Gorbachev is on record as accrediting the cost of cleaning up Chernobyl/preventing something much worse as being one of the reasons for the collapse of the sovi

Gorbachev is on record as accrediting the cost of cleaning up Chernobyl/preventing something much worse as being one of the reasons for the collapse of the soviet union. A conservative estimate would put over 1% of the working population of the USSR on site at some point in the cleanup/sarcophagus construction - and bear in mind the EU had to fund the construction of the second sarcophagus. So ignore the human cost, which has vanished behind propaganda at the moment, just add up the energy it produced, and put that against the economic cost. Then hypothetically take all that effort, and research, and put it into alternative forms of clean fuel production....