The biggest concern among Ukrainians is radioactivity's effect on the thyroid gland. Many people still eat foods rich in Iodine as a prophylactic measure, or take iodine pills.
Nuclear energy appears as heat (after all, if it wasn't moderated it would explode). Now you have a heat source to drive steam turbines to deliver electricity, just like a coal-fired power station.
Nuclear power stations use local water supplies to cool their reactors and dump a lot of ambient heat into the environment as a result. Many also have concerns about the radiation in the plant and its effects on the environment should the plant become breached and the fact that the nuclear waste produced by the plant will remain dangerous for thousands of years wherever it ends up being stored. However, it should be noted that a gram of uranium can produce the equivalent energy of tons of coal, so nuclear plants produce reliable power without burning fossil fuels.
Short answer: Contamination is a risk. Also, if you factor in all the work required to set nuclear energy into motion, you will see that it also contributes to adding carbon to the atmosphere. Nuclear energy is not carbon-free as many believe. Mining and extraction costs carbon in fossil fuel; transportation costs carbon in fossil fuel; processing costs carbon in fossil fuel; building the nuclear power station costs carbon in fossil fuel. Then there's the question of highly radioactive waste storage for hundreds of thousands of years, leaks into the environment, coastal flooding of nuclear power stations like Sizewell. And the question of the added energy from splitting atoms which is extra to solar radiation and thus adds to the net energy input to the planet [an issue never even addressed]. It takes at least ten years to build a nuclear station so no quick fix, and decommissioning is even longer. It also costs billions, a price no government could hope to get taxpayers to pay, yet private industry won't fork out that sort of money. It's a pipe dream, something to use against those who argue renewable power is the only way to go. It is true that nuclear energy is not purely carbonless. However, once you factor in the production and transportation costs, neither are solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, tidal, or hydroelectric power. One aspect that all of these energy sources, including nuclear, has in common are that once they are functioning they are emitting less CO2 into our atmosphere than coal and oil. Regardless of your feelings about coal and oil, they are not found on the earth in limitless supply, so therefore we as a society need to begin developing more renewable energy. Obviously there will be environmental impact of mining the uranium (or another element thorium) that will be used to fuel the power plant. Uranium mines are under very strict guidelines that will help to prevent the surrounding mining area from any overly adverse affects (probably no more than what the uranium was doing naturally). Furthermore, nuclear power plants emit less radiation to the surrounding areas than coal fire power plants because the nuclear power plants are built more durably. The radioactive waste is a concern because right now our federal government will not allow this waste to be refurbished to be used again in a nuclear reactor like France does. Right now each power plant maintains their own waste. Decommissioning nuclear power plants is expensive but this is necessary in order to protect the environment . Overall, nuclear is one of many, not the only, solutions that our country needs to progress towards.
It is essential to an industrialised country to have reliable electricity supplies. The Governments job is to try to predict the future demand, and agree with the industry how much should be built over a period, and to give help in getting permits and licences. The NRC is a government body which does this in the US for nuclear plants, and all countries have something similar to licence nuclear plants to be built and operated. In the context of global warming predictions, the government will also have to guide industry to build the right sort of plants, and this may include subsidies for alternative energy sources and penalties for carbon emissions.
Short answer: Contamination is a risk. Also, if you factor in all the work required to set nuclear energy into motion, you will see that it also contributes to adding carbon to the atmosphere. Nuclear energy is not carbon-free as many believe. Mining and extraction costs carbon in fossil fuel; transportation costs carbon in fossil fuel; processing costs carbon in fossil fuel; building the nuclear power station costs carbon in fossil fuel. Then there's the question of highly radioactive waste storage for hundreds of thousands of years, leaks into the environment, coastal flooding of nuclear power stations like Sizewell. And the question of the added energy from splitting atoms which is extra to solar radiation and thus adds to the net energy input to the planet [an issue never even addressed]. It takes at least ten years to build a nuclear station so no quick fix, and decommissioning is even longer. It also costs billions, a price no government could hope to get taxpayers to pay, yet private industry won't fork out that sort of money. It's a pipe dream, something to use against those who argue renewable power is the only way to go. It is true that nuclear energy is not purely carbonless. However, once you factor in the production and transportation costs, neither are solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, tidal, or hydroelectric power. One aspect that all of these energy sources, including nuclear, has in common are that once they are functioning they are emitting less CO2 into our atmosphere than coal and oil. Regardless of your feelings about coal and oil, they are not found on the earth in limitless supply, so therefore we as a society need to begin developing more renewable energy. Obviously there will be environmental impact of mining the uranium (or another element thorium) that will be used to fuel the power plant. Uranium mines are under very strict guidelines that will help to prevent the surrounding mining area from any overly adverse affects (probably no more than what the uranium was doing naturally). Furthermore, nuclear power plants emit less radiation to the surrounding areas than coal fire power plants because the nuclear power plants are built more durably. The radioactive waste is a concern because right now our federal government will not allow this waste to be refurbished to be used again in a nuclear reactor like France does. Right now each power plant maintains their own waste. Decommissioning nuclear power plants is expensive but this is necessary in order to protect the environment . Overall, nuclear is one of many, not the only, solutions that our country needs to progress towards.
One: Chernobyl.
The Ukraine (Chernobyl) in 1986
Chernobyl
Chernobyl is neither a capital, nor a country. Chernobyl was a city close to the Chernobyl nuclear power station. The power station actually sat close to Prypiat Ukraine, where many of the workers lived. It was close to the Ukrainian and Belarus border. It became famous for having a large nuclear disaster on 26 April 1986. The city is now abandoned and is a ghost city inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
it leaked but now they fixed it all up so people could visit it again
¥There was a leak of dangerous gas from Hinkley point B nuclear power station in 2004.¥In 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Ukraine suffered a melt down. This led to 56 deaths.
The iodine-131 in the fallout poisons the thyroid gland.
In Sydney (and in fact all Australia) there is only one nuclear reactor, this is at Lucas Heights near Sydney. It is used to produce radio-isotopes, not electricity.
It was in the Ukraine, however it affected many countries across Europe and the world
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster - April 26, 1986. Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station Accident - March 28, 1979 First man-made nuclear reactor that reached criticality - December 2, 1942 (Manhattan Project) Nuclear reactor first used for electricity - December 20, 1951
Cooper Nuclear Station was created in 1974.
1986 was 28 years ago. Some major events of 1986 include the nuclear accident in the Soviet Union's Chernobyl power station, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, and the death of Georgia O'Keeffe.