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The Ukraine is looking for investors for a renewable power project in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Solar energy would provide 1 GW of electrical generating capacity, greater than any project completed so far, and other energy sources such as biogas would provide an additional 400 MW, for a total of 1.4 GW (peak, the submitter assumes). The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the last unit of which which closed in 2000, was rated at 4 GW. The planned project would take advantage of electrical transmission lines originally fed by the nuclear plant.
It is hoped that the Ukraine's dependence on natural gas imported from Russia would be lessened.
The solar portion of the project is expected to cost €1 billion ($1.1 billion). Interest has been expressed by the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, as well as firms from Canada and the United States.
coverage:
- Gizmodo
- International Business Times
- The Guardian
- Bloomberg (has map of solar irradiation)
(Score: 1) by fuzzyfuzzyfungus on Tuesday August 02 2016, @06:55PM
If you discover that the effect is strong enough to be a useful energy source you should Run The Hell Away; but semiconductors do respond to radiation, so a photovoltaic generating facility on the site could be used(if the circuitry required to register the transient spikes were installed in the correct areas; the signal probably wouldn't be very useful if you just looked at the aggregated output from a whole bunch of panels) to measure radiation levels.
Unlikely to be the most efficient way; but it could be done.