In June 2008, three Texas Tech professors and their graduate students trained 27 Iraqi scientists about processes needed to clean up radioactive debris. The training took place in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine.

The Iraqis need to learn cleaning techniques to deal with the decontamination of their country’s repeatedly bombed Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex and at least nine other nuclear sites.

Well, that’s an interesting use of Pripyat - train Iraqis on radiation clean up techniques in a city that officials have failed to completely decontaminate over the last 23 years. If nothing else, the Iraqis learned what some of their cities may look like in the near future.

I found an interesting new report about Chernobyl, this one is from AlJazeera News. The report is titled "It happened in ... Chernobyl - 23 Jun 08" and covers the events and aftermath of the 1986 nuclear disaster.

This report is unique because it contains new interviews with new insights. I think it is definitely worth a look.

Part 1 (10:41)



Part 2 (11:32)

Earlier this week, the G8 nations pledged to provide an extra €62 million for the continued clean-up at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The money is specifically earmarked for construction of the spent nuclear fuel storage facility, known as SNF SF-2.

Design of the $275 million facility is currently being handled by Holtec International, which was awarded the contract in 2007.

The funds will be controlled by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). To date, nations around the world have donated €300 million to the Nuclear Safety Fund, which is financing the store. Another €770 million ($1.2 billion) has accumulated in the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, which will be used for construction of the New Safe Confinement structure.

On July 11, 2008, only 174 deputies of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada voted in favor of holding a no-confidence vote against the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, far short of the required 226 needed. Tymoshenko’s government has been highly criticized about the country’s record high inflation rate.

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) actually blocked the parliamentary rostrum from July 8-10, most likely to prevent this vote from taking place. However, on July 10, after Party of Regions (PRU) leader Viktor Yanukovich had predicted that the no-confidence motion would carry, the Lytvyn Bloc suggested postponing the vote until September or October. The Communist Party also hesitated, prompting BTuT to cease its blockade of the rostrum, thereby allowing the vote.

Parliament is not scheduled to reconvene until September, so Tymoshenko’s government is safe until then. Raisa Bohatyryova, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council predicts another attempt to oust Tymoshenko’s government in the fall.

This failure indicates that coalition problems not only exist between the democratic alliance of Our Ukraine People’s Self Defense Bloc and BYuT, but also between opposition factions as well. Leonid Hrach from the Communist Party said his party refused to support the PRU motion because PRU does not support the anti-NATO protests organized by the Communists in southern Ukraine several weeks ago.

In an interesting twist, it has been proposed that Tymoshenko reached some type of agreement with businessman Konstantin Grigorishin, who is thought to be amongst the main Communist sponsors. This is most fascinating because President Viktor Yushchenko is supposedly talking with oligarch Rinat Akhmetov about support for his upcoming presidential campaign. Perhaps Tymoshenko and Yushchenko are not as different as they would have us believe.

If you are one of the many people who believe that accidents at nuclear facilities are a thing of the past, think again. A friend passed along some information that France’s Tricastin nuclear facility has been temporarily closed after approximately 30 cubic meters (75 kilograms) of liquid containing unenriched uranium spilled from an overflowing reservoir. The liquid seeped into the ground and also reached the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers.

The Tricastin facility, which is operated by Areva/Socatri, is located at Bollene in the south of France, 40 km from the tourist city Avignon. Tricastin has both nuclear reactors and a radioactive waste treatment plant.

The leak occurred Monday night, but people in the affected areas were not told about the problem until 10:00 AM Tuesday. Sounds eerily like Chernobyl, doesn’t it?

People in nearby towns have been warned not to drink water or eat fish caught in the rivers since Monday. The have also been told not to swim in the rivers or use their water to irrigate crops.

On Wednesday, Socatri carried out tests on the groundwater, three local wells and the rivers and found “no abnormal elements.” French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo has said there is no imminent danger to the local population.

Tricastin has been temporarily shut down because the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) inspected the facility on Thursday and found that existing prevention measures were deficient. The inspection found that “security steps aimed at preventing any further pollution were not completely satisfactory. Further, inspectors found “irregularities” at the site’s operations at the time of the accident.

This uranium leak may not pose a great risk to the public, but is a strong reminder that nuclear power is not as safe as people think. The scariest thing may be the inspectors finding deficiencies in plant safety three days after the accident. You’d think that plant administrators would have scrambled to make sure safety measures were in place immediately after the accident, if for no other reason than to cover their own butts.

On June 27, 2008, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant leadership including General Director Igor Gramotkin, Technical Director Andriy Bilyk, Chief Engineer of the project management group for the planning of Shelter (Sarcophagus) activities Andrei Savin, and Deputy Technical Director for the Sarcophagus Vladimir Kashtanov took a tour of the structure.

During the tour they examined industrial and local zones of the Sarcophagus, the platform under construction for the base of the New Safe Confinement (NSC), light roofing, and workplaces of project personnel.

Gramotkin noted the order and cleanliness at the Sarcophagus site and the cleared platform for the southern base of the NSC.

The leadership discussed current problems and immediate plans for the future, particularly work on the installation of new ventilation stacks (VT) and the dismantling of the current VT of the second turn (reactors 3 and 4). The dismantling of the ventilation stack is stipulated as part of the preliminary work of the NSC construction.

Due to high levels of radiation, the visit to the Sarcophagus roof was short, but the leadership did examine the quality of repair work. Roof workers typically work in pairs for 8-20 minutes at a time. New light roofing sheets are fastened with screws, using stand-alone devices that increase efficiency and reduce personal radiation doses.

Photos: ChAES

The “stabilization” consortium led by joint-stock company Atomstroyexport has completed work on the transfer of load from the roof the Sarcophagus to external support structures.

The transfer of 80% of the roof load above Reactor 4’s destroyed central hall from beams B1 and B2 to the external supports has increased the safety of the Sarcophagus. The work was completed in complex radiation conditions at appropriate levels of safety for the construction personnel, as established by the project contract.

Additional work is expected to begin in the near future.

New reports indicate that up to 100 tons of scrap metal are removed from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone every day. Approximately half this amount is legally removed by the government, but the other half is smuggled out to the rest of the world.

Thieves who were caught by the Ukrainian Security Service in May apparently had been operating under the guise of being Security Service personnel. This allowed them to operate undetected for such a long time.

According to the Union of Liquidators of the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, over the past two years criminal groups have removed nearly 80,000 tons of ferrous and nonferrous metal from the Zone. Estimates place the remaining amount of scrap metal in the Zone at approximately 1.5 million tons with an estimated value of one billion Ukrainian Hryvnia, or roughly $222,000,000 US.

Well, if you ever wondered why criminals would risk their health to steal scrap metal from the Zone, now you know why.

Ukraine's Ministry of Emergency Measures plans to carry out an experiment by bringing bison into the 30 km Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Minister Volodomyr Shandra stated at a recent press conference that there is a clean region in the Zone in which they can create wilderness areas. The government will build enclosures in one of these areas to contain the bison population.

I don't understand what is to be gained by this action. We already know from the Zone's multitude of existing wildlife that animals can survive there. What kind of meaningful information can we possibly learn from importing bison into the Zone?

Photo: Henryk Kotowski

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko has ordered the mass demolition of approximately 20,000 Soviet-era monuments throughout the country. This program is part of the commemoration of the Holodomor, the great famine of 1932-33. The Ukrainian government claims the famine was orchestrated by the Bolsheviks, targeting Ukrainian nationals. Yushchenko wants to cleanse Ukraine from symbols of the former totalitarian Soviet regime. Apparently five areas of western Ukraine have already completed the dismantling of such monuments.

Vassily Vovkun, Ukraine's Minister of Culture and Tourism, has suggested that these Soviet-era monuments should be taken to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where they would be placed in a new museum that would be open for driving tours.

I wish I knew why Vovkun wants these monuments dumped in the Chernobyl Zone. Perhaps he views Chernobyl as a quintessential symbol of Soviet failure and would therefore be the perfect home for these monuments.

But why does he want to create a drive-through museum in the Zone? Has he forgotten that the Exclusion Zone is a controlled area? People need permission to enter and are required to be escorted by a guide. Currently, the cost for preparation of the permission documents and guide for one day is approximately $85, and that does not include transportation costs.

Hopefully Vovkun is not considering this as a money-making enterprise for Ukraine, because people will not want to spend that kind of money to see a bunch of Soviet-era monuments. Not only that, I'm guessing that most people are afraid to enter the Zone due to fears of radiation, so this museum would not get many visitors. I'm also willing to go out on a limb and say that people who do travel to the Zone are not going there just to see a museum of Soviet-era monuments. Some may drive through out of curiosity, but it will not be the primary focus of anyone's visit.