Chernobyl's Sarcophagus, Redux 121
Lasrick (2629253) writes "With the news that a multinational consortium is to the halfway point in constructing a huge stainless steel hangar that will sit over the ruined site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, Dan Drollette looks in the archives of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and compares notes on the sarcophagus that was built 25 years ago, and the one that is being built now. 'No one really knows what went into the "concrete cube;" even the amount of concrete claimed to have been used is suspect, as it would form a volume larger than the sarcophagus, wrote nuclear engineer and author Alexander R. Sich in his 11-page article, "Truth was an early casualty."' Let's hope this new sarcophagus lasts longer."
Re:Getting it done, again. (Score:2, Informative)
Bury it in the ground and send the bill to the tax payer, then claim it's really cheap to run because you don't need to include disposal of nuclear waste as they're paying for that in othe rways.
Re:um (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, but the core didn't hit the water table. They located most of it years and years ago. The core is currently a solidified mass through a bunch of pipes, solidified pools, and such through much of the structure under where the reactor core was, the best known formation is the 'elephant's foot' [wikipedia.org] located in a sub-basement [nautil.us].
Taking pictures of it was an interesting affair because the radiation is strong enough to fry even our best shielded robots, not that the Russians had them, so they had to get creative with more primitive tools.
Still, I haven't seen any evidence that it managed to make it to the water table.