Covering the old and the new:Chernobyl, capacity factors, and a O&A

摘要

As I write this editorial (rather past its due date), it is the 25th anniversary of the disaster at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Covering the events at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan—with constantly changing and updated information passing through innumerable official organizations and media outlets, and with all of that information be- ing available on the World Wide Web—has been difficu covering the Chernobyl accident was, in the initial days, nearly impossible, but for the opposite reason: an extreme lack of information from what was still the tight-lipped Soviet Union (and, of course, in 1986 there was no World Wide Web). What a contrast! Each situation has presented its own challenges, leaving far-reaching effects on the nuclear industry worldwide.