[Specop_007]

And that is why a simpler life using less energy is the better option.

And then we would see pictures of starving children, and children dying of diseases that otherwise could be cured.

The pictures are sad to be sure, but unfortunately thats just the nature of life. There is no easy answer and no easy solution.

[UIUCstudent01]

And then we would see pictures of starving children, and children dying of diseases that otherwise could be cured.

Of course, your realize, that nuclear power isn't necessary for basic sanitation and healthy, plentiful food. We pretty much achieved all that without nuclear power.

[Ludi]

And then we would see pictures of starving children, and children dying of diseases that otherwise could be cured.

The pictures are sad to be sure, but unfortunately thats just the nature of life. There is no easy answer and no easy solution.

Nuclear energy does not keep people from starving. Basic medicine does not require nuclear energy, either. Most disease is caused from lack of sanitation and bad water, both of which can be solved simply without nuclear energy.

Nuclear power is a superfluous boondoggle.

[Specop_007]

And then we would see pictures of starving children, and children dying of diseases that otherwise could be cured.

Of course, your realize, that nuclear power isn't necessary for basic sanitation and healthy, plentiful food. We pretty much achieved all that without nuclear power.

I realize that. I'm just trying to point out there is no perfect balance at this point. Maybe 50 years ago we could have went less energy intensive and still fed the masses and kept the wheels turnin. But at this point, we're so overextended as a species we cant get a happy balance. Either we keep the high energy lifestyle, or we watch people die.

[Tanada]

More biodiversity at Chernobyl

Some 100 species on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of threatened species, as well as bear and wolf, have been found in the evacuated zone. But adults tend to be healthy, implying that those harmed by radiation die young.
However, with some 40 different radioactive elements -- including strontium-90 and decay products of uranium and plutonium -- released into the exclusion zone, it will be many hundreds of millennia before humans could live in the area again, said Dolin.

http://www.physorg.com/news5774.html

Now that 21 years have passed we have more than ample proof that the radiation hysteria while useful in the first three years is nothing but a liabillity to the locals who were evacuated at this point in time. Under the 7/10 rule the radiation level for 95% of the exclusion zone has decayed to the point where it is comperable or below background levels in many occupied cities world wide where natural sources provide more input.

[Newsseeker]

At least the wolves are okay to some extent. Too bad about the humans.

[The_Toecutter]

This is little surprise, really. Nothing will strengthen the gene pool like good old radioactive isotopes. The organisms that thrive here will have much lower mortality rates than their weaker counterparts if they were placed in an area that's not as dangerous.

[gampy]

Some of you may know this story, or know of Elena...

For those not familiar...here is Elena's travelogue through the Chernobyl dead-zone.

Fascinating, and somewhat troubling for those who believe nuclear power is wise for "developing" nations.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Enjoy the ride.

[Tanada]

Some of you may know this story, or know of Elena...

For those not familiar...here is Elena's travelogue through the Chernobyl dead-zone.

Fascinating, and somewhat troubling for those who believe nuclear power is wise for "developing" nations.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

Enjoy the ride.

Gampy you have been taken in by a hoaxer, look at these links. NYTimes

They include stories as varied as two headed mutants breeding in the exclusion zone to the blogs of Elena, a mysterious girl on a motorcycle, whose claims about illicit rides through the exclusion zone were taken seriously ndash. Until she was exposed as a hoax by Mary Mycio, a foreign Femdom wives of the Los Angeles Times and author of Wormwood Forest A Natural History of Chernobyl. If the true long term effects of the world’s biggest nuclear accident on the surrounding countryside are ever to be known, it has to be based on science rather than anecdote.

Myths of Chernobyl

Chernobyl today.
Saturday, March 6th, 2004
A young female Ukranian motorcyclist offers an eerie photographic tour of the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. (*)

Update: 4 April 2004. Removed old link. Current link works.

Update: 7 July 2004. The Los Angeles Times is now reporting that this Chernobyl-themed web site is a hoax. (†) In part, the story reads:

The updated site does not appear to contain any authentic images of “Elena” or a motorcycle in any Chernobyl location. Four pictures on the updated site can be traced to a Ukrainian coffee table book published in 2000, some are aerial shots, and many are anachronisms. One photo is of chemical showers that have not existed for years. In another, the tall ventilation stack of the ruined reactor looms above some saplings. But those trees have since grown so high that only the tip of the stack is visible today.

The purported author of the web site, Elena, nicknaming herself “Kidd of Speed” or “Kid of Speed,” has not responded on her site, now available to kiddofspeed.com. (‡)

A fraud exposed, and a true thing...
This one left me blinking. Not so much because it was a fraud, as why anyone would bother to create such a fraud...

Found this on the infiltrate.org forum - thought you might find it interesting. You'd wonder why somebody would go to the lengths to fake something like this.
dee

Chornobyl "Ghost Town" story is a fabrication 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

See also http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread.asp? ... eadid=8951 which includes more information from people who actually did go to Chernobyl...
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/05/fraud-exposed-and-true-thing.asp

[kadoomsoon]

Occam's razor:

Is there or is there not a dead zone?

Of course there is.

The officials are claiming this is made up.

Of course they would.

Outrageous fiction of what? A dead zone that really exists....

so what difference is it, the red herring is to think life is normal in this area

when in fact it is just like this.

get it?

And LA times says its fake, that's good enough for me, I don't believe it.

Of course she changes her story of riding into the area,,, when they look for her father who gave her the permit they will take him to siberia...

No, scarlet, there is a dead zone, and this is what it looks like.

[Grifter]

I love those pictures.

Sure I've seen them before. Especialy like the Ponies that seem to be doing ok.

A bit like the scene in 28 days later when the horses are ok.

[gampy]

Wow. That was a hoax? Lol.

It's possible that the authorities in Kiev said it was a hoax to cover up their lapses, and prevent more bad press.

At any rate...I found the website kind of interesting.

EDIT:

I looked around the web for mention of this website and "elena", and it appears that the only source of this "hoax" is from an author who is also writing a book on Chernobyl who was told by "someone" that this woman just took a guided tour and a posed with a motorcycle helmut.

Nothing I found really said anything definitive about it.

But of course...mis-information travels just as fast as information on the web. And is propagated just as easily.

Regardless...an interesting look at Chernobyl. She also has another website with more up to date information.

Caveat emptor as they say:

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddo ... rword.html

[Subjectivist]

A video drone has been sent to scope out Chernobyl, video at the link below.

A frozen Ferris wheel, poisoned forests and paint sloughing off an empty swimming pool; these are the remains of a city devastated by a nuclear disaster nearly 30 years ago.
Pripyat in Ukraine, once home to a population of 50,000, was just a few miles from the Chernobyl power plant which exploded in 1986.
Now, a Devon-based documentary maker, Danny Cooke, has captured the area in decay by flying around the abandoned area using a camera attached to a drone.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... aster.html

[sparky]

.
A nice one , a deep study of the ecological consequence of the Chernobyl Accident on the wildlife

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30197341
My Guess is that the wildlife would rather put up with the radiation than with people , even scientists

[Ichabode]

www.washingtonnewsworld.com/item/world/ ... s-accident
This guy written the article is right. Sure no government is so dumb that it would yell about critical emergency of such kind. Already Ukraine had the practice of solving Chernobyl nuclear problems on the sly when it was part of USSR.
I think just official data about radiation samples around this place would clear up a situation. But for some reason Ukrainians don't furnish with this information. And that's most disturbing.
However is it possible to repair nuclear reactor within 2 days?

[Tanada]

Pure scare mongering, the power distribution system is no different on a Nuclear reactor from those on CCGT or Coal power plants. Likeliest answer a transformer overheated and had to be replaced.

[TemplarMyst]

Agree with Tanada. Combing the various sources it looks like the idled reactor at Zaporozhskaya will be brought back online today or tomorrow.

[Pappadeux]

Pure scare mongering, the power distribution system is no different on a Nuclear reactor from those on CCGT or Coal power plants. Likeliest answer a transformer overheated and had to be replaced.

Not quite, not quite...

They lost a transformer, that's true, but transformer which is used to supply internal power to the reactor. As a result, one main circulation pump (out of 4, WWER-1000 is 4-loop reactor) stopped working. Emergency diesel generator was fired up and internal power was back and reactor was safely cooled. Should be back today or tomorrow

[galacticsurfer]

Aren't the people in ukraine having brownouts due to no coal from donbass, russia. Zaporose is near this area, biggest nuke in europe and has huge hydro dam.

[Ichabode]

It might look as scare mongering if only...

This is how it works or rather does not works. Just look at some statistics of emergency accidents at Ukrainian NPP since 1984 to the end of 2011:

danger.in.ua/en/articles/nuclear_emerg.html

All those power stations are nuclear time bombs. Mind you that the accidents became more frequent since 2007 when first attempts of US reactor fuel usage were registered. And once again South-Ukrainian NPP made another risky experiment mixing two types of fuel. And now it's repair has been entrusted to some shady company.

Finland refused changing its Soviet-like power plants. Czechs burned their fingers and also knocked it off. Ukraine is a stockroom of a dangerous nuclear crap as old as hills. Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you. This is a safety matter, you know.