China wants to turn Chernobyl exclusion zone into solar power plant via RT

Two Chinese companies have announced plans to build a one gigawatt solar photovoltaic plant in the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, reviving the site after the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.Thirty years after a catastrophic meltdown in 1986 forced the authorities to evacuate all people and create an exclusion zone within a 30 kilometer radius of the Soviet nuclear plant located on the territory of modern Ukraine, Chinese clean energy giant Golden Concord Holdings Limited (GCL) embraced the ambitious project of reviving the area by building a solar plant within the exclusion zone’s confines.

GCL System Integration Technology (GCL-SI), a subsidiary of the GCL Group, announced that it would cooperate with the China National Complete Engineering Corp (CCEC) on plant construction, which is expected to be started in 2017.

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The Chernobyl disaster was the deadliest nuclear plant catastrophe in the human history. According to UN data, almost 50 people died from trauma, acute radiation poisoning, a helicopter crash and cases of thyroid cancer immediately after the accident. Further studies conducted by the World Health Organization revealed that the total number of deaths caused by the radiation effects from the disaster amounted to about 4,000 by 2005. 

On 26th April 1986, during a failed safety experiment, the plant’s Reactor 4 experienced a meltdown that resulted in an explosion and the release of vast quantities of radiation into the atmosphere. The accident made a 30 square kilometer zone around the plant uninhabitable, although a radioactive dust cloud spread over much of Europe.

Now, a giant radiation shield made of steel is being maneuvered over the site to prevent the further leakage of radioactive material from the damaged facility as fears that the current concrete sarcophagus could eventually deteriorate and collapse are growing.

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