A Chernobyl Lesson for Fukushima

The challenges for Japanese authorities at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station remain grave. With potentially fatal radioactive material leaking from the stricken plants, it will take weeks or months for workers to stabilize the facility and know how much nuclear fuel is damaged in the reactors and spent fuel pools. Only then can the cleanup begin.

"It isn't a week endeavor or a month endeavor, it's a years endeavor to do this work," says Kurt Kehler, vice-president of CH2M Hill, a company that decommissions and demolishes nuclear power plants around the world. CH2M Hill is mothballing the Hanford facility in Washington State, which produced plutonium for the Manhattan Project. The company was also among the bidders to build a steel hangar to contain radiation from Chernobyl, a project now being built by Novarka, a consortium of French contractors.