Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/04/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 03:31 PM 4/25/06 -0400, Walt Johnson wrote: >Unfortunately, I'll bet many right wingers reacted to Chernobyl much >the same way the Reagan administration did to KAL 007. You know, God >points a finger at the Evil Empire. Walt It is a bit more complex than that. The USSR opted for cutting some technical edges which ought not to have been cut, and the Chernobyl disaster resulted. The only "right-wing" comment on the event was to point out the danger of allowing a single entity -- the same government agency -- to design, build, and inspect something as dangerous as a nuclear pile. (In the West, nuclear plants are designed by private industry to government standards, and are inspected by an agency completely distinct from that which set out the standards, to ensure inspection by a neutral entity.) There are some engineers on this List who probably can speak to more detail about this, but I would direct your attention to the rather lengthy report run in THE ECONOMIST, a publication of a mildly pinkish nature, around 1986 or 1987, which discussed the technical gaps the Soviets attempted to jump and did so though, in the end, unsuccessfully. The other side is that Chernobyl was one of seeral dozens of Soviet power plants using the same technology, and the others are still in use today. The successor governments will not tell us much about safety measures taken to ensure no repeat of the Chernobyl disaster. The good news is that Northern Hemisphere winds normally blow west to east. The bad news for Sweden, a nation of appallingly arrogant insistence that it had no dog in the Cold War fight, was that the winds briefly blew from Chernobyl to Sweden. Couldn't have happened to a better target. But, in the future, if such a problem should occur again, the radiation path will probably spread over Russia and not over western Europe. Mind you, I am not in favor of nuclear disasters but a well-run nuclear plant is the most effective method for the production of power. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!