Ghost Town: my rides through chernobyl area

[iGav]

This is an incredible photographic journal of a girl who rides her motorbike into the restricted area of Chernobyl... some astonishing imagery.

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

Lover her dry humour though...

As you can see, on asphalt things not bad, but if I step 10 meters forward, my dosimeter will run out of scale, if I walk few hundred meters towards reactor, then I will find 3 roengen. If I keep walking all the way to reactor, then at the end of a journey I will glow in a dark. May be this is why they call it a magic wood. this sort of a magic when one walk in in a biker leather and coming out like a knight in a shinning armour :p :p :p

It really must be incredible to experience.

[Mr. Anderson]

Wow wow wow! That's just freaky!

So much weird stuff and quite sad.

The Election House was an interesting look into 1980's politics of Russia "It's was quite boring to go on ellection where one could only vote for one candidate and for one party. People haven't been coming. Then, in order to bring people on ellections, authorities arranged free drinks."

D

[takao]

i hope some pro-nuclear-plant people look at those pictures and change their mind....

perhaps the biggest natural disaster brought about the world made by mankind... if i think about those thousands of workers which sacrified their lives as "liquidators" which decontimined everything,build the sarkophag to save million other lives.....

i wished people in other countries would have voted against nuclear plants too....

[crenz]

Thanks for posting this. It's the most impressing thing I've seen on the Internet in a long while...

[miloblithe]

Amazing. All of the signs that are still hanging are really eerie.

[evil]

that was very interesting

[voicegy]

I looked at every single picture in awe and horror...really brings home what went on over there. Thank you for posting this most interesting link.

[gwuMACaddict]

wow, very haunting.... excellent read, excellent link

[szark]

The pictures made me imagine what it must have been like to be there on that day. What a nightmare it must have been.

[G4scott]

i hope some pro-nuclear-plant people look at those pictures and change their mind....

Nuclear power is actually quite safe, when properly maintained with a trained staff. The only major catastrophe's, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, were results of human error. In the case of Three Mile Island, if human's hadn't intervened, the computer system would've fixed the small problem (something with a cooling pipe), and nothing would've happened there.

This was a horrible, accident, though, and serves as a chilling reminder what could happen if things were to go wrong.

[Laslo Panaflex]

WOW, thanks for the link, it sent chills down my spine

[takao]

Nuclear power is actually quite safe

quite safe ?
when i look at that list: http://www.anti-atom.de/stor2002.htm
(which lists up all errors in _german_ nuclear plants in the year 2002 only).. i guess they are not safe enough
the nuclear plant in Temelin had errors even before it got activated ..
:rolleyes:
sure they're safe if the crews work good
...but _one_ mistake could have consequences like 1986 (where a "mistake" happened in the control room) which would killed lots of innocences

and it costs ten times more to deconstruct an old nuclear plant ..than to built it...
perhaps "quite safe" is enough for you, but for me and more than 80% of austria (gone up from 50% before chernobyl) it is not safe enough...

[G4scott]

Well, when it's used properly, and the proper safety measures are taken, it can be safe. The US Navy has been using nuclear reactors for quite some time in extreme environments (submarines, aircraft carriers), and they have had no serious problems, because they maintain their equipment, and have a well trained staff on hand to ensure everything works properly. Just because some countries can't reliably maintain nuclear facilities doesn't mean that they're unsafe for everyone. You just have to make sure that you don't let the plants deteriorate, and you keep them well maintained and properly staffed.

[pseudobrit]

Well, when it's used properly, and the proper safety measures are taken, it can be safe. The US Navy has been using nuclear reactors for quite some time in extreme environments (submarines, aircraft carriers), and they have had no serious problems, because they maintain their equipment, and have a well trained staff on hand to ensure everything works properly. Just because some countries can't reliably maintain nuclear facilities doesn't mean that they're unsafe for everyone. You just have to make sure that you don't let the plants deteriorate, and you keep them well maintained and properly staffed.

The Navy has the resources that private enterprises don't.

Or won't pay for because it decreases profits.

Driving an automobile, when the proper safety measures are taken, is actually quite safe too. The problem is in Murphy's law and the exponentially different levels of devastation.

I was a fetus in Marietta at the time of the TMI core meltdown.

[takao]

i found another interesting link which list up most importing accidents with nuclear material etc.involved
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hitimeline/nwa/index.html
just click through the years...you will find that there are _a lot_ of accidents

very interesting read, just found it...

but i have to agree with that the US navy do a really good work about the maintance and keep their nuclear reactors rather save compared to some nuclear powerplants in civil life

i hope something is done about the russian navy ...those rusting nuclear subs lying around aren't very good for the envirment

[Stike]

Well, when it's used properly, and the proper safety measures are taken, it can be safe.
I think the problem is the balance between risk and the outcome IF something goes wrong. You will sure agree that there is nothing which is 100 % safe. If planes are the safest way to travel, it doesn´t mean planes don´t crash. Macs can crash, too. :p
I am well educated about nuclear technology by my former physics teacher (has been working at NASA for some time, decided to go back to Germany teaching ;) ) that this technology is VERY safe. I sure do trust those guys, they know it better than me (thank God). The only problem is, IF something goes wrong, and something like Chernobyl is happening, you see the outcome - 900 years and more of... *nothing* in a radius of many many miles.

We need to find a technology which has not the ability to wipe out regions if something goes wrong. Nuclear power HAS to be replaced sooner or later I say - until then, we all have to live with it and trust the people in charge and pray that nothing happens.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Nuclear Power can be just fine if done right, I was on a nuke and we had good people and a good system. The problem is when you have a poor sytem with poor management and poor people running it. How many accidents have the russians had? they had them on their subs and in Plants like Chernobyl. What I dont understand is why we have forgot about Solar,Wind, Geothermal and other clean sources of power. Seams like we are even more addicted to oil then we were in the 70s. We need to have Govt pushing clean power instead of pushing oil like George seems to be doing. Nuclear can be clean and safe but Solar, Wind & Geothermal seem to be the way. Its just to bad that the oil companies have our Govt in their pocket. As Long as Big Business have the George Bush's of the world we can forget any real push for clean green energy.

[Awimoway]

Fun site. This is the best line:

Dad is nuclear physicist and he also says that of all dangerous things in my life, he can only think about one, which is riding my bike on fifth or sixth gear.

[Koodauw]

Thank you for the link iGav. Very interesting. I will pass it along to others. Thanks again.

[pseudobrit]

I'm glad I know the Cyrillic alphabet. I saw "Pripyat" in one of the photos and it reminded me of this site:

link (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/chernobyl_poems/photos1.html)

[Opteron]

Would make a great film set, and no doubt a grat documentry one day.

It's so obvious that we live such sheltered lives here in the west. cheers for posting iGav.

I think I'll have to go there one day.

[coopdog]

Nuclear power is actually quite safe, when properly maintained with a trained staff. The only major catastrophe's, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, were results of human error. In the case of Three Mile Island, if human's hadn't intervened, the computer system would've fixed the small problem (something with a cooling pipe), and nothing would've happened there.


Wrong. It's the people that saved 3 mile island. The computer is what messed up. The reactor started having pressure problems. So the computer opened a valve on the main pressure chamber to vent some of the pressure out. Nothing to cause alarm. However the valve stuck open, spewing coolant everywhere inside the chamber, not allowing it to get to the reactor. I forget what the experts did to save it in the end, but I remember it was some darring move that was opposite of what all the readings told them to do.

[coopdog]

Does any one know what kind of readings thoes are on the thing she is carring?

never mind, maybe I should have read the captions. :rolleyes:

[Macmaniac]

Very good photojournalism, its amazing to see how the land looks almost 20 years later, its quite amazing.

[latergator116]

Thats is truly amazing and very interesting. It must be pretty erie walking through a ghost city.

[Awimoway]

I'm glad I know the Cyrillic alphabet. I saw "Pripyat" in one of the photos and it reminded me of this site:

link (http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/chernobyl_poems/photos1.html)

That's a great link. Page 8 is really interesting. Shows you how quickly nature takes back the land.

[coopdog]

I want to go there so bad now. It seems like an awsome place to just wonder around. I wonder how long you can stay there before it is hazardous.

[Doctor Q]

Nuclear-power may be a suitable power source for future space vehicles. The obvious problem is in making sure its safe to launch such a vehicle.

[coopdog]

Anything with the power of chernobyl shouldn't have a control room that looks like this. Pic (http://www-j.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/Chernobyl/Photo/Chernobyl/No1_ControlRoom_0211.jpg)

[MrMacMan]

Very Very intresting...


Thanks for the link.

[pseudobrit]

Anything with the power of chernobyl shouldn't have a control room that looks like this. Pic (http://www-j.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/Chernobyl/Photo/Chernobyl/No1_ControlRoom_0211.jpg)

TMI looked about the same; it may still.

[chewbaccapits]

She was pretty cute :)

[WinterMute]

300,000 deaths isn't even close, they terminated every pregnancy downwind of the reactor for 100 miles, they left it far too long to get those people out of the area, the first crew of firefighters were dead by the next day, it was obvious what kind of scale they were dealing with, but they still let the population suffer. Estimates of the death toll range up to 1.5 million over 30 years, not including the poor kids still being born with birth defects.

That's an amazing site Gav, I'm surprised it's so easy to get into the area, although I guess her dad's status helps.

Incidentally, legend has it that the first inspector into Three Mile Island took one look at it, said "You guy's nearly lost Washington" then fainted. I'm pretty sure they still don't know why the reactor didn't meltdown.

[OutThere]

Doing things like that can really open you up to the world...even just breaking off from society for an hour or two and wandering into the woods or along the beach, and not seeing anybody for a long period of time can make the world seem much different.

[irina]

The whole "kiddofspeed" story is an over-dramatised soap opera! I am Ukrainian. I’m a qualified power engineer and I know the details of the Chernobyl accident and the RBMK reactor design. I've been to Chernobyl and around the exclusion zone three times over the last year. This website was set up in order to satisfy Western demand for sensations.
Number of people died from direct impact of radiation during first days is around a couple of dozens, mainly firemen and first "liquidators". There were no people from Pripyat who died, as this woman says, just due to radiation they received while watching NPP’s "glow" from the roof of the tallest building in Pripyat. There were no victims among civil population at all. Population of Pripyat and nearby area was evacuated within first week without panic, everyone received due medical treatment and stayed monitored for years. People were given newly built accommodation with all required facilities all over Ukraine where they could carry on their professional careers (normally in other power plants).
All this nightmare-stories are directed to the attention of the narrow-minded Western public.

Meanwhile public opinion in Ukraine is generally pro-nuclear. Recent poles show that 43% of Ukrainians strongly support the completion of two new reactors which are due to begin their operation by the end of 2004.

Lots of useful facts can be found on http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.htm
This is the World Nuclear Association.
I would advise you to read about radiation that every one of us receives while flying. Believe me, nowadays I can't find in Chernobyl a place with the radiation level higher then in a plane while flying London-Kiev. As the Aviation Health Institute states: "[high altitude] exposure can rise from 100 to 300 times more than at sea level". This is far too higher radiation level than around "Sarcophagus" itself!
http://www.aviation-health.org/cosmic_radiation.html

[Koodauw]

I would like to hear the silence that "Hurt peoples ears" or whatever she said in the article. I thought the whole article was very fastinating

[takao]

I would advise you to read about radiation that every one of us receives while flying. Believe me, nowadays I can't find in Chernobyl a place with the radiation level higher then in a plane while flying London-Kiev. As the Aviation Health Institute states: "[high altitude] exposure can rise from 100 to 300 times more than at sea level". This is far too higher radiation level than around "Sarcophagus" itself!

because of this every pilot possses an dosimeter just like every hospital staff working at the roengten machines and both have limit yearly radiotion levels

2 years ago(during my conscript service) i had the 'joy' of NBC-Detection courses, but we were measring the radiation in (milli)sievert,sadly enough i don't remeber the limits for detection teams etc. i'll look up that as soon as possible..
but how do you calculate from roentgen to sievert ?
we were pretty surprised how much more radation is around at the place where the rain runs into the earth (from the roof : how's that called in english ?)

and the farer we moved near the east-border of austria during our 5 day exercise (oh the liters of sweat we wasted) the radiation from the ground increased all the time
and the farer in the east the more leukemy (blood cancer) or Thyroid (sp ?) cancer cases you will find ..and this is an effect noticeable in austria

sure only first fireworkes and a few one died because of radiation death but the increased cancer dieing rates (in all affected countries) speak for themselves...

[Mike Teezie]

WOW.

Thanks for link Gav. I agree with whoever said it earlier, thats one of the most interesting things I've read on the net in a long time.

[Kwyjibo]

Wrong. It's the people that saved 3 mile island. The computer is what messed up. The reactor started having pressure problems. So the computer opened a valve on the main pressure chamber to vent some of the pressure out. Nothing to cause alarm. However the valve stuck open, spewing coolant everywhere inside the chamber, not allowing it to get to the reactor. I forget what the experts did to save it in the end, but I remember it was some darring move that was opposite of what all the readings told them to do.

Actually this is not how it happened. In my Nuclear Plasma and Radiological egineering class we actually talked about this today. 3MI was preventable, and it was human errors that caused it ...

It started with a pump that broke down, the backup pumps should have gone into effect but because they were not properly checked they did not .... so the water level started to drop, the ECCS stepped into gear and began refilling it, a human saw this and started wondering why it was on because the switches had shown that things were alright, if the ECCS had been left to do its work, it would not be a disaster. The human shut down the ECCS and waste heat continued to evaporate the water until the reactor was exposed and then the humans decided it would be a good idea to pump water back in, but they really needed to pump high pressure steam in to maintain the integrity of the containtment building. if they had pumped steam instead of water we would not know about this .... but the rocks began to crack because of the extreme heat and water that began pump ... this caused the disaster ...

Reactors in the united states do not have the same possiblity to melt down like some RMBK reactors of Russia (Chernobyl). Chernobyl used Graphite to moderate the chain reactions within the core. They did this so that they could potentially extract weapons grade plutonium by products if they ever needed them ... Reactors in the united states use water as both a moderator and a coolant ... they use the same water ... this means that if the system somehow stops being cooled, it also stops being moderated and the chain reactions within the core stop ... hence the system shuts down and no disaster. Also when russians built these grpahite reactors, they did not feel containment buildings were necessary, even if a reactor flipped in the US it is enclosed in concrete and steel, so much that the reactor would become useless but it would not effect anyone nearby.

Nuclear power is not really a problem when properly operated and it poses no real security threat as some of the media portrays (new topic but important). Nuclear Powerplants use on average 3% of enriched uranium for operations .. .bombs need 90% enriched uranium to function... hence you can not detonate the uranium in a plant like a bomb also the containment buildings used here, western europe and parts of russia ... can withstand even most plane crashes because they are so massive and well buitl

thats my discourse on nuclear power so far ..

[Dippo]

Reactors in the united states do not have the same possiblity to melt down like some RMBK reactors of Russia (Chernobyl). Chernobyl used Graphite to moderate the chain reactions within the core. They did this so that they could potentially extract weapons grade plutonium by products if they ever needed them ... Reactors in the united states use water as both a moderator and a coolant ... they use the same water ... this means that if the system somehow stops being cooled, it also stops being moderated and the chain reactions within the core stop ... hence the system shuts down and no disaster. Also when russians built these grpahite reactors, they did not feel containment buildings were necessary, even if a reactor flipped in the US it is enclosed in concrete and steel, so much that the reactor would become useless but it would not effect anyone nearby.

Nuclear power is not really a problem when properly operated and it poses no real security threat as some of the media portrays (new topic but important). Nuclear Powerplants use on average 3% of enriched uranium for operations .. .bombs need 90% enriched uranium to function... hence you can not detonate the uranium in a plant like a bomb also the containment buildings used here, western europe and parts of russia ... can withstand even most plane crashes because they are so massive and well buitl

thats my discourse on nuclear power so far ..

It is also important to point out that the reactor at Chernobyl was not inside a containment building. If it was, then this accident would have been mostly contained.

Nuclear power in this country is closely regulated by the NRC, and is very safe.

Edit: That was a wonderful website, the pictures were fascinating.

[guyute]

this is absolutely fascinating!

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Nuclear power in this country is closely regulated by the NRC, and is very safe.

Unlike in THIS country - A report has just been released, stating that the Sellafield Nuclear Facility needs a MAJOR overhaul, and nobody seems THAT concerned about it...

Reactors such as the ones at Sellafield (military facility), and Oldbury (Magnox - aka. Calder Hall variety, and prone to malfunctions) are amongst the most antequated around.

I find it really disturbing that there are factions against such options as "wind power" - Scotland, for example, is one of the windiest and desolate places on earth (with only 15% of the land populated), so it would be an IDEAL location for massive wind-power stations. They DON'T affect the landscape, and they DON'T generate pollution.

AND - they look cool, and sound wicked! ;)


I, too, was really captivated by the website - the photos (especially the kindergarten shots at the end) were incredibly moving. In this day-and-age, you'd want the best for your children - it's sad how economics overrides the desire to protect your loved ones...

[cb911]

i came accross this link as well. very interesting stuff, although i haven't had time to go through it all yet, but i will.

[krimson]

as an inquisitive western resident, i found it very interesting, and I'd love to take a few days to tour the "zone"... ;D

[bont]

Seeings as this thread has already been newly revived I thought I'll mention that yesterday the Kidofspeed website was featured in the reviews section of The Independent newspaper.

[Kwyjibo]

I find it really disturbing that there are factions against such options as "wind power" - Scotland, for example, is one of the windiest and desolate places on earth (with only 15% of the land populated), so it would be an IDEAL location for massive wind-power stations. They DON'T affect the landscape, and they DON'T generate pollution.

Wind power is largely ineffective because of the cost, maintenance and size of the operation required to match one power plant of any other nature.... To produce an effective amount of electricity windmills need to be huge because their power is proportional to their area. Also windmills work best when they get away from the ground, so that means you start filling the landscape with windmills that are erected really high up and your going to need several to even come close to match a relaible nuclear plant, also keep in mind that these are much more temperate to the weather and less relaible. I don't have the exact energy figures for a top of the line high speed low torque windmill but they are around here somewhere ...

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I don't have the exact energy figures for a top of the line high speed low torque windmill but they are around here somewhere ...

I can hear you rifling through your desktop now, papers rustling...


:D

[Kwyjibo]

I can hear you rifling through your desktop now, papers rustling..
:D

hmmm those must be good ears ...

[kiwi_the_iwik]

All the better to hear you with...

[parrothead]

The whole "kiddofspeed" story is an over-dramatised soap opera! I am Ukrainian. I’m a qualified power engineer and I know the details of the Chernobyl accident and the RBMK reactor design. I've been to Chernobyl and around the exclusion zone three times over the last year. This website was set up in order to satisfy Western demand for sensations.
Number of people died from direct impact of radiation during first days is around a couple of dozens, mainly firemen and first "liquidators". There were no people from Pripyat who died, as this woman says, just due to radiation they received while watching NPP’s "glow" from the roof of the tallest building in Pripyat. There were no victims among civil population at all. Population of Pripyat and nearby area was evacuated within first week without panic, everyone received due medical treatment and stayed monitored for years. People were given newly built accommodation with all required facilities all over Ukraine where they could carry on their professional careers (normally in other power plants).
All this nightmare-stories are directed to the attention of the narrow-minded Western public.

Meanwhile public opinion in Ukraine is generally pro-nuclear. Recent poles show that 43% of Ukrainians strongly support the completion of two new reactors which are due to begin their operation by the end of 2004.

Lots of useful facts can be found on http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.htm
This is the World Nuclear Association.
I would advise you to read about radiation that every one of us receives while flying. Believe me, nowadays I can't find in Chernobyl a place with the radiation level higher then in a plane while flying London-Kiev. As the Aviation Health Institute states: "[high altitude] exposure can rise from 100 to 300 times more than at sea level". This is far too higher radiation level than around "Sarcophagus" itself!
http://www.aviation-health.org/cosmic_radiation.html


You might as well just say that it didn't happen. So there's no radiation left? Why is the town deserted? This sounds like Soviet propaganda to me. How do you know that only dozens of people died? Were you there? Or were you just listening to what one of the most secretive governments on earth told you? Back in 1990 on a trip to Germany, the family I stayed with and many others told me of how radiation from Chernobyl could still be detected in the soil. This was thousands of miles away. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the people in the town less than a mile from the reactor suffered no ill effects.

[sonofslim]

hate to be a downer, but... (http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread.asp?fid=1&threadid=8951)

google it, there's plenty more discussion out there.