August 24, 2004

Interview with a Chernobyl engineer. From where I stood I could see a huge beam of projected light flooding up into infinity from the reactor. It was like a laser light, caused by the ionisation of the air. It was light-bluish, and it was very beautiful. I watched it for several seconds.

via Slashdot. I remember reading about Chernobyl, and thinking it would have looked like fireworks, from all the burning graphite being launched into the air. This sounds worse.

posted by polychrome 20 years ago
  • Wow. The picture I have in my head... Just wow. I had a physics teacher in high school who tried to argue that Chernobyl "wasn't as bad as all that," that basically there was just some leakage of contaminated water and steam, nothing much more. That was probably my first introduction to willfully fuckfaced argument of an issue.
  • The slashdot crowd have been doing themselves proud. These links are via them, again. Guardian article/interview with an engineer Accident chronology, extent of contamination Reactor design Time magzine coverage
  • Well, to be fair, it's all about how you define "bad". I'd guess that most people's imaginations about Chernobyl would include vast desolation with occasional mutated plants and animals struggling to survive. Which isn't at all the case. On the other hand, it wasn't a relatively benign release of radioactive steam, either.
  • I have to admit that I was surprised looking at the photos taken by Elena (supposedly) motorcycling through Chernobyl at how green and lush everything was. The towns looked as you'd expect, but I had imagined utter desolation everywhere. I think that would be even worse - to look out at seemingly healthy gardens and crops and know that you couldn't harvest anything to eat because it would eventually kill you. I was only eight or nine when the whole Chernobyl thing happened and I remember almost nothing of the details, so this is enlightening. Thanks for passing on the links; I haven't read slashdot in weeks.
  • Somewhere around there's a link to an ongoing Texas Tech University study of the ecosystem around Chernobyl, with pictures and links to papers (or at least abstracts). The ecosystem is actually doing pretty good, all things considered. That doesn't mean that it wasn't damaged. The irony is that whatever damage was done by the radiation has been far more than equaled by the good the absence of humans has done. It's thriving in comparison to before the accident and the evacuation.
  • Yep. Interesting, huh?
  • <smith>Humans are a disease, Mr Kmellis.</smith>
  • Hah! We've survived nuclear explosions before - the Big Bang, f'rinstance.
  • I think I missed that one Skrik. I'll have to ask the local cockroaches about it.