NN> In Chernobil there were MANY rough infringements, and the accident  is the
NN> result of them.

There's a web page about a girl that rides through the abandoned city around 
Chernobyl, aparrently it's okay to go in there as long as you stay on the 
pavement - the radiation was washed off the roads onto the ground next to the 
roads - which is still too dangerous to even walk on. Apparrantly it's okay to
go into the buildings in the city - she shows pictures of various places that 
havent been touched since the city was evacuated. Of course, you need a geiger
counter to make sure you're not getting nuked too badly. 

I forget the web site  but its pretty famous, some googleing will probably 
find it for you. Pretty eerie pictures and an interesting map.

It's truly alarming how close we came to having something similar happen in 
the USA with Three Mile Island. I live near the final nuclear plant built in 
the USA (Seabrook NH), and I've never had cause to be alarmed - and I'm 
familiar with the emergency plans for the station. (My ham radio club is part 
of the communications plan and I've participated in several drills). The thing
to remember is that the reason why Three Mile Island was not like Chernobyl 
was that all the safety features built into the plant did what they were 
supposed to do - keep the bad stuff in.

Do I think Nuclear power is the wave of the future? Yes. However, many things 
need to be dealt with - the problem of what to do with the waste, for example.

Nuclear plants of American design are no more dangerous than other types of 
plants, the only difference is that the bad stuff stays bad for a long time. I
can take a lump of coal, a container of oil, a tank of gas, or a piece of 
wood and hold it in my hand, and I've got no problems. If I hold a piece of 
U235 in my hand, I'm dead. If a power plant of any type explodes, lots of 
people die, but only in the case of nuclear does the danger last for many 
months or years after the incident.

Well, enough out of me. I think this is the longest post I've made on FidoNet 
since at least 1997!!

-Rick
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