Chernobyl nuclear disaster: Ukraine marks anniversaryUkraine is marking the 25th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident - at the Chernobyl power plant.Chernobyl. The very word exudes the trepidation many feel towards nuclear power. Until the Chernobyl disaster, Three Mile Island was the incident many nuclear power opponents pointed to as evidence that nuclear power was unsafe. In the court of public opinion, though, the Three Mile Island accident, environmentally catastrophic as it was, didn't result in massive numbers of people falling over dead of nuclear radiation sickness.An explosion at one of the plant's reactors sent a plume of radiation across Europe and killed at least 30 people in its immediate aftermath. A disputed number of others died later from radiation-related illnesses.
Chernobyl changed that metric, with a tangible body count exacerbated by the standard Soviet stonewall of silence. Dozens were dead, possibly hundreds, with thousands poised to swell the body count over the ensuing months and years due to cancer and other nuclear-induced health problems. The Chernobyl meltdown singlehandedly kneecapped nuclear power for well over a generation, with the name striking fear into the hearts of folks not even born when the accident occurred.
Whatever your views on nuclear power, take a moment to remember the victims and the heroes that day...
That is all.
6 comments:
Calling the Three Mile Island incident "environmentally catastrophic" might be a bit of an overstatement of the facts.
Wow. Less than 50 people were have died so far from all causes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster
How many die annually from black lung or other coal mining accidents?
This disaster teaches so many lessons to the world that the Nuclear power plants are very dangerous for us and they can explode at any time so we must search for other alternate to produce power like solar energy, wind energy etc., due to these power producers we can also reduce pollution and death rate of the animals also.
TMI was an environmental disaster? How? Have you drunk the coolaid? Do you really know how much radiation was actually released?
And yes, those folks at Chernobyl (like 25?) were indeed heroes, whatever your definition of "Hero" might be.
Hey, I'm throwing a bone to the greenies here. Yes, radiation levels were low surrounding TMI, but it's all they got, yanno?
China Syndrome! ZOMG!
Even going with the worst case scenario of 40,000 gallons of radioactive water dumped into the Susquehanna River, there's little evidence that the TMI incident posed much health risk to humans.
...is prasad joking? I hope they are.
I can easily say that cars are very dangerous and can explode at any time because it propels itself through combustion and cars explode a lot in the movies.
Doesn't mean it's true, though.
Not to mention the fact that wind and solar are very environment-specific: while North Dakota is a good place for wind energy, we get next-to-no-sun up here. Nevermind the other problems with stability when you have a system that relies on something as unpredictable and fickle as the weather. Do you honestly think a wind plant would power the entirety of Grand Forks, especially in winter? I doubt it.
Let's face it, in all of history, nuclear power has caused fewer deaths than coal, not to mention puts out more stable, reliable energy than wind and solar. The French of all people get a decent chunk of their power from nuclear! The French!!
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