a summary of the nuclear tourist

• Chernobyl Victims
• The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
• The Abandoned City of Pripyat
• The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

National Geographic Magazine Publishes “The Nuclear Tourist”

September 24, 2014

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE PUBLISHES “THE NUCLEAR TOURIST” SEPTEMBER // 2014

After the publication of his 20-year retrospective “The Long Shadow of Chernobyl” Gerd Ludwig continues to explore the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date. In a story titled “THE NUCLEAR TOURIST,” the October issue of National Geographic Magazine USA and several of the foreign language editions of NG published Gerd’s images of tourism in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (text by George Johnson). For more information and to see the images: Click here

In addition, the German language edition of National Geographic ran a 2-page interview with Gerd about the power of photography and what makes working for National Geographic special. To read the interview: Click here

To order a signed copy of the book: Click here

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September 16, 2014

World Travel

The Nuclear Tourist

Visiting the site of the Chernobyl meltdown.

George Johnson National Geographic Oct 2014 10 min Permalink

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On the road to Pripyat, a sign warns visitors of the lingering dangers of nuclear radiation.

Fascination With Chernobyl Inspires Surreptitious Visits

Nuclear meltdown leaves a vast, empty land overtaken by vegetation.

"What was it? A meteorite that fell to Earth? Or a visitation from outer space? Whatever it was, there appeared in our small land a miracle of miracles: the ZONE."

-- From the epigraph of Stalker , a 1979 film by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky that has eerie parallels with the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl seven years later

KIEV, Ukraine—Dmitry was a child when he first heard stories of a mysterious place called Chernobyl, not far from his home in Chernihiv. Something strange and dreadful had happened there: an explosion, an evacuation, poisoned water, poisoned air.

He didn't understand that the catastrophe was caused by a nuclear reactor. "I thought something like that might happen in my own city, and we would have to move."

One day his mother returned from work and found that he had shut all the windows in their apartment and taped over the cracks. He was six or seven years old.

"I was so afraid," he says.

As he grew older, his fear gave way to fascination. By the time Dmitry was a teenager, he knew he wanted to explore the exclusion zone, the cordoned-off area of about a thousand square miles that surrounds the epicenter of the meltdown. "I had this sick interest," he says.

I met Dmitry in Kiev after my own, much tamer visit to the zone, which was opened to guided tours in 2011. Just two days in that beautiful, ruined world were enough for me to feel the allure. But the real devotees are the "stalkers"—people like Dmitry who through stealth and cunning find their way into a forbidden land. (Read more in National Geographic magazine: "The Nuclear Tourist: An unforeseen legacy of the Chernobyl meltdown." )

Long before his first adventure there, he began scavenging for information on the Internet: maps, history, descriptions of buildings. In 2009, when he was 23, he and some friends started an Internet forum, which soon attracted about 20 members from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

One of them, Igor, had already sneaked into the zone two times. "He seemed like a god to me," Dmitry said. (Their surnames have been omitted, since their explorations of the zone are illegal.) Igor agreed that on a future trip Dmitry and another friend could come along.

Twenty-eight years after the Chernobyl accident, most of the small wooden houses are empty and overrun by vegetation.

Though the area is surrounded by a fence at the 30-kilometer boundary, it can be breached by those bent on getting in. After swimming across a river, they began the long trek to Pripyat, a ghost city that stands less than two miles from the ruined reactor.

What Dmitry had expected to be a wasteland had become, in the years since the accident, a verdant forest. That first night, his feet blistered and bleeding from the stiff, new boots he had worn for the adventure, he lay awake in their makeshift camp listening to wild boars and wolves, clutching a knife in his hand.

"In the morning I told my friends I'd had the first sleepless night of my life. They looked at me in surprise and said, 'We didn't hear a thing.' "

By the time they emerged four days later, they had walked about 60 miles (90 kilometers), avoiding capture by the police. Soon Dmitry was leading his own secret expeditions. He estimates that he has been to the zone at least a hundred times.

"I know Pripyat better than my own city," he says.

The name "stalker" comes from a Russian movie by that name, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (probably better known for his film Solaris). He in turn was inspired by a science fiction novel called Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Released in 1979, the film tells of a bleak, magical place called the Zone, abandoned after a meteor strike or an alien invasion—no one knows why. Despite or because of the danger, a few brave people are drawn by its power. A solemn but childlike man called Stalker acts as their guide.

"It's the quietest place in the world," one of the visitors (called simply Writer) says in the movie, as he beholds the decaying industrial landscape overgrown with vegetation. "It's so beautiful. No one else is here."

After the Chernobyl explosion in 1986, Tarkovsky's film became, in retrospect, an allegory about the real-life zone, and some of his themes were transmogrified into a series of video games, beginning with "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl."

Dmitry found his own magic on that first trip with Igor, as they came upon Pripyat, once a city of almost 50,000. They were not using flashlights, for fear of being spotted by the police. "It was a full moon, and when your eyes get used to this kind of light, you can see everything," he remembers. "It seems like your vision sharpens. You can see even the smallest details.

Police pursue looters in Chernobyl's evacuation zone in 1993. The intruders take valuables—which were contaminated during the nuclear accident—from the deserted villages and sell them to new owners.

"We were trying to step very quietly—not to make noise, not to be spotted—but every step seemed so loud in the quietness of the night and this moon."

Suddenly they emerged from the bushes onto a street lined with buildings. An open window was swinging in the breeze, and Dmitry remembers the moon reflecting on the glass and giving the illusion—just for a hair-raising moment—that someone was inside.

Stalker to Stalker

On an earlier trip Igor had staked out a hiding place in an apartment in one of Pripyat's high-rises. There were couches, chairs, and other furnishings. Sitting on the balcony and sipping from a bottle of cognac, Dmitry and his friends looked out at the moon-bleached ruins. The next day they were surprised to encounter another group of stalkers. "We never thought this was possible," Dmitry says.

Over the years, with the help of a Geiger counter, he and his friends have learned not to linger in the most radioactive places. But the contamination is impossible to avoid.

"I have breathed in a lot of radiation and have drunk a lot of irradiated water. You get into situations where you don't have fresh water but are very thirsty." The highest radiation level he has experienced is at least 0.01 sievert—the maximum amount his meter could measure and about what a person receives from a full-body CT scan. That hot spot was in the hospital where the firemen who had responded to the explosion were treated for radiation sickness. Their contaminated uniforms were still piled in the basement.

A tree grows in an abandoned school within Chernobyl's evacuation zone, the 30-kilometer (18.6-mile) area surrounding the nuclear reactor.

Dmitry says he isn't worried: "I look at all the people who went through those horrible times and still are alive and have a good life. I am not a radiophobic person."

A few blocks from where we met, Khreshchatyk Street, Kiev's grand boulevard, was still jammed with barricades of tires and junk thrown together by protesters who earlier had ousted the country's president. The khaki tents of their paramilitary bivouac filled the boulevard and Independence Square. But all was calm for now. Along the sidewalks fashionably dressed young Ukrainians shopped for designer clothes or sat in outdoor cafés drinking wine and espressos. Some were snapping pictures of the aftermath with their iPhones. Another disaster site was becoming a tourist attraction.

Follow George Johnson on Twitter and the Web .

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Nuclear tourism

• 1 Get ready
• 2.1 Bombed cities
• 2.2 Weapon test sites
• 2.3 Peaceful use of nuclear explosions
• 3.1 Accidents in nuclear power plants or nuclear materials production sites
• 3.2 Accidents of nuclear weapon carrying aircraft
• 4 Manhattan Project-related sites
• 5 Atomic museums
• 6.1 Operating reactors
• 6.2 Decommissioned reactors
• 7.1 Nuclear power plant building sites never finished
• 7.2 Sites related to German nuclear bomb project
• 7.3 Nuclear bunkers
• 7.4 Nuclear weapon sites
• 7.5 Nuclear waste related sites
• 7.6 Non-categorized
• 8 Stay safe

Nuclear tourism is travel to places connected with nuclear history, nuclear science, and nuclear technology. This can include historical sites of nuclear detonations or places related to peaceful or wartime use of nuclear energy.

Sites of interest to the nuclear tourist may include:

• Sites of nuclear detonations (bombed cities, nuclear weapons tests, sites related to peaceful uses of nuclear explosives).
• Sites of nuclear accidents and accidents of aircraft carrying nuclear weapons.
• Museums of nuclear history, nuclear science, or nuclear technology.
• Former nuclear missile silos and nuclear fallout shelters.
• Other sites relating to nuclear history, nuclear science, and nuclear technology (for example, nuclear particle accelerators and sites of nuclear physics research).

Get ready [ edit ]

See Golden Age of Modern Physics for the discoveries that led up to the atomic age.

Although in many of the nuclear tourism sites only background radiation can be detected, in some other visitors are confronted with higher levels. These include mainly sites related to nuclear accidents and weapons testing. When visiting places with increased radiation, it is reasonable to be equipped with a radiation monitor in order to have control over radiation exposure. The most common devices in a reasonable price range usually contain a Geiger-Müller counter. They are suitable for detection of gamma, x-ray, alpha and beta radiation, typically expressed as counts per second. In other devices the registered gamma radiation is converted in units of dose rate or absorbed dose. These basic counters can not provide information about individual isotopes, natural or man-made, but simply sum up all registered radiation.

In order to be able to use the radiation monitor it is essential to get familiar with the units and ranges of the measured values to evaluate the information obtained from the counter. Additionally, one has to be aware of a strong variation of natural background radiation, which depends mainly on local geology.

Sites of nuclear explosions [ edit ]

Bombed cities [ edit ].

34.395 132.455 1 Hiroshima , Japan, was a target of the first nuclear attack ever on 6 August 1945. Nowadays the event with 90,000–166,000 civilian victims is commemorated at the Atomic Bomb Memorial Museum and in Peace Memorial Park, including the iconic A-Bomb Dome and Children's Peace Monument covered by colorful paper cranes for bomb victim, Sadako Sasaki. Ground Zero is slightly outside of the park not far from the Atomic Bomb Dome.

Another nuclear bomb was dropped three days later on the industrial town of 32.773 129.864 2 Nagasaki , Japan, with more than 100,000 victims. Visitors can learn about the tragic piece of history in the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum or the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, both near ground zero.

The aircraft that dropped nuclear weapons on Japanese civilians are in US museums. Enola Gay (the plane which bombed Hiroshima) is displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center (part of Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum) in Chantilly , Virginia ; Bockscar (which bombed Nagasaki) is on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton , Ohio.

See the Pacific War article for the events leading up to the bombs.

Weapon test sites [ edit ]

Eight countries have carried out confirmed nuclear weapon tests to determine the capability of their weapons, mostly in their own respective territories. The United States conducted the first and the most numerous tests, mostly in Nevada . Others carrying out tests included Russia (then the Soviet Union ), the UK, India, France, and China. Pakistan, followed by North Korea, conducted the last nuclear weapon tests. Sites where weapon tests were conducted can be visited in these countries for adventure.

• 50.12 78.72 5 Semipalatinsk test site . can be visited from city of Semey by own means (taxi). The National Nuclear Center in nearby Kurchatov organizes official tours to the test area.  
• Atolls 11.6981 165.2731 6 Bikini and 11.552565 162.347241 7 Enewetak are former US test sites at Marshall Islands . They are in the middle of the Pacific, far away from any mainland, so they are difficult to visit. Bikini Atoll is open for tourism from late April to November and welcomes divers participating in organized tours . These tours that start at Kwajalein Atoll are only available to experienced divers and the main attraction is the U.S. fleet sunk by the nuclear tests at Bikini. In the 1970s the U.S. Army performed a clean-up of contamination at Enewetak. As a result, radioactive materials from Enewetak and other contaminated atolls were dumped into the Cactus test crater at a tiny island Runit within the Enewetak Atoll and covered by a concrete structure, known as Cactus dome.

Peaceful use of nuclear explosions [ edit ]

In the USA, 27 peaceful nuclear explosions were conducted within Operation Plowshare to test the use of nuclear explosions for various civilian purposes, such as excavating channels or harbors and stimulating natural gas production from sediment layers. Most of the shots were performed at the Nevada test site; however, some of the test sites in Colorado and New Mexico are accessible for the public.

• 39.793 -107.948528 14 Rio Blanco test site ( 50 mi NW of Rifle , USA, the last couple of miles via unpaved Rio Blanco County Route 29, but still easily accessible for non-4x4 vehicles ). This was the final test in the Plowshare program, with three devices being detonated underground in order to stimulate natural gas production in 1973. While the production increased slightly, the gas was too radioactive to be used. A small monument was erected at the surface ground zero. ( updated Aug 2015 )

Sites of nuclear accidents [ edit ]

Some might find it unethical or at least controversial for tourists to visit sites where many people suffered following an accident, especially if local guides are repeatedly exposed to radiation when leading tour groups through exclusion zones too "hot" for residents to return.

Conversely, some welcome tourism as an alternative means to support local economies.

Accidents in nuclear power plants or nuclear materials production sites [ edit ]

• 54.4205 -3.4975 16 Sellafield , United Kingdom, has been the site of a number of accidents, including the 1957 fire of the original Windscale former nuclear reactor. During those accidents some radioactive waste ended up in the Irish Sea, near Whitehaven . Also, during the reactor fire radioactivity was released through the chimney. However the major portion was contained by the high-capacity filters mounted on the chimney (known as "Cockcroft's Folly" after the Nobel prize winning physicist Sir John Cockcroft, who insisted on having them mounted at great expense, although they hadn't been included in the original design. Their shape contributed to the iconic silhouette of the nuclear complex. However, in 2014 the second of two chimneys was decommissioned and is no longer part of the Sellafield skyline.)
• 40.15269 -76.717409 17 Three Mile Island , near Harrisburg , Pennsylvania , USA, was the worst commercial nuclear power plant accident in the USA on 28 March 1979. During the reactor core meltdown, radioactivity, mainly in the form of radioiodine and noble gases, was released to the surrounding environment. There is no visitors' center commemorating the event, only a historic marker (at the given coordinates in Middletown ) with a fine view across the Susquehanna river towards the power station.
• 37.4214 141.0325 18 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was seriously damaged by a tsunami following a magnitude 9 earthquake on March 11, 2011. Large areas of Fukushima prefecture coast are being decontaminated, while some 80,000 inhabitants had to be resettled. Tours are offered to the visitors to get first-hand impressions from areas affected by the great Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. The participants can experience how local people and businesses are coping with the recovery from the disasters.

Accidents of nuclear weapon carrying aircraft [ edit ]

During the Cold War there were several accidents involving thermonuclear weapons, and some of them led to local environment contamination. These are a few of them.

• In 35.493041 -77.859262 19 Faro near Goldsboro (North Carolina) , USA, a B-52 crash dropped a hydrogen bomb which failed to detonate in 1961. The event is commemorated by a historical road marker in the town of Eureka, 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the crash site.
• A 34.205556 -79.655278 20 crater about 23 m wide and 11 m deep was left after another accident, in which a B-47 "Stratojet" crew mistakenly released a Mark 6 bomb while flying over Mars Bluff , South Carolina , USA, on March 11, 1958 afternoon. The bomb went off by a conventional explosion at the property of local family Gregg and injured several family members. The crater can be visited from SC Highway 76 (East Palmetto Street) via a marked trail. There is an informational board and mock up of the bomb's size at the site. Nearby 34.19563 -79.76632 21 museum in Florence has the story to tell including some historical artifacts connected to the event.
• In 1966 after an unsuccessful inflight refueling operation an US bomber B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed in 37.247 -1.797 22 Palomares between Almería and Cartagena , Spain. Now, after cleanup operations, the area is used extensively for agricultural production. Two of the "hot areas" are closed to the public by a fence.
• Another accident occurred in 1968, when B-52 "Stratofortress" with four hydrogen bombs on board crashed onto the sea ice near the 76.527778 -69.281944 23 Thule Air Base , Greenland. The nearest civilian settlement is Qaanaaq , 100 km to the north.

Manhattan Project-related sites [ edit ]

"Manhattan Project", named for the Manhattan Engineering District of the US Army Corps of Engineers, is a cover name for a war-time US military effort to develop an atomic weapon. Geographically, the project was spread over about 30 sites across the United States (and Canada). The best known are the secret laboratory in Los Alamos and factories to supply the fissile materials by enriching uranium and producing plutonium in reactors in Oak Ridge , Tennessee, and Hanford site near Richland , Washington. These three sites are also formally recognized as Manhattan Project National Historical Park .

Atomic museums [ edit ]

• 43.51132 -113.0064 36 Experimental Breeder Reactor I , Arco , Idaho, USA - the first nuclear reactor to produce electrical power, first breeder reactor, and first reactor to use plutonium as fuel
• 31.902663 -110.999576 38 Titan Missile Museum , 1580 W Duval Mine Rd, Sahuarita, Green Valley , Arizona, USA ( 30 minutes south of Tucson ), ☏ +1 520-625-7736 . Daily 8:45AM-5PM . Site south of Tucson preserves a Cold-War-era underground silo housing an unarmed Titan-II ICBM, the only remaining Titan Missile silo in the US. Part of a larger field of such silos, this was one of the places from which nuclear war on the Soviet Union would have been waged. Visitors can take a tour of the underground facilities where USAF crews spent decades living underground waiting for the launch order which never came. $9.50 (adults) .  

Research reactors [ edit ]

Several sites operate nuclear reactors for either nuclear reactor safety training or for nuclear science experiments using them as neutron sources. Neutron scattering is an effective ways to obtain information on the structure and the dynamics of condensed matter. These days accelerators like the Spallation Neutron Source based in Oakridge allow more intense neutron beams. Nevertheless several reactors are in on-going operations. Fundamental and solid state physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, medicine and environmental science pose scientific questions that are investigated with neutrons.

In contrast to nuclear fission, where unstable atoms decay into smaller atoms, there exists also an attempt of nuclear fusion, where energy would be gained by processes similarly to what happens in the core of stars by the fusion of two light elements in a heavier one. ITER is an international nuclear research and engineering project to build the first the world's largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.

Operating reactors [ edit ]

• 46.52 6.565 39 [dead link] CROCUS , École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland . A light-water, zero-power nuclear reactor for research and teaching at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.  
• 48.266 11.676 40 Forschungsreaktor München II ( FRM II ), Lichtenbergstraße 1, Garching bei München, Germany (   U6   to Garching-Forschungszentrum ), ☏ +49 89 289 12147 , [email protected] . The reactor is an optimised neutron source. Almost 50% of experiments are performed using cold neutrons. The compact construction of the fuel element means that more than 70% of the neutrons leave the uranium zone and build up to a maximum thermal neutron flux density at a distance of 12cm from the surface of the fuel element. From where they are distributed to the experiments. Please register early in advance your visit either by email or phone. The visitor needs to be older than 16 years, not pregnant and no phones or cameras are allowed inside.  
• 48.197003 16.412999 41 Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics ( Atominstitut ), Stadionallee 2, Vienna, Austria ( Vienna/Inner East ), ☏ +43 1 588 01 141391 , [email protected] . The 250 kW TRIGA Mark II reactor in the Viennese Prater started operation in 1962. The reactor is a training ground for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and neighbouring countries. The Atominstitut offers guided tours for groups upon previous registration. €4/person . ( updated Apr 2015 )
• 43.704956 5.769194 42 ITER ( International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or "the way" (Latin) ), Route de Vinon-sur-Verdon, St. Paul-lez-Durance, France ( CPA bus line 150 ( Aix-en-Provence --St Paul lez Durance) ), ☏ +33 4 42 17 66 25 , [email protected] . The ITER project aims to make the transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to an electricity-producing fusion power plants. ITER is designed to produce 500 megawatts of output power. Visitors are welcome year round on the first Friday of every month at the ITER site. General public visits include a stop at the Visitor's Centre for a presentation of the project followed by guided tour of the ITER platform where the ITER scientific facilities are under construction. Visit requests should be made at least four weeks in advance via on-line tool. Free of charge, groups larger than 8 must book a bus . ( updated Apr 2015 )
• 54.07295 13.425 43 Wendelstein 7-X fusion device ( Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik ), Wendelsteinstraße 1, Greifswald , Germany , ☏ +49 3834 88-1203 , +49 3834 88-1800 , [email protected] . In Greifswald the large Wendelstein 7-X fusion reactor (stellarator) is under construction. The device as well as technology and workshops can be toured upon previous booking.  
• 52.41 13.129444 44 Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany . The 10 MW research reactor BER II delivers neutron beams for a wide range of scientific investigations. On open house day, interested visitors are allowed to take guided tours through the experimental halls around the research reactor. Scientists and reactor experts will be there on these days to answer questions about the facility and the safety measures.  
• 47.538554 8.229899 45 Swiss Spallation Neutron Source ( SINQ ), Paul Scherrer Institut bldg. WHGA/147, Villigen PSI, Switzerland ( about 10 km north of Brugg ). SINQ is designed as a neutron source mainly for research with extracted beams of thermal and cold neutrons, but hosts also facilities for isotope production and neutron activation analysis.  
• 33.640495 -117.844296 46 TRIGA Mark I ( at the University of California, Irvine, in Irvine, California , USA ). The original prototype for the TRIGA (Training Research Isotopes General Atomic) reactor, one of the safest reactor designs. 66 such reactors are or have been operational worldwide, mostly at universities for educational use. The reactor has been declared a nuclear historical landmark. ( updated Aug 2015 )
• 55.796111 37.478611 47 [dead link] F-1 ( Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, Russia ). The first functioning nuclear reactor in Europe (Dec 1946) is still running. ( updated Aug 2015 )

Decommissioned reactors [ edit ]

• 55.604564 26.560546 49 The Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant ( IAE ) ( in Visaginas municipality, Lithuania ). It had two reactors - the first one was in operation from 1983 and was decommissioned in 2004, the second from 1987 until 2009. INPP will be fully dismantled in 2038. INPP offero excursions to its controlled INPP zone, home to the plant’s reactor room, turbine room, and block control panel. These excursions have become popular following the broadcast of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl , much of which was filmed on the site of the first reactor at INPP. ( updated Jun 2019 )

Other [ edit ]

Nuclear power plant building sites never finished [ edit ].

Some nuclear power plants never had a nuclear fission reaction happening on their site, as they were not turned on.

• Ruins of the 45.3914 35.8023 54 Crimean Atomic Energy Station , Russia

Sites related to German nuclear bomb project [ edit ]

Germany, which had had some leading nuclear scientists before the war (some of whom fled the country after the Nazi takeover due to being Jewish, opposed to the regime or both), developed a much more modest and less advanced nuclear program than the Allies. It received less funding and was hampered by Nazi ideology which rejected some of Albert Einstein's findings as "Jewish Physics", but its speculated existence during the war was one of the driving factors for the Manhattan project.

• 59.871111 8.491389 57 Vemork , Norway .   : Heavy water production site and location of war-time heavy water sabotage. Heavy water is an important component in certain nuclear applications and was seen as critically necessary for the development of a nuclear bomb during World War II. Despite the German occupation of Norway, Norwegian underground fighters ultimately managed to keep the heavy water out of the hand of the Nazis, thereby delaying the nuclear program of Nazi Germany which failed.

Nuclear bunkers [ edit ]

Nuclear bunkers were meant to protect in the case of nuclear weapon explosions. During the cold war this threat was considered imminent, hence many key figures would need access to such bunkers. While nothing was likely to withstand a direct hit, bunkers were built far underground to survive a nuclear strike which landed as close as 1 mile (1.6 km) away.

Fallout shelters were intended to shelter populations in areas far from the targets of a nuclear strike; these communities were likely to be spared direct blast damage but still become dangerously radioactive in the initial days or weeks after an attack. Often, civil defence authorities would make provision for a posted fallout shelter in the basement of a library, post office, school or other large public building. In some countries building regulations even pushed for bunkers in the cellars of small domestic buildings.

Nuclear weapon sites [ edit ]

Nuclear waste related sites [ edit ]

Nuclear waste is a big headache in all nuclear applications as it remains dangerous for timespans humans cannot generally oversee. There are various philosophies as to what to do with the waste, including putting it into abandoned salt mines as salt has high stability to waste heat (nuclear waste produces a lot of heat) and salt tends to naturally seal cavities. However, salt is vulnerable to water entering and there is the danger of that water connecting to groundwater, as has happened at several salt mines.

Non-categorized [ edit ]

• 53.55903 10.01975 75 A Memorial to the X-ray martyrs of the world in Hamburg , Germany ( Ehrenmal der Radiologie ) ( Garden of St. Georg hospital ). This monument is devoted to researchers, physicians, physicists, radiographers, laboratory technicians and nurses who died from injuries or illnesses caused by prolonged exposure to radiation used in medicine. On the list of about 360 names of radiologists from 23 countries perhaps the best known are Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie.  

Stay safe [ edit ]

One obvious concern in touring nuclear sites is radiation . In fact, good news is that most of the sites listed above are safe from this point of view. Where obvious danger exists, you should be usually stopped by fence and other security measures.

In case you happen to find yourself in a less safe situation or unknown suspicious area, you will hopefully be equipped with a radiation monitor and good knowledge of how to use it. It's important to know how to interpret the readings and/or convert the units. Although officially there is nothing like a safe level or radiation, there are some levels that can help to put the numbers into context. These are some examples:

• The typical yearly dose from purely natural background, consisting mainly of radon gas we breathe, building materials surrounding us, radionuclides in food we eat and from the cosmic radiation that keeps bombarding us. This value is 2.4 thousandths of Sievert (mSv) on average, with a large range between 1–13 mSv depending mainly on the geological background of the place you live.
• Additionally to natural sources, artificial radiation contributes to radiation exposure of some of us. The main contributor here is medical diagnosis and treatment using radiation or radionuclides. Here the exposition varies widely based on number and type of such measures. Globally, an average person receives 0.6 mSv/yr, while in countries with well developed medical systems the numbers are higher, for example 3.14 mSv in the USA, which relies heavily on testing like CT scans and X-rays. One bone scintigraphy scan with the use of medial isotope Tc-99m results in a one-time dose of about 5 mSv. A chest CT scan can give a dose of 5–10 mSv, which is much higher than a simple chest x-ray of 0.2 mSv.
• Members of flight crews receive some 1.5 mSv annual dose due to increased cosmic radiation in high altitudes.
• The limit for members of the public in the Fukushima exclusion zone was set as 20 mSv/yr.
• Occupational limits for radiation workers are usually at 50 mSv/yr.

The way to protect yourself against external radiation exposure (like radiation coming from soil polluted with radioactive fallout) is to limit the time spent in the polluted area and keep your distance from the source (hot spots).

During your exploration you certainly want to avoid internal contamination , that means ingesting radionuclides by eating or drinking contaminated food, or inhaling radioactive particles. Some easy protective measures are therefore avoiding eating and drinking and wearing a respirator. If there may be radioactive dust or water, you also want to avoid carrying that out from the area in your clothes or hair. Be sure to get clean before touching any food or anything that you will regard clean.

Another kind of more general risks can arise from exploration of abandoned or off-limits urban locations. These include injuries or possible legal consequences. For more details check the Urbex article.

See also [ edit ]

• Cold War Europe
• Industrial tourism
• Mathematics tourism
• Military tourism
• Science tourism
• Spies and secrets

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Making Meaning: The Nuclear Tourist

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According to “The Nuclear Tourist,” why do some people come back to the Chernobyl area to live?

They want to return home despite the danger.

They find the possibility of danger to be a thrill.

They want to live in an area with few other people.

They don't believe the radiation levels can harm them.

According to “The Nuclear Tourist,” how did the residents of Pripyat react at first to the meltdown at Chernobyl?

by rushing to the site

by carrying on as usual

by quickly leaving the area

by building a containment structure

What does “The Nuclear Tourist” suggest is the part of Chernobyl that has been most affected by the nuclear accident and its aftermath?

the outdoor air

the flora and fauna

the earth that was once topsoil

the atmosphere high above the area

What is the main reason that so many buildings described in “The Nuclear Tourist,” such as the school and hospital, are crumbling and run-down?

No one has taken care of them for years.

Radiation in the area has damaged them.

Looters caused harm while removing valuable parts.

They were bulldozed soon after the nuclear accident.

According to “The Nuclear Tourist,” how has the world’s view of splitting the atom changed since it first occurred?

from enthusiasm to fear

from insecurity to confidence

from excitement to anger

from nervousness to appreciation

Why does the author of “The Nuclear Tourist” come to feel at ease about his exposure risk while in the Chernobyl area?

He thinks the benefits outweigh the danger.

No one has been harmed by being in the area.

Most measurements he has taken have been quite low.

He has become used to the danger of radiation exposure.

A reader of “The Nuclear Tourist” can conclude that unless levels are extremely high, radiation’s negative effects on people can take a while to show up. Which detail from the text best supports this idea?

It is not possible to see radiation but instead one must test for it using a dosimeter.

Nearly 200 villagers were evacuated and many dogs were shot after the disaster.

People who consumed irradiated food as children later developed thyroid cancer.

People who lived near the explosion were told they could return in three to five days.

Which sentence best describes how the author of “The Nuclear Tourist” feels about the lack of safety precautions during the trip?

He is worried that he will be exposed to too much radiation.

He is alarmed and plans to report his concerns after the trip.

He is mostly calm but wishes there had been a few more rules.

He is pleased that he is not restricted from visiting dangerous places.

What is the meaning of the Latin root -spec- ?

At the beginning of “The Nuclear Tourist,” the author explains that it takes around five sieverts of radiation to kill a person. How does this information help the reader?

It allows the reader to estimate how much radiation the author is exposed to on his trip.

It gives the reader information to help understand the radiation measurements throughout the article.

It gives the reader an understanding of how quickly people get can sick after being exposed to tiny amounts of radiation.

It lets the reader know how many people probably died as a result of radiation from the accident and how many died from other causes.

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A Yellowstone trip that ended with a man being arrested for kicking a bison

Yellowstone National Park officials say a man who kicked a bison in the leg was then hurt by one of the animals

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. -- A man who kicked a bison in the leg was then hurt by one of the animals in Yellowstone National Park, according to park officials.

Park rangers arrested and jailed him after he was treated for minor injuries.

Park rangers got a call about the man allegedly harassing a bison herd and kicking one of them about seven miles (11 kilometers) inside the park's west entrance on April 21.

Rangers stopped the man in a car driven by another person in nearby West Yellowstone, Montana, Yellowstone officials said in a release Monday.

Park officials didn't describe the 40-year-old man's injuries from the bison. He was charged with being under the influence of alcohol, disorderly conduct, and approaching and disturbing wildlife.

His 37-year-old companion was charged with driving under the influence, failing to yield to a police car and disturbing wildlife.

The two men from Idaho Falls, Idaho, pleaded not guilty in a court appearance April 22.

Bison are the largest land mammal in North America, with bulls weighing up to 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms). Despite their size, bison can sprint up to 40 mph (65 kilometers per hour). They routinely injure tourists who get too close.

Yellowstone officials urge people to stay at least 25 yards (23 meters) away from all large wildlife in the park.

Some Yellowstone facilities began opening for the busy summer season last week, a process that will continue into June.

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ABC News Live

24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events

A massive US nuclear plant is finally complete. It might be the last of its kind

A new nuclear reactor reached commercial operation in Georgia on Monday, completing a project whose delays and sticker shock helped upend the near-term prospects for nuclear power in the U.S.

The first two reactors at Plant Vogtle, operated by Southern Co., opened in the 1980s. Adding two new reactors cost more than $30 billion, more than twice the initial estimates, and are a major reason no other large nuclear-power facilities are under development in the U.S. and the industry focus has shifted to smaller designs.

Still, Plant Vogtle is now the nation’s largest nuclear plant, as well as its largest generator of carbon-free electricity, and its arrival comes as public perceptions of nuclear power have been shifting. The two newest reactors can each deliver power to around 500,000 homes and businesses, according to Georgia Power, a unit of Southern Co.

Chris Womack, chairman and chief executive of Southern Co., called the Vogtle expansion a “hallmark achievement." “These new Vogtle units not only will support the economy within our communities now and in the future, they demonstrate our global nuclear leadership," Womack said.

Southern also operates another nuclear plant in Georgia, and last year about a quarter of its generation in that state was nuclear.

The project in Georgia was plagued by delays, design changes and turmoil. Cost overruns there and at a project in South Carolina, later abandoned, caused the original contractor, Westinghouse Electric, to declare bankruptcy in 2016. Southern later took over the project, only to be hit by pandemic-related disruptions to construction.

The average Georgia Power residential customer has already paid around $1,000 for the plant’s construction, which lasted seven years longer than expected, said Liz Coyle, executive director of the nonprofit consumer group Georgia Watch.

“A cliché, but it’s about time," Coyle said. “This is the most expensive form of electricity and we’ve long been concerned that Georgia Power’s customers, particularly their residential customers, are going to struggle to pay their power bills."

Coyle added, “Bottom line, we don’t want Georgia Power’s residential customers to have to take a risk like this ever again."

The industry has a long history of delays and soaring costs. That combination also doomed the only other new U.S. nuclear power plant begun this century. In 2017, Scana Corp. scrapped plans to finish a half-built nuclear-power plant in South Carolina.

The other most recent nuclear power reactors in the U.S. were completed in 2016 and 1996 by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The experience at Vogtle tamped down the enthusiasm of the utilities industry to pursue large nuclear projects. Instead, utilities across the U.S. have started to include the proposed next generation of nuclear projects into their long-term planning. The idea behind so-called small modular reactors, or SMRs, is that they are potentially cheaper alternatives because they could be built in a factory and shipped to sites, one after another, to achieve economies of scale.

No one has delivered an SMR in the U.S., though, and that industry will also have to prove it can deliver with reasonable costs and timelines.

The U.S. also plans to attempt for the first time to bring a closed nuclear plant back online. The Energy Department is offering $1.52 billion for a loan guarantee to finance the restart of an 800-megawatt reactor in Michigan that closed two years ago.

Another U.S. attempt at building a large reactor could go more smoothly because of lessons learned and improved supply chains, said Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is among those who think there could still be a future for the large machines in the U.S.

“We’ve gone through so much pain with this project that this is the time to capitalize on that experience," Buongiorno said. Waiting five years to start another U.S. effort would mean the loss—again—of U.S. expertise in building large nuclear projects, he said.

Federal tax credits now available to nuclear power producers could alter the outlook. The owners of existing plants can now receive a production tax credit, similar to what wind projects receive, for the first time. Investment tax credits are also available for new projects.

The tax credits could be boosted by things such as paying higher wages, locating in a former fossil-fuel community or using domestic content during construction. That could bring the value of an investment tax credit to as much as half of a project’s cost, protection against ballooning expenses, said Adam Stein, director of the nuclear energy innovation program at the Breakthrough Institute.

“If the cost goes over what you expect like it did at Vogtle, it’s still a percentage of that overrun," Stein said.

Southern, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy are among the utilities considering SMRs as a way to decarbonize their power generation mix in the next decade and beyond.

China and Russia are already operating SMRs. The first North American SMR is likely to be delivered in Canada.

In the U.S., SMR projects could include the Bill Gates-backed TerraPower, which plans to build its first reactor in Wyoming. Open AI CEO Sam Altman has backed Oklo, a nuclear-fission startup that plans to go public through a merger with his special-purpose acquisition company.

Write to Jennifer Hiller at [email protected]

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