Dunkopf said:
...However it was an easy write off because of course the Russians don't care about safety and have long been known for shoddy workmanship. At least that's what I have read in the past.
Please pardon me for the thread hijack, but it really bothers me to read ignorant comments like this. It is far better to NOT generalize regarding any national or ethnic group than to potentially expose one's self as ignorant and bigoted. I have read this type of statement too often on this forum and really had to speak my mind this time.
Dunkopf, please do not take this personally but rather please read it for what I am saying in general terms, as I believe that you just didn't realize the impact of your words and I trust from all I have read in your past posts that you are a generally open-minded person. Your post was just one straw too far for me to stay quiet on this subject.
But I would like to make the small request that all forum members truly think before they generalize about any group--Native Indian, Russian, Mexican, Chinese... are just a few of those I have read carelessly maligned as entire ethnic groups on this forum.
Please just think before you post. "Us" and "them" thinking only results in war, whether it be a war of beliefs that serves to drive a wedge between people, or actual killing over those different beliefs. And many of us reading along as well as your friends and neighbors fall into those groups.
I am of Russian/Ukrainian descent, and people of every nationality/ethnicity care just as much about their work, and for that matter their children, their homes, and how they are perceived by others. Americans do NOT have a monopoly on doing their best (and in fact are regarded as quite lazy by international standards if we want to get into generalizations).
The Soviet Union, at the time of the Chernobyl disaster, was falling apart and had been for some time. People in many professions had not had a
regular paycheque in months or years, depending on their status. The Chernobyl plant in particular was said to have been understaffed (as were many other government and military run facilities at the time). The accident was actually the result of mistakes made during a test of the cooling system--yes, human error, but not due to "shoddy workmanship" or not caring about one's job.
(For more info you can google "Chernobyl timeline" or similar and read the various accounts but a simple timeline can be found at
http://www.osaarchivum.org/guide/rip/10/Timeline-IV.html. There is a particularly touching account specifying by name and post how the workers on shift that night stayed at their posts as long as possible to try to cool the plant back down but I was unable to find it in my brief search. These individuals died horrible deaths within days/weeks of the accident. Many other military and civilian workers laboured to build the "sarcophagus" that now covers the plant, sealing in what can be contained.)
The very same thing could happen at any aging nuclear facility in my own country (which has recently privatized our national nuclear agency) as well as at any aging nuclear facility in the US if the "perfect storm" of situations were similar to what happened at Chernobyl.
As regards nuclear power generation, I have always held the personal view that the dangers far outweigh any other considerations.
