Chornobyl Goes Solar

Ukraine unveiled its first solar plant in Chornobyl. Just meters away from where a power station, now encased in a giant sarcophagus, caused the world’s worst nuclear disaster three decades ago.

Built in a contaminated area, which remains largely uninhabitable and where visitors are accompanied by guides carrying radiation meters, 3,800 panels produce energy to power 2,000 apartments.

“It’s not just another solar power plant,” Evhen Variagin, the chief executive of Solar Chernobyl LLC, told reporters. “It’s really hard to underestimate the symbolism of this particular project.”