn't want you to know about that though.
I guess you 30 somethings missed that one.
30 something's havent missed it, just alot ignorantly jump on the green/media propaganda bandwagon.
200,000 people have died have they, try 56.
The study does state that only 56 individuals are known to have died from the Chernobyl accident - 47 from acute radiation-caused illnesses in the immediate aftermath and 9 children from thyroid cancer.
Power problems for housing could be fixed easily
a domestic 12vdc system could power every need
of the household, and all the goods are on the market now 
They are as reliable as 240v ac. If you really want to save dollars'
Buy 3 solar panels, 2 truck batterys, and a back up wind generator
and wire your house to 12vdc. NO MORE PAYOUT ...ever. no deaths
from electrocution, It's gotta be better for the planet too.
Yeah grid tie is the go , i have a 2.6KW at home and it pumps out on average 14 KWH per day and half that goes back to the network and i get 50cents a KWH for that.It saves me around $400 a quarter.
If Australia was to go nuclear for power how many power stations would we need and where would they be located?https://www.tai.org.au/file.php?file=web_papers/WP96.pdf
And we have a good example of how well the power plants would be maintained, like of most Australian public assets.... roads, hospitals, schools, power and water infrastructure. 
That kid of speed story is a bit of a crock... the pics are good but they were just taken on some chernobyl tour that thousands of people take every year..
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Chornobyl "Ghost Town" story is a fabrication TOP <#top>
e-POSHTA subscriber Mary Mycio writes:
I am based in Kyiv and writing a book about Chornobyl for the Joseph Henry
Press. Several sources have sent me links to the "Ghost Town" photo essay
included in the last e-POSHTA mailing. Though it was full of factual
errors, I did find the notion of lone young woman riding her motorcycle
through the evacuated Zone of Alienation to be intriguing and asked about
it when I visited there two days ago.
I am sorry to report that much of Elena's story is not true. She did not
travel around the zone by herself on a motorcycle. Motorcycles are banned
in the zone, as is wandering around alone, without an escort from the zone
administration. She made one trip there with her husband and a friend. They
traveled in a Chornobyl car that picked them up in Kyiv.
She did, however, bring a motorcycle helmet. They organized their trip
through a Kyiv travel agency and the administration of the Chornobyl zone
(and not her father). They were given the same standard excursion that most
Chernobyl tourists receive. When the Web site appeared, Zone Administration
personnel were in an uproar over who approved a motorcycle trip in the
zone. When it turned out that the motorcycle story was an invention, they
were even less pleased about this fantasy Web site.
Because of those problems, Elena and her husband have changed the Web site
and the story considerably in the last few days. Earlier versions of the
narrative lied more blatantly about Elena taking lone motorcycle trips in
the zone. That has been changed to merely suggest that she does so, which
is still misleading.
I would not normally bother to correct someone's silly Chornobyl fantasy.
Indeed, correcting all the factual errors and falsehoods in "Ghost Town"
would consume as much space as the Web site itself. But the motorcycle
story was such an outrageous fiction that I thought the readers of e-Poshta
should know.
Mary Mycio, J.D.
Legal Program Director
IREX U-Media
Shota Rustaveli St. 38b, No. 16
Kyiv 01023, Ukraine
Tel: (380-44) 220-6374, 228-6147
Fax: 227-7543
I read somewhere that Italian Mafia is organising the removal of the radioactive waste in Europe.
An SOS is issues, whilst the ship is over a deep sections of the Mediteranean sea.
The ship disapears, and no crew is ever reported missing.
Of course, this may be as true as the Russian Scientists reports of 47 deaths, and no other damage, but we never hear what's happening with the waste.
Rather, we choose to put our heads into sand.
It's not good enough for an old polititian to tell me "trust me it will be fine".
Or a scientific propeller head dreaming of leaving the mark to tell me it's all under control.
BTW, the radiation is good for the life on Earth. It promotes mutation and helps with the evolution.
And I know it for a fact, as I read it in the paper.
It's only bad for us
