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Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

Fascinating! Wikipedia entry of the technology used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...

The location is beautiful (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aniva,+Russia,+694005/@46....)

Started browsing photo spheres. Here's an awe inspiring one relatively close by: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.30123,138.6972783,3a,90y,345...

> Most have no protection, not even fences or warning signs, and the locations of some of these facilities are no longer known due to poor record keeping. In one instance, the radioactive compartments were opened by a thief. There are approximately 1,000 such RTGs in Russia, all of which have long since exceeded their designed operational lives of ten years. Most of these RTGs likely no longer function, and may need to be dismantled. Some of their metal casings have been stripped by metal hunters, despite the risk of radioactive contamination.

Yikes.

Lots of these have been abandoned in the wild. One caused an incident in Lia, Georgia in 2001. https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...

I was going to post this exact link but you beat me to it by 14 minutes :-D

All I say is - if you're not good with gore, skip the section about the decay process of the affected people, it's not pretty.

At least the lighthouse generators were decommissioned and "all RTGs are now gone" (mentioned at the end of the video).

"Gone" as in cleaned up or as in "they disappeared and we have no idea where they are"? Sounds like a mix of both.

Gone as in taken to/from a boat with a helicopter, as seen at the end of the video. What happened afterwards, Rosatom knows.

Except we know some of them did disappear, either washed away in storms or carted away by whoever.

There is a strange looking structure in the water just north-east of the light.

https://www.google.com/maps/@46.0472783,143.4338028,652m/dat...

Fish trap?

maybe squid hunting? judging by the lights...

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