> It was posted a while back, but in case you missed it or want to revisit, here
> is a link to the Chernobyl Ghost Town Ride. A nice tour of a real world
> radioactive wasteland.
>
> http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html
Thanks for the reminder. This is one "slide show" I find myself fast
forwarding through each time. Feel a need to spread out my focus over time.
The U.S. has two similar styled reactors. No containment shells, for
research or war use. One in the south east? The other near the
Colunmbia River in Washington State.
Rumors of sloppy dumping in Washington State, or rather, containers and
hole liners that will deteriorate. Shadowy documentation about venting
of rad tainted gases all over America, **OOPPSS** , all through the
"nuclear age". 'Hopefully' trace mercury in our air, water, and fish
will be more a problem. May all our contained contaminates be "post
industrial", and not "post nuclear", or "post apocalyptic".
The nuclear plant on Lake Erie may have been down longer than it's been
putting out the mega watts. Maybe the poster child for why Americans
can not trust the nuclear industrialists. The politics and financing
cripples the engineering and ignorant, or shoddy, or corrupt supervision
of (the required) low bid contracting guarantees problems all through a
facilities 'life cycle'.
Had some tentative education in nuclear stuff while 'trying' to major in
the hard sciences. Early '70's. Years before the movie. Heard about
the "china syndrome" from professors and grad students after they toured
the local nuke plant. They joked about the lack of back up for the core
cooling, what a 'melt down' might mean. The ex navy guys were droll too.
Liked her treatment of the siege line around Kiev. Visions and vistas
of visiting the Civil War battle fields in Virginia. Seeing the trench
lines, materialize, amongst the trees in the surrounding forest.
Realizing that I'd been staring past a trench line driving through
Fredricksburg. Some folks still find 'stuff', minn'e 'balls' and horse
tack, mostly on private land near the smaller battles. For us
uneducated in historical archeology, we are more likely to find a cannon
ball in a garage sale than an earth work, or digging a foundation
footer, but it might be some track jock's practice shot put. The
question becomes: do I need a 12 pound paper weight?
4too