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| POWER, AND MORE OF IT |  | Category: Rant
Sunday, January 27th, 2002 @ 04:15 pm
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The reach of Chernobyl's radiation
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I hope you don't mind my lack of pithy in the explanation of this update; to assume my point of view, one must understand my perspective.
I remember reading a Sci-Fi story about a voyage to Alpha-Centauri. It was supposedly happening in current times where three scientists had created a drug and accompaning chambers that would allow one to reamain in suspended animation for around 250+ years.
They began the voyage with much world-wide fanfair. The person from who's perspective the story was told had the task of waking in fifty years to transmit a message back to Earth as a sign that the first leg of the mission was a success. He did so and re-entered the 'sleep'. They were to take shifts of waking and journaling the trip. When it was his time to wake again, there was a huge, hulking spaceship burning in flames behind the ship they were in.
The story went on and they finally reached the distant solar system only to find that Earthlings were already there. As it turns out, by the time they reached the star, around 550+ years, humanity had technologically surpassed them and could now travel between the systems in around 45 minutes. The ship they had seen burning was a failed attempt during early progress in this advanced technology.
End Preface.
We have not built a nuclear power plant in twenty years. People bitch that we burn too much fossil fuel to create power, but the shadow of Chernobyl has loomed over the industry since the big accident, and people are afraid to try it again. This, of course, hasn't halted the operation of several plants that were created before, but we're still stagnating.
We have to realize that advancement in the field has kept it's original inertia, and has gotten to a point where a catastrophe of that magnitude has reached an almost miniscule amount of probability, and it will continue to do so. It will continue to do so thanks to mistakes like Chernobyl. That's how life works. You smack your bike into the pavement, you pick yourself up, and you've learned one more thing that you shouldn't do when riding a bike.
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