3 ms·

Chernobyl made around 1,000 sq mi 'uninhabitable' for around a century. (Some of the area will be safe to occupy in far less time, some in far more) If we learn

Chernobyl made around 1,000 sq mi 'uninhabitable' for around a century. (Some of the area will be safe to occupy in far less time, some in far more) If we learned nothing from that accident and had one such accident per decade while providing all the world's electricity, we would lose about 10,000 square miles of land to radioactive contamination. Those assumptions seem extremely unfavorable to me - accidents should be less frequent and less severe with modern reactor designs and sane operating procedures. But yet, powering the US alone with solar would take approximately 17,500 square miles - and irradiated zones from nuclear accidents are less damaging to the environment than solar panels are.

colordrops 7y ago
Chernobyl only took out 10,000 square miles because they got lucky. If they didn't drain water tanks it could have exploded making a huge portion of the continent uninhabitable. Also, using 17,500 square miles doesn't equal damage. The land could be reclaimed in negligible time by removing the panels, unlike nuclear contamination.
- gjm11 7y ago
  > it could have exploded making a huge portion of the continent uninhabitable Some details and references for this would be nice. I find it hard to believe, though of course sometimes things I find hard to believe turn out to be true :-).
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    The area under the reactor core was filled with water, and if the corium (molten core material) had contacted that water it would have caused a steam explosion and launched additional material outside of the reactor building. There's an interesting StackOverflow post relating to this here: [0] That just deals with the size of the steam explosion though, not the potential effects. (And for reference, I've seen the largest explosion that did occur listed as ~10T equivalent) 0: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/480113/how-large-would-the-steam-explosion-at-chernobyl-have-been https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/480113/how-large...
    - gjm11 7y ago
      The thing I'm skeptical about is the claim that this would have rendered a large part of the continent uninhabitable. The Stack Exchange discussion is interesting but (as you say) doesn't really bear on that.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        Yeah - worst case was 20x more radioactive material (well, I suppose no-seriously-wtf case would be 80x, but that requires the other three active reactors to have gone up as well) since at least 5% of the reactor core was released.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > Chernobyl only took out 10,000 square miles because they got lucky. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is a tenth of that - 1,000 square miles. 10,000 square miles is the total from one accident per decade and an average exclusion zone duration of 100 years. > If they didn't drain water tanks it could have exploded making a huge portion of the continent uninhabitable. It would have made a large part of the continent have higher radiation doses, but even with linear-no-threshold I don't think that France/UK/Spain/Italy would have been uninhabitable. Or even close to that. And the point was, even with the most incompetent leadership we've seen at a nuclear power plant, that didn't happen. > Also, using 17,500 square miles doesn't equal damage. The land could be reclaimed in negligible time by removing the panels, unlike nuclear contamination. Well, sure - you can take the solar panels and move them somewhere else if you want. But if you're using solar for power, you can't really get rid of them - just move them around.

colordrops 7y ago

Chernobyl only took out 10,000 square miles because they got lucky. If they didn't drain water tanks it could have exploded making a huge portion of the continent uninhabitable. Also, using 17,500 square miles doesn't equal damage. The land could be reclaimed in negligible time by removing the panels, unlike nuclear contamination.

gjm11 7y ago
> it could have exploded making a huge portion of the continent uninhabitable Some details and references for this would be nice. I find it hard to believe, though of course sometimes things I find hard to believe turn out to be true :-).
- DuskStar 7y ago
  The area under the reactor core was filled with water, and if the corium (molten core material) had contacted that water it would have caused a steam explosion and launched additional material outside of the reactor building. There's an interesting StackOverflow post relating to this here: [0] That just deals with the size of the steam explosion though, not the potential effects. (And for reference, I've seen the largest explosion that did occur listed as ~10T equivalent) 0: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/480113/how-large-would-the-steam-explosion-at-chernobyl-have-been https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/480113/how-large...
  - gjm11 7y ago
    The thing I'm skeptical about is the claim that this would have rendered a large part of the continent uninhabitable. The Stack Exchange discussion is interesting but (as you say) doesn't really bear on that.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      Yeah - worst case was 20x more radioactive material (well, I suppose no-seriously-wtf case would be 80x, but that requires the other three active reactors to have gone up as well) since at least 5% of the reactor core was released.
DuskStar 7y ago
> Chernobyl only took out 10,000 square miles because they got lucky. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is a tenth of that - 1,000 square miles. 10,000 square miles is the total from one accident per decade and an average exclusion zone duration of 100 years. > If they didn't drain water tanks it could have exploded making a huge portion of the continent uninhabitable. It would have made a large part of the continent have higher radiation doses, but even with linear-no-threshold I don't think that France/UK/Spain/Italy would have been uninhabitable. Or even close to that. And the point was, even with the most incompetent leadership we've seen at a nuclear power plant, that didn't happen. > Also, using 17,500 square miles doesn't equal damage. The land could be reclaimed in negligible time by removing the panels, unlike nuclear contamination. Well, sure - you can take the solar panels and move them somewhere else if you want. But if you're using solar for power, you can't really get rid of them - just move them around.