Is solar really four times the cost of nuclear? No, but…

[OKIsItJustMe]

55. It’s all about your attitude

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After Chernobyl Unit #4 blew up, Units #1, #2, and #3 continued to provide power to the community for almost a decade. People went to work everyday right next to the largest nuclear accident in history. Funny how Americans' imaginations gets carried away.

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You make it sound like everything went on as usual. “Ho hum… remember plant #4?” (Stupid Americans!)


The Soviets (and then the Ukranian government) kept the remaining reactors operating, for a simple reason, not because it was safe, but because they needed the generating capacity.

http://tech.mit.edu/V113/N51/chernobyl.51w.html

[font face=Serif]Friday, October 22, 1993

[font size=5]Chernobyl Reactor to Keep Operating[/font]

By Mary Mycio
Special to the Los Angeles Times

KIEV, Ukraine

[font size=3] Ukraine's Parliament, more worried about energy shortages than environmental safety, voted Thursday to keep the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant working and to resume the country's stalled atomic energy program.

The Soviet-built Chernobyl plant, which spewed radiation across Europe after a 1986 explosion and fire, was to have shut down by the end of this year. That decision, made by the same Parliament two years ago after Ukraine quit the Soviet Union, was based on voluminous evidence that Chernobyl's RBMK-type graphite reactors were unsafe.

Energy Minister Vilen Semeniuk pushed for the reversal, telling lawmakers that Ukraine is crippled by fuel shortages and by the rising cost of imported oil from Russia. He said the Chernobyl station, 80 miles north of here, should keep working "because it can supply the entire Kiev region with energy for the winter."

Ecologists in Ukraine and abroad condemned the proposal, and Ukraine's government was divided on the issue. Environmental Minister Yuri Kostenko argued that Chernobyl's shutdown should be not be delayed beyond next spring.

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