Dangerous, eerie location for proposed new solar farm

Dangerous, eerie location for proposed new solar farm Saturday, November 26, 2016, 6:39 PM - A little more than 30 years after suffering a major nuclear disaster, the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl is set to make an unlikely return to the realm of alternate energy. Reuters reports two Chinese firms are inching nearer to finalizing plans to build a solar farm in the exclusion zone that was set up around the city after its nuclear plant suffered a meltdown in April 1986. At least 31 people were killed in the disaster. The exclusion zone spans 2,500 square kilometres around the city, near the border with Belarus. Farming and other activities are forbidden there, making it more attractive to the Chinese firms. Reuters reports Chinese authorities have tended in recent years to zone solar projects in contaminated areas so as not to cut into farmland. "Ukraine has passed a law allowing the site to be developed for agriculture and other things, so that means (the radiation) is under control," an unnamed manager told Reuters. The planned solar plant would have a one-gigawatt capacity. Within China itself, solar plants had a 43-gigawatt capacity by the end of 2015. In Chernobyl, the reactor was first covered by a concrete sheath, but is scheduled next year to be covered by a massive arch lined with steel, at a cost of $1.5 billion. The 1986 meltdown spread radioactive material all over Europe, such that some wild boars in Germany tested positive for Cesium-137 as recently as 2014. The same year, unsafe levels of Cesium-137 were detected in Norwegian reindeer herds. Though most economic activity is prohibited in the exclusion zone, you can still visit the area, and Mental Floss says around 5,000 people, such as sentries, firefighters and construction workers, work in the zone, though on rotated shifts. And although the Ukrainian government initially barred people from actually living in the zone full time, almost 200 of the original residents have been allowed back.