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on, and so on. The immense heat created by this chain reaction will heat the water, which
will create the steam, which will spin the turbines at terrifying speed, which will turn the
generators, which will create an ungodly amount of electricity, which will be used to keep
office buildings uncomfortably cold in the middle of summer.
So far, so good.
The problem with this chain reaction is that, by its very nature, it tends to run out of con-
trol. So to keep your reactor's apocalyptic side in check, you should slide some rods made
of boron or hafnium into the reactor core. (Remember to make room for them while you're
stacking the uranium.) These rods—let's call them
control rods
—will be like sponges, ab-
sorbing all those lively, bullet-like neutrons. With the control rods duly inserted, you'll
get…nothing.
The trick, then, is to find the happy medium, while remaining on the correct side of the
line that separates air-conditioning from catastrophe. To do this, you'll need to pull the con-
trol rods out of the core far enough to let the chain reaction begin, but not so far that it runs
out of control. Then you can heat water and spin turbines and generate electricity to your
heart's content.
But
pull
the
control
rods
out
slowly,
okay?
And
for
the
love
of
God,
please—
please
—put them back when you're done.
With the Chernobyl Museum taken care of, I had a couple of days to kill in Kiev before
my excursion to Chernobyl itself, and I spent them exploring my new neighborhood. I was
living in style, sidestepping Kiev's overpriced hotels by renting an inexpensive apartment
that was nevertheless nicer than any I had ever lived in back home. The front door of my
building opened onto the bustling but cozy street of Zhitomirskaya, and it was an easy walk
to Saint Sophia Square. There was also a nice terrace park where the young and hip of Kiev
would gather in the late afternoon to throw Frisbees, play bongo drums, and drink beer in
the glow of the sunset.
It all filled me with a churning panic. I just don't like being a clueless foreigner in a
strange city where I've got no friends. I was also having trouble finding a portable radiation
detector for my trip to the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl. The detector would come
in handy for measuring my radioactive exposure, with great precision, in units I wouldn't
understand. But Amazon didn't deliver overnight to Kiev, and so I was out of ideas. It was
time to be resourceful—I had to get someone else to figure it out.
If journalism can teach us anything, it's that local people are a powerful tool to save us
from our own fecklessness and incompetence. We call them
fixers.
In my case, I hired a
