On April 26, 1986, a dark cloud hung over the city of Pripyat in the Chernobyl region (today it is an administrative region south of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border). On that day, an explosion occurred at a nuclear power plant, which completely destroyed the reactor of the fourth power unit. It was one of the largest environmental disasters ever to occur on our planet.
More than 30 years later
Most likely, the background radiation will never dissipate completely in this place. But the sun never stopped shining on an area of 1, 000 square miles, known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. This place is mostly forgotten, with the exception of occasional news about amazing four-legged residents looking for a new home.
Now, more than 30 years after one of the worst nuclear accidents in history, which turned a huge strip of north-central Ukraine and beyond into a radioactive wasteland, the Ukrainian government uses this plentiful sunlight and turns it into a source of clean energy.
One of the world's largest solar power plants
A joint Ukrainian-German company built and opened a solar farm at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant - 100 meters from the dome in which the reactor of the nuclear power plant is located. The facility is one of the largest solar farms in the world with 3, 800 panels, a clean energy plant that, according to the Guardian, is capable of generating nearly a third of the electricity generated by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it was operating. Construction began in December 2017 and was completed in the fall of 2018.
Another piece? Chicken and Pineapple Salad Cake Recipe
The Berlin Film Festival kicks off on February 20 and lasts 10 days.
An animal that does not need oxygen. It lives in the muscles of salmon
The fact is that little can be done with land that falls into the exclusion zone. The soil cannot be used for agricultural purposes due to its pollution. The restoration of housing in this area is all the more out of the question. Today, the exclusion zone mainly functions as an artificially created natural reserve with a sufficiently developed extreme tourism industry.
Solar farm
With so much land and so few options for its effective use, the Ukrainian government has identified 6, 000 hectares in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which may be suitable for generating electricity. The solar farm currently occupies 1.6 hectares and can provide energy with a capacity of about 2000 families — it can produce 100 megawatts of renewable energy. Given that the four Soviet-era nuclear reactors in Chernobyl had an installed capacity of 4, 000 megawatts, this is, of course, a much smaller, but still significant amount.
According to the Guardian, there are certain advantages in the construction of a solar farm in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Firstly, it is obvious that there is affordable real estate (and it is available in large numbers). Secondly, the district already has an electric grid infrastructure, including high-voltage power lines.
Strong sunlight is a renewable source of energy.
The most favorable aspect for creating renewable energy in place of this notorious place where a nuclear disaster occurred is the abundance of bright sunlight. This area, despite its forbidden territory, is "blessed" with sunlight. Its quantity is compared with Southern Germany, which is one of the most advanced regions for the production of solar energy in the world.
Scientists from America regulate the amount of artificial snow using radars
The performer of "Sad Dance" is getting married soon (new photos of the chosen one)
Modern Aibolit: a veterinarian examines and treats homeless animals for free
“The Chernobyl site has really good potential for renewable energy, ” explained the Minister of the Environment of Ukraine Ostap Semerak during a press conference held in London in the summer of 2016. “We already have high-voltage power lines that were previously used for nuclear power plants, land in this region, for obvious reasons, it’s very cheap, and we have many people trained to work in power plants."
This high-profile statement about the possibility of switching to clean renewable energy will help Ukraine reduce its dependence on Russian resources and potentially relieve some pressure from the four remaining nuclear energy facilities. In total, there are 15 reactors in this place, which provided almost half of the country's electricity needs.
