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from the everyone-gives-it-glowing-reviews dept.
According Gizmodo, the control room of the badly damaged (and entombed) Reactor 4 at Chernobyl is now open for tourists. This comes
[...] following Ukrainian President Vladimir Volydymyr's July decision to proclaim the region an official tourist attraction (and perhaps not coincidentally, a surge of interest following the release of HBO's wildly popular Chernobyl miniseries).
According to CNN:
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant has seen a huge increase in visitor numbers in recent years as part of a growing global interest in dark tourism.
And now, intrepid travelers [will] be able to get inside the control room where the world's worst nuclear accident unfolded, Chernobyl tour companies confirmed to CNN.
Those who venture inside the highly radioactive area at the infamous Reactor 4 will be provided with white protective suits, helmets and masks for the brief visits. After leaving, they will be subject to two radiology tests to measure exposure.
According to the description on a YouTube video by Ruptly:
The destroyed control room is covered with an adhesive substance that does not allow dust to form. The ruins still emit 40,000 times higher levels of radiation than natural environment.
The Gizmodo story further notes:
Sergiy Ivanchuk, director of SoloEast tours, told Reuters in June that his bookings for tours had risen 30 percent in May 2019 (when the HBO miniseries was released) compared to years prior, while bookings for the summer months had risen some 40 percent. Tour guide Viktoria Brozhko told Reuters, "Many people come here, they ask a lot of questions about the TV show, about all the events. People are getting more and more curious... During the entire visit to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, you get around two microsieverts, which is equal to the amount of radiation you'd get staying at home for 24 hours."
The walkthroughs are guided by regular(!) tour guides. The control room itself is somewhat the worse for wear, although apparently in large part due to souvenir hunters.
Those interested can find more information or even book that dream vacation here.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 08 2019, @03:06PM (7 children)
The very fact that there was another one makes me believe that the first one was not a lesson.
Managers think short term. We can shoot ourselves in the foot and destroy the future of the business as long as as make this quarter's numbers! Managers are easily distracted by a Shiny. Especially if it twinkles.
Managers can say they are concerned about safety, but they'll still launch a shuttle in cold weather against the vocal concerns of engineers, because . . . politics.
Managers come and go. Faster than engineers, IMO. They don't remember. Some of them don't even learn things.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 08 2019, @09:12PM (6 children)
In what other field of endeavor is there a single lesson that need only be learned once?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 08 2019, @09:36PM (5 children)
I sure hope that anything nuclear (weapons, reactors) are an area where lessons only need to be learned once the hard way. Or better zero times by being prudent of what could foreseeably happen.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 08 2019, @09:39PM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 09 2019, @01:19PM (3 children)
Even though I would label myself generally a pessimist, I would channel Delenn and ask: is it required to have a reason to hope?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 10 2019, @05:13AM (2 children)
When it comes to nuclear power, absolutely! What's silly about this exercise that we actually have a remarkable safety record for nuclear power. It justifies your hope, it just can't meet your expectations of zero mistakes.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:38PM (1 child)
I don't have a problem with nuclear technology. I have a problem with human beings designing it, and operating it. If you can get rid of the latter, I don't have a problem with the former.
I think Zero Mistakes is a reasonable expectation. We're not talking about toasters that catch on fire. We're talking about nuclear meltdowns. The cost of a mistake can be so high that the low probability is irrelevant. You can't just multiply the low probability by the high cost and get a number that says it's all okay.
And yes, I understand there are newer reactor designs. But please forgive my skeptical hesitation to gleefully accept them too easily.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 11 2019, @11:45AM
Why? They've done a good job.
And I don't.
We've had several by now, and they just weren't that bad.
The great perversity of this sort of viewpoint is that because we consider meltdowns so bad, we're actually killing more people now than if we went for more nuclear power.