Word: reactor
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Four years have passed since the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, but the grim legacy of the Soviet catastrophe is still unfolding. Large populated areas surrounding the reactor site in the Ukraine and in nearby Belorussia remain contaminated with high levels of radioactivity. The poisoning of the land has created dire health problems and economic devastation. A new study by the chief economist of a Soviet government institute calculates that the cost of Chernobyl, including the price of the cleanup and the value of lost farmland and production, could run as high as $358 billion -- 20 times as much...
...after the Chernobyl meltdown, Soviet officials ordered the permanent evacuation of villages within 30 km (19 miles) of the power plant, but heavy nuclear fallout covered a much broader area. In some parts of Narodichi, a Ukrainian agricultural district whose boundaries lie some 60 km (37 miles) from the reactor, levels of radioactivity are still nine times as high as the acceptable limits, according to the local Communist Party chief. Vladimir Lysovsky, a doctor at Narodichi District Central Hospital, contends that in the past 18 months, there has been a dramatic rise in cases of thyroid disease, anemia and cancer...
...demise. Yet like the phoenix, the nuclear plant has a way of rising again. Last week the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 3 to 0 to give the station a license to operate at full power. Plant officials praised the decision as a "triumph of reason." They predicted that the reactor, now eleven years overdue for its start-up and carrying a price tag of $6.4 billion, more than six times its original budget, would begin sending electricity across New England by summer...
...battled with producers and talked about quitting, Goodman has been a stabilizing force through his sheer professionalism. "I just don't involve myself," he says. "Roseanne is committed to doing a quality show on her own terms, and she's got her terms. I'm an actor and a reactor. I do what they set down in front...
...least one accusation -- that the accident released 1 billion or more curies of radiation, rather than the reported figure of 50 million to 80 million -- is denied by the authorities. Says Nikolai Steinberg, former chief engineer of the Chernobyl reactor and now deputy chairman of the State Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Industry: "We're not the only ones who came up with that figure. International scientists were involved as well." U.S. experts support the lower estimate. Nonetheless, Yablokov and other deputies have demanded that the Chernobyl installation, which is still operating, be closed down completely...