Energy security

World’s largest solar power plant planned for Chernobyl nuclear wasteland

The world’s most famous and damaging nuclear meltdown is now being considered for the world’s largest solar power plant. The Ukrainian nuclear power station Chernobyl had a nuclear meltdown on April 26, 1986. Since then 1,600 square miles of land has been deemed an ‘exclusion zone’ as the radiation levels are too high for human health. But in a recent interview, Ukraine’s ecology minister said the government was negotiating with two US investment firms and four Canadian energy companies, which have expressed interest in the Chernobyl’s solar potential.

It would be among the modern world’s greatest technical ironies if one of the worst industrial accidents ever would be replaced with a solar power plant, one of the world’s safest energy technologies. Greenpeace estimates that 100,000 people will die of cancer as a result of fallout from the disaster. Interestingly,  as a result of human activity within the region being minimized larger animal populations are thriving, while the smallest of animals – microbes that digest leaves – are showing signs of stress.