Chernobyl going solar
August 1, 2016 7:31 AM Subscribe
The world’s most famous and damaging nuclear meltdown is now being considered for the world’s largest solar power plant. “The Chernobyl site has really good potential for renewable energy,” Ukraine’s environment minister Ostap Semerak, 44, said at an interview in London. “We already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations, the land is very cheap and we have many people trained to work at power plants.”
The land is cheap? That was totally unexpected.
posted by lmfsilva at 7:46 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by lmfsilva at 7:46 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
i don't want no radioactive electricity coming over the wires into my house! -someone, somewhere, probably
posted by entropicamericana at 7:46 AM on August 1, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 7:46 AM on August 1, 2016 [17 favorites]
Great. Giant mutant solar panels tromping all over the landscape.
posted by Etrigan at 7:48 AM on August 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 7:48 AM on August 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
Get out of here, Stalker, you're blocking the sun.
posted by I-baLL at 8:01 AM on August 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by I-baLL at 8:01 AM on August 1, 2016 [12 favorites]
quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon: "and hey, it glows all night!"As I understand it, you now receive less harmful radiation from spending 24 hours in Chernobyl than from taking a trans-Atlantic flight.
posted by brokkr at 8:01 AM on August 1, 2016
That does not imply that it's safe to live there. If anything it may imply that people are exposed to more radiation in high-altitude flights than they were aware of.
posted by ardgedee at 8:07 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 8:07 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Omitted from the summary: Ukraine depends on Russian natural gas imports. They've got a few rather strong motives to build renewable power plants inside their own borders.
Assuming that we can figure out how to safely construct a solar facility inside the exclusion zone, this strikes me as a pretty good idea.
(Sidenote: This will likely have some interesting challenges associated with it. How do you clear a radioactive forest?)
posted by schmod at 8:08 AM on August 1, 2016 [7 favorites]
Assuming that we can figure out how to safely construct a solar facility inside the exclusion zone, this strikes me as a pretty good idea.
(Sidenote: This will likely have some interesting challenges associated with it. How do you clear a radioactive forest?)
posted by schmod at 8:08 AM on August 1, 2016 [7 favorites]
"As I understand it, you now receive less harmful radiation from spending 24 hours in Chernobyl than from taking a trans-Atlantic flight."
Depends where in Chernobyl you are and if you just walk through it or if you do other stuff there.
posted by I-baLL at 8:13 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Depends where in Chernobyl you are and if you just walk through it or if you do other stuff there.
posted by I-baLL at 8:13 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
(Sidenote: This will likely have some interesting challenges associated with it. How do you clear a radioactive forest?)
Those challenges already exist. There's a lot of concern about the prospect of forest fires in the zone.
The area should be swampy enough that cutting down trees, cutting them into manageable pieces and then submerging them in wetlands should keep the nasties immobile for a while.
posted by ocschwar at 8:19 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Those challenges already exist. There's a lot of concern about the prospect of forest fires in the zone.
The area should be swampy enough that cutting down trees, cutting them into manageable pieces and then submerging them in wetlands should keep the nasties immobile for a while.
posted by ocschwar at 8:19 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is a cool idea, I hope it pans out.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:21 AM on August 1, 2016
posted by tobascodagama at 8:21 AM on August 1, 2016
"(Sidenote: This will likely have some interesting challenges associated with it. How do you clear a radioactive forest?)"
You don't need to . There's tons of cleared land in and around the power plant area as per google maps.
posted by I-baLL at 8:28 AM on August 1, 2016
You don't need to . There's tons of cleared land in and around the power plant area as per google maps.
posted by I-baLL at 8:28 AM on August 1, 2016
brokkr: As I understand it, you now receive less harmful radiation from spending 24 hours in Chernobyl than from taking a trans-Atlantic flight.Previously on the Blue!
posted by Spinda at 8:33 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Can I just say that I really like that page's map where all the cities are named in their native languages (but transliterated into the Roman alphabet)? So it has Praha and Wien and Moskva?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:34 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:34 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
As I understand it, you now receive less harmful radiation from spending 24 hours in Chernobyl than from taking a trans-Atlantic flight.
I mean as long as you avoid the parts with serious radioactive contamination you will avoid the parts with serious radioactive contamination.
posted by indubitable at 9:11 AM on August 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
I mean as long as you avoid the parts with serious radioactive contamination you will avoid the parts with serious radioactive contamination.
posted by indubitable at 9:11 AM on August 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
Chernobyl’s Silent Exclusion Zone (Except for the Logging)
What Mr. Kalmykov and fellow unofficial explorers of the Chernobyl zone, members of a peculiar subculture who are in their 20s and call themselves “the stalkers,” have found is more interesting still: vast tracts of clear-cutting in the ostensibly protected forest.
Mr. Kalmykov, a computer programmer who discovered the clear-cut areas while exploring the zone on his weekends, took his findings to Stop Corruption, one of the civil society groups that popped up in Ukraine after the Maidan revolution two years ago, events supposed to usher in a new era of clean government in Ukraine.
And yet on Ukraine’s dirtiest patch of land, Stop Corruption says, based on the stalkers’ evidence, the under-the-table dealings of the bureaucrats who manage the area are flourishing as always. Distracted by the 30th anniversary of the catastrophe on April 26 and the general turmoil in Ukraine, the group says, the Exclusion Zone Management Agency has turned a blind eye to the Chernobyl logging...
A logger, his sweaty face flecked with dust and sawdust, said he simply cut the trees marked by his bosses at the exclusion zone administration. “I don’t decide,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “They say we don’t need the burned logs.”
Asked if he worried about radiation, he said he did not, as by now the radiation had settled deep into the soil.
“We stamp it down so it does not come out,” he said, patting the ground with his boot. “Want to buy some wood?”
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:32 AM on August 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
What Mr. Kalmykov and fellow unofficial explorers of the Chernobyl zone, members of a peculiar subculture who are in their 20s and call themselves “the stalkers,” have found is more interesting still: vast tracts of clear-cutting in the ostensibly protected forest.
Mr. Kalmykov, a computer programmer who discovered the clear-cut areas while exploring the zone on his weekends, took his findings to Stop Corruption, one of the civil society groups that popped up in Ukraine after the Maidan revolution two years ago, events supposed to usher in a new era of clean government in Ukraine.
And yet on Ukraine’s dirtiest patch of land, Stop Corruption says, based on the stalkers’ evidence, the under-the-table dealings of the bureaucrats who manage the area are flourishing as always. Distracted by the 30th anniversary of the catastrophe on April 26 and the general turmoil in Ukraine, the group says, the Exclusion Zone Management Agency has turned a blind eye to the Chernobyl logging...
A logger, his sweaty face flecked with dust and sawdust, said he simply cut the trees marked by his bosses at the exclusion zone administration. “I don’t decide,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “They say we don’t need the burned logs.”
Asked if he worried about radiation, he said he did not, as by now the radiation had settled deep into the soil.
“We stamp it down so it does not come out,” he said, patting the ground with his boot. “Want to buy some wood?”
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:32 AM on August 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
Holy crap what will even happen with that wood...I have no idea...if you built a house, or a baby crib...yikes.
posted by emjaybee at 9:47 AM on August 1, 2016
posted by emjaybee at 9:47 AM on August 1, 2016
Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe
Against the decaying skyline here, a one-of-a-kind engineering project is rising near the remains of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.
An army of workers, shielded from radiation by thick concrete slabs, is constructing a huge arch, sheathed in acres of gleaming stainless steel and vast enough to cover the Statue of Liberty. The structure is so otherworldly it looks like it could have been dropped by aliens onto this Soviet-era industrial landscape.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:48 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Against the decaying skyline here, a one-of-a-kind engineering project is rising near the remains of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.
An army of workers, shielded from radiation by thick concrete slabs, is constructing a huge arch, sheathed in acres of gleaming stainless steel and vast enough to cover the Statue of Liberty. The structure is so otherworldly it looks like it could have been dropped by aliens onto this Soviet-era industrial landscape.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:48 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
As I understand it, you now receive less harmful radiation from spending 24 hours in Chernobyl than from taking a trans-Atlantic flight.
The relevant unit of measure is the banana equivalent dose.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:55 AM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
The relevant unit of measure is the banana equivalent dose.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:55 AM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
One of the objections to large solar panel arrays is that they damage the habitat underneath. You're occluding the light that the native plants need. Doing that to the Chernobyl land, well, it reduces temptation for illegal logging, and reduces habitat for the larger animals that might migrate out of there and take their isotopes with them.
I wonder if they can use materials already in there, to build a lot of the structures?
I hope they have a good way to protect the workers, though.
posted by elizilla at 9:57 AM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
I wonder if they can use materials already in there, to build a lot of the structures?
I hope they have a good way to protect the workers, though.
posted by elizilla at 9:57 AM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
The relevant unit of measure is the banana equivalent dose.
How does that stack up to the Twinkie equivalent dose?
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:07 PM on August 1, 2016
How does that stack up to the Twinkie equivalent dose?
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:07 PM on August 1, 2016
Twinkies are basically just artificial bananas.
posted by Etrigan at 12:20 PM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 12:20 PM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
I wonder if they can use materials already in there, to build a lot of the structures?
It'd be pretty ironic if they can slap some solar panels on top of the stainless steel coffin.
Would also side-step some of the worker safety problems with clearing radioactive forestry and rubble from the isolation zone to make space for panels.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:41 PM on August 1, 2016
It'd be pretty ironic if they can slap some solar panels on top of the stainless steel coffin.
Would also side-step some of the worker safety problems with clearing radioactive forestry and rubble from the isolation zone to make space for panels.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:41 PM on August 1, 2016
“We already have high-voltage transmission lines that were previously used for the nuclear stations,"
Ugh, this. I drove past San Onofre with its spiderweb of dead transmission last week and thought about all that waste and what it would take to clean it up.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:15 PM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
Ugh, this. I drove past San Onofre with its spiderweb of dead transmission last week and thought about all that waste and what it would take to clean it up.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:15 PM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]
As I understand it, you now receive less harmful radiation from spending 24 hours in Chernobyl than from taking a trans-Atlantic flight.
This isn't really true IMO. I've carried geiger counters and scintillators on flights and in the exclusion zone, and my conclusion is that it is quite easy for this to be true if you just stay in a particularly clean area for the whole time, but realistically that's not going to be how it goes (unless for example you're only there for office work which is in a clean building in a clean area. (Of course there are also offices with unsettling levels...))
But if anyone is curious to take a geiger counter onto a flight, it's pretty interesting - if you graph your readings you'll get a sort of --../'''''\..--- shape - the readings first drop as you leave the ground (a source of radiation) but you still have atmosphere shielding you from cosmic stuff, then readings rise as you get higher and have less atmosphere above, then the reverse happens as you descend. Hmm, perhaps you could use a radiation meter as an altimeter? :)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:49 PM on August 1, 2016 [13 favorites]
This isn't really true IMO. I've carried geiger counters and scintillators on flights and in the exclusion zone, and my conclusion is that it is quite easy for this to be true if you just stay in a particularly clean area for the whole time, but realistically that's not going to be how it goes (unless for example you're only there for office work which is in a clean building in a clean area. (Of course there are also offices with unsettling levels...))
But if anyone is curious to take a geiger counter onto a flight, it's pretty interesting - if you graph your readings you'll get a sort of --../'''''\..--- shape - the readings first drop as you leave the ground (a source of radiation) but you still have atmosphere shielding you from cosmic stuff, then readings rise as you get higher and have less atmosphere above, then the reverse happens as you descend. Hmm, perhaps you could use a radiation meter as an altimeter? :)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:49 PM on August 1, 2016 [13 favorites]
How do you clear a radioactive forest?
Nukes.
posted by Behemoth at 8:49 PM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
Nukes.
posted by Behemoth at 8:49 PM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
I find this quite ironic.
Nuclear power, yeah!
Whoops, we've screwed up and poisoned the whole area for a long time
.
Now what so we do with it?
We'll put up clean, safe solar power!
posted by BlueHorse at 12:05 AM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
Nuclear power, yeah!
Whoops, we've screwed up and poisoned the whole area for a long time
.
Now what so we do with it?
We'll put up clean, safe solar power!
posted by BlueHorse at 12:05 AM on August 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
Wait—why do we think cutting down all the trees in Europe's biggest and best accidental wildlife preserve is better than, say, not doing that?
Every time I leave my little theater to head home for the day, when I pass the gigantic blue-black sea of solar panels in a clear-cut stretch behind the USDA, I can't help but wonder how that's ecologically much different than just paving the place.
posted by sonascope at 7:38 AM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
Every time I leave my little theater to head home for the day, when I pass the gigantic blue-black sea of solar panels in a clear-cut stretch behind the USDA, I can't help but wonder how that's ecologically much different than just paving the place.
posted by sonascope at 7:38 AM on August 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Wait—why do we think cutting down all the trees in Europe's biggest and best accidental wildlife preserve is better than, say, not doing that?"
Eh, you do realize that any animal that eats from that area becomes radioactive?
Either way, I've no idea why people are talking about cutting down trees in a power plant area. The power plant isn't built on top of trees. The area of the plant, as well as the immediate area surrounding it, is already clear of trees.
posted by I-baLL at 8:09 AM on August 2, 2016
Eh, you do realize that any animal that eats from that area becomes radioactive?
Either way, I've no idea why people are talking about cutting down trees in a power plant area. The power plant isn't built on top of trees. The area of the plant, as well as the immediate area surrounding it, is already clear of trees.
posted by I-baLL at 8:09 AM on August 2, 2016
Surprise! By Solar powered, they actually mean the Sim City "Microwave" powerplant, where a satelitte beams a concentrated death ray of sunshine down to the receiving satellite dish.
What could go wrong?
posted by cacofonie at 8:30 AM on August 2, 2016
What could go wrong?
posted by cacofonie at 8:30 AM on August 2, 2016
Wait—why do we think cutting down all the trees in Europe's biggest and best accidental wildlife preserve is better than, say, not doing that?
The story by the stalkers implies that the loggers are operating illegally, but the authorities don't care and/or have been paid off.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:35 AM on August 2, 2016
The story by the stalkers implies that the loggers are operating illegally, but the authorities don't care and/or have been paid off.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:35 AM on August 2, 2016
Surprise! By Solar powered, they actually mean the Sim City "Microwave" powerplant, where a satelitte beams a concentrated death ray of sunshine down to the receiving satellite dish.
And if it misses: radioactive forest fire. Yay!
posted by acb at 10:05 AM on August 2, 2016
And if it misses: radioactive forest fire. Yay!
posted by acb at 10:05 AM on August 2, 2016
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posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 7:40 AM on August 1, 2016 [8 favorites]