(25 years later) Ukraine seeks $1 billion to seal Chernobyl

[jpak]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014802053_chernobyl18.html

KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine is seeking $1 billion to seal Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, and concern is mounting the accident at Fukushima in Japan and a growing debt crisis may make it harder to raise funds.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will host a conference in Kiev to raise money for a new containment shelter 25 years after Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor exploded. French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and European Commission President Jose Barroso will urge countries to contribute as a joint venture begins work on the foundations.

<snip>

"There's always been concern" about falling short of the target to seal Chernobyl, "but folks are working very hard on this," Norman Eisen, U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic and a former special counsel to President Obama, said in Prague last week.

Japan's battle to contain four damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has reignited the debate about Chernobyl, whose makeshift shelter has five years left in its life span and still leaks radiation. The Ukrainian government warned aid may fall short as governments cut spending and balk at fundraising, which has been going on since 1997.

<more>

the gift that keeps on giving

yup

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Shit..I thought they HAD "sealed" it.

"STILL" leaks radiation????

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Looks like the Chernobyl workers are getting shafted, too:

"About 2,000 veterans of the Chernobyl cleanup rallied Sunday in Ukraine's capital to protest cuts in the benefits and pensions they get as compensation for their exposure to radiation."

Shades of 9-11 responders.

[enough]

3. So much for all those past-tense evaluations of Chernobyl. (nt)

[thereismore]

4. The Soviet Union dumped this problem on a much smaller Ukraine. Not fair.

The international community should help. After all, we all live on the same Earth and there is nowhere to go.

[kristopher]

5. Meanwhile at home, concrete containers for TMI's melted core are crumbling...

Concrete crumbling at nuclear storage site
WASHINGTON, April 18 (UPI) -- Concrete storage containers in Idaho holding damaged nuclear fuel rods from the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island are crumbling, a regulator warned.

The Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania suffered a partial meltdown in 1979, leading to the worst nuclear disaster in the United States.

Damaged fuel rods from the Three Mile Island plant are stored at a facility for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Idaho National Laboratory.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a letter to the Energy Department called for an outline of the corrective measures needed to ensure the integrity of the concrete storage containers used to house the damaged fuel rods...

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2011/04/18/Concrete-crumbling-at-nuclear-storage-site/UPI-10041303134643/

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Arrghh

[flamingdem]

7. Nuclear catastrophes never really "end" nt

[yodermon]

8. as time passes, the probably of a catastrophic nuclear accident on the scale

of billions+ of deaths approaches 1.

[Fledermaus]

9. And 25 years from now it will need another 4 billion

[bananas]

10. The National Academy of Sciences says nuclear waste has to be contained for a million years

They'll have to install a new structure every 25 years for the next million years.