I was particularly struck by a quote in this CNN article:
We don’t have to rely on God’s forbearance. We can seek out some energy source with a shorter half-life, or live with reduced energy use.
If this disater is repeated, it will be our fault.
Sailboat
Christ Jesus, those poor children . . .
How much of the really nasty isotopes have decayed away by now? Yes Chernobyl was a disaster, but by now, most of the higly radioctive fallout has decayed. As for the dangerous alpha-radiation emitters-how bad is that in the Chernobyl area? I also understand that the RMBK reactor design is not especially dangerous-the massive graphite mass can absorb a lot of heat. The problem was that the reactor operators had turned off the safety systems, and diabled the cooling pumps. they then throttled down the reactor, to the point where the power output became unstable.
ralph124c if this page is correct in what it says, it is worse in places now than it was just after the disaster. This page gives explanations of the various kinds of radiation. Here is a Wikipedia article on Americium 241.
Adding to be clear, Americium 241 emits gamma radiation.
Here’s an interesting photo essay.
Cowgirl Jules, there are some excerpts from that book in the NPR link I put in my OP, which I linked to in my first post in this topic.
Are you sure this is because of Chernobyl? Why would North Wales be contaminated from Chernobyl? Can you give a link to where you got this from?
Now all you have to do is provide some scholarly links that show the gamma rays released by the Americium 241 involved are worse than the Americium 241 in my smoke detector.
Samclem the link Cowgirl Jules provides backs up what Rayne Man says. The poison winds went far, and affected several parts of Europe. The U.S. was able to detect radiation from Chernobyl, though I am not certain at this point in time as to when. (I am thinking it was May 1st, but the date might have been May 9th.)
Well, even you must grant that the miniscule amount found in your smoke detector is not the same as the amounts in the soil and plants of the areas that got the heaviest fall out, and that now are saturated with Americium 241. I think your analogy is flawed. :dubious:
That´s depressing, it makes you want to scream and curse those idiots and their stupid “experiment”; what were they thinking!
It was like causing a gas leak and saying, “Now I´ll light a match and see what happens”. And they did it on an uncontained reactor of all places, what were they thinking…
Now the blight of their incompetence will lay on the land for centuries and children will be born without hope for a life for generations.
Pulling up the contamination map (found on the menu) on the site Cowgirl Jules linked I see that it was on May 5/6 that the U.S. detected radation from Chernobyl, so I was mistaken as to precisely when that was earlier.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard about Chernobyl blowing up, and that’s because I was working in a trailer at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant at the time. I remember looking out the trailer window at the plant’s cooling towers and wishing I was anywhere else but there.
This was certainly because of Chernobyl. The radiation cloud drifted that far. As for the link , try this . Although that article dates from 2003 it is still relevant. BBC TV ran a similar news-feature just this week.
I have now found a more up-to-date article :- Farmers Weekly