In case you don't read Slashdot...
A young Ukrainian woman has posted a photo journal of her motorcycle rides through Chernobyl 18 years after the core meltdown caused the city to be evacuated. Visit her website and you'll see a graphic and erie illustration of the post disaster area. Its something like one of those movies like "28 days later" or "Night of the Comet" when someone wakes up and all humanity has disappeared overnight.
If you're an environmentalist who loathes nuclear fission power, these images should send shivers down your spine. Not to mention the death toll, even though that is widely reported to range from tens, to tens of thousands or even eventually to hundreds of thousands due to premature cancers caused by an increase in background radiation.
People will say "that could never happen here" but remember that many of our great technological failures can be traced back to things that know no geographical borders: human error, and cost cutting in the name of a quick profit. Think about the Hubble Space Telescope mirror fiasco, two space shuttle explosions, three mile island, Exxon-Valdez, massive power grid failures. There is absolutely no reason to suppose our nuclear reactors are any less immune to such a catastrophic failure, and that's quite apart from any incident caused by external intervention such as a plane flying into one...
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