Few environmental nightmares strike a more frightening chord than Chernobyl. It is not merely the radioactive mess left by the 1986 meltdown. Six years later, 19 similar graphite-moderated nuclear time bombs are still ticking away, alarming relics of a badly designed, haplessly run nuclear-power program that none of the independent republics of the former Soviet Union can afford to shut down. The potential killers bring light, heat and power to parts of Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania, where their immediate decommissioning would create unacceptable economic disruption and even civil unrest.
The handling of Chernobyl is hardly reassuring. When workers finished the huge...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
