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If storage is an act of containment, then there is perhaps no more dramatic example than the ongoing endeavour to contain the radiation still being emitted from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant following the devastating power surge that hit Reactor 4 on April 26, 1986. That same year, Soviet authorities scrambled to put in place a shelter that would stem the radioactive tide, a cloud of which spread across a swathe of Europe in the immediate aftermath.
This could only ever be a short-term measure; upon completion it was estimated that the structure would have maximum shelf life of 30 years, a blink of an eye in half-life terms, given the site is expected to remain hazardous to human life for the next 20,000 years. But now, despite a decade of delays that has seen the precarious 1986 structure dangerously corroded by rainwater, efforts to build a replacement are underway.
Due for completion in 2017, the new arched shelter, managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and implemented jointly by Bechtel, Batelle Memorial Institute and former staff of the decommissioned plant, reaches 93 metres at its highest point and is something of an engineering feat. It is being built on foundational rails in two sections that that will eventually be rolled together over the old shelter, snugly encasing it and its carcinogenic cargo in a concrete and steel “sarcophagus”. The new structure has also been designed to withstand anything Mother Nature wants to throw at it during its expected lifespan of 100 years, including a Class 3 tornado. I (fs)Video and photo courtesy of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
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»I don’t mistrust reality of which I hardly know anything. I just mistrust the picture of it that our senses deliver.«
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