Chernobyl

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Still scares the merry hell out of me to this day. That something so nightmarish, unimaginably horriifc, could happen in this nuclear age is mind-boggling. One of the worst peace time disasters in human history. I feel so much for the technicians who tried to contain the tragedy and gave their lives instead.

 

[fla4fun]

Still scares the merry hell out of me to this day. That something so nightmarish, unimaginably horriifc, could happen in this nuclear age is mind-boggling. One of the worst peace time disasters in human history. I feel so much for the technicians who tried to contain the tragedy and gave their lives instead.


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It’s even more horrifying to me because it happened seven years after Three Mile Island. TMI should have been a wake up call for every nuclear power plant in the world to make sure their systems were safe. Pennsylvania got lucky with TMI because the containment building did its job and contained the meltdown. There was a lot of concern that it would fail catastrophically and specifically, there were concerns that there would be an explosive release of radioactive gas they saw building up inside the reactor afterwards, but it held. Chernobyl did explode. Since both events were attributed to operator error, something as simple as retraining everyone at every nuclear plant after the issue at TMI might have prevented Chernobyl. We will never know.

The nuclear power plant closest to me closed around 2010 when they found that the containment building had deteriorated and was beyond repair. It will take 60 years to fully decommission it. A new one was planned for the next county north, but the plan was cancelled a few years later. So far as I know there are two left, one near Miami and one about halfway between Miami and Orlando. I worry about hurricane damage, especially since they are both literally on the beach along the Atlantic coast. The site where they had planned to build the new plant was hit directly by two hurricanes in 2024. If a hurricane caused a breach of any kind, the intense winds would spread any radioactive pollution over a vast and highly populated region.

 

[kdonnel]

the intense winds would spread any radioactive pollution over a vast and highly populated region.

The solution to our pollution is dilution!

I believe the unofficial slogan of the US nuclear navy.

 

[Praying Colonel]

If you have HBO Max, the miniseries "Chernobyl" is very good and very scary. When people talk about horror movies, these types of shows aren't included, but they're the ones that scare me the most.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Nuclear power is terrifying for so many reasons, some kind of system failure is one of the biggest reasons. With the power of AI growing by the day every single plant that exists is way too close to being hacked and turned against us for my comfort.

I can second that the miniseries Chernobyl was excellent, did a really good job humanizing the situation. All the poor people, such a sad event & it is still contaminated.