chernobyl fact and opinions please

[Kapitan]

in 1986 the worlds worst ever nuclear disaster took place in a small town in the ukrain a former republic of the soviet union.

the name of the place was chernobyl and in chernobyl was one of the newest nuclear power plant in the whole of the land.

during the night a routine saftey check failed and the staff lost control of reactor number 4 shortly after 1am reactor number 4 hit critical and went into a full scale meltdown.

just seconds after the entire roof including the 2000 tonne cap of the reactor blew apart throwing radio active debris for miles around shortly after the entire populace of pripriat and other towns were totaly evacuated officals pull the death toll between 300 and 300,000 how ever no one knows for sure.

after a few months a sarcophicas was built around the reactor to prevent any more nuclear matter spilling out into the atmosphere.
today it is crumbeling and falling apart america and britian has jointly pledged $750 million for a new encasement of the reactor

a 50km no mans land was set up and today only permitted people are alowed to enter this area with strict written permission by the government.


after the disaster chernobyl did carry on producing power in reactors one and two.

in 2000 chernobyl shut down her two remaining reactors for good and was written off for decommissioning and is now totaly out of action.

scientist estimate that the area cannot be inhabited untill 2525 when radiation levels are sufficent for people to return

the powerplant itself is totaly off limits to any tourist short tours are allowed but accsess to the powerer plant is prohibited.

where was you when this accident happend?
what you think of it ?
tell us all please share emotions facts opinions ect ect

[thanos]

1986, first challenger blows up then chernobil blows up...

I was 9 at the time, so I don't remeber too much. However, I DO remember people going to get radiation measurements. I also remember people being afraid/reluctant to eat vegetables.

Oh and all this was in Greece, where I was at that time.

[gdogghenrikson]

I was only 7 and I never even heard of that. Sounds kinda crazy that they still used it even after 2 reactors blew

[TLAM Strike]

I was about 4 when this happend so I have no clue where I was.

[mog]

I highly recommend that people check out this site:

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

It has plenty of photos taken by a woman motorcyclist who has ridden through the dead zone.

[gdogghenrikson]

interesting site with alot of interesting pics

[Kapitan]

didnt she used to live there and that site inspired the post :up:

[Skybird]

We didn't buy or pick mushrooms for years to come (Berlin, I was 19). Also various vegetables from certain european areas were "ticking", and plenty of jokes about these, I think. Was a strange feeling to know one was living under the shadow of this mysterious and unvisible stream of radiation that was moving westward like sort of a smoke fan. Fortunately, although the fallout was measurable in western Europe, the level of radiation did not hit unhealthy levels. Also the first Space Shuttle desaster in that year, and the LaBelle. :( But also - my first love. :)

[Kapitan]

wow a short and sweat post from skybird you ok skybird? :-j

[Damo1977]

1986, first challenger blows up then chernobil blows up...

I was 9 at the time, so I don't remeber too much. However, I DO remember people going to get radiation measurements. I also remember people being afraid/reluctant to eat vegetables.

Oh and all this was in Greece, where I was at that time.

I was 8 or 9 too. I remember Challenger, watching the launch on TV at 6:30am. Was the first Shuttle launch I saw live. Than I decided I didn't want to be an astronaut.

With Chernobyl, I remember it, Just remember alot of people fleeing, and than the empty towns afterwards. I still remember seeing on TV an Old Russian Grandma in tears because she had to leave her home. The dead and dying animals I also remember. I can't really say what I felt because I was only a pup and the USSR was far away and all I cared about was the world of "Transformers".

Also in 1986;
Crocodile Dundee came out
150 years of the state of South Australia, so we had Golden Jubilee celebrations.

[Skybird]

wow a short and sweat post from skybird you ok skybird? :-j

Sometimes radiation still affects my brain, that's why. :-j

[Catfish]

Hello,
what bothers me most is that - depending on the source - there have been 40 to 50 kg of Plutonium being blown into the atmosphere during the explosion. I do not know whether those are reliable numbers, but if you know what it is able to - a spoonful of this stuff dispersed over England would kill anything, not because of radiation but toxicity. Luckily Plutonium is a quite heavy stuff, so it was washed down quickly, but it still accumulates in plants, mushrooms etc. and makes its path through the food chain. Scientists believe it is a time bomb for the next some 10.000s of years.
Greetings,
Catfish

[micky1up]

it wasnt a routine saftey check the were experimenting with the turbines to see if the could draw power from them just after the reactor was offline to do this they(read fools) switched off most of the saftey features and the result was what happened

[Kapitan]

those types of tests were done anualy on every nuclear plant making them routine

[micky1up]

yes shuting down the reactor is routine the experiment to draw power was not nor was disabling the safety features

[Kapitan]

the saftey fetures should never have been shut down never and the total lack of comunication in the control room well speaks for itself.

better communication and if the saftey fetures were in place chernobyl might never have happend

i also read some where that if all saftey fetures fail the reactors automaticaly scramble (shut down) as they do on nuclear submarines but this just didnt happen

[Happy Times]

I was 7 and living in Israel.Remember my parents were worried.

[Kapitan]

i doubt they were the only ones think every one in the entire world was worried lol

[McBeck]

Updated story with a few new pics from 2004

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/

[The Avon Lady]

Make sure to view her sister site, The Serpent's Wall (http://www.serpentswall.com/).

[Polak]

Chernobyl once belonged to Poland... :)
My brother got sick in cancer a couple of months after the disaster... :(

[Kapitan]

that is bad polak i have been near chernobyl well i say near same country kiev is where i went nice city

[tycho102]

Just so everyone is clear on that "motorcycle" woman:

That website and story are old news. It turns out she went on one of the tours available, and they didn't stray off the trail (road). So, she sure as hell wasn't "riding her motorcycle" through the area. The pictures from the ghost towns are from someone else's camera, who was documenting the area with authorization from the Russian government. The tours don't go through that area, and she wasn't authorized to do any kind of research or monitoring of radiation levels.

So, that is to say, she lied. It's still completely valid information, and a wonderful read...in the "quasi-non-fiction" section of the intarweb library. It's much more exciting the way she tells it, in a Fallout (Interplay) kind of post-apocalyptic kind of way.




And the Chernobyl reactor was incredibly unique in it's design. No other reactor in the entire world has it's capabilities, and it was actually quite safe. The problem was that it was being used as a test reactor. The engineers were testing if the reactor could be run without pumps, relying on fluid convection to cool the reactor core. The problem was exacerbated by two things:

A.) A nuclear power plant requires engineers from all manner of disciplines. Mechanical, electrical, chemical, civil, industrial, computer, nuclear, petroleum. It was a weekend, and since the test wasn't being performed on the actual reactor core, rather it's turbines, the core engineer (nuclear) was sent home.

B.) They were running behind schedule. To speed things up, they dropped the plant's output below 10%. This led to an increase in radeon gas, which "poisons" the reaction. When they went to do the plant test, they had the control rods completely inserted to "accelerate" the reactor core to normal power production levels; it simply would not go above 10% power output (because of the gas). Once they got all the fuel rods inserted, it suddenly jumped to critical power levels, and the rod retraction mechanism failed under the heat (thermal expansion). They slammed the control rods in (keep in mind this plant operated completely different than any other reactor in the world), and the graphite tips on the control rods immediately caused the entire pile to go fully critical. Nuclear reactors are designed to run at 98% critical, which leaves them controllable but still producing heat.

Had they not been running behind schedule from Moscow (the Government) telling them to keep producing power for several hours, they would not have tried to rush the test. Had the reactor core engineer been there, he would have immediately told them of the radeon gas danger, and the plant would have been shut down cold before being restarted. If they hadn't been doing a bloody research experiment on an actual line plant, then it would never had it's safety backup systems disabled to attempt a power increase.

Coupled with the fact the reactor was an extra-ordinary "breeder" reactor. It produced plutonium for weapons (or for other reactors!!!), it didn't have to be taken off-line to change out fuel rods (unique!), and it produced the same amount of power that a depleting reactor does (1000MW!!), the design was absolutely awesome.





The problem was the Russian government. Have a core engineer for each shift instead of sending him home for the weekend, and don't run experiments on line production plants.

For obvious reasons, no one in Europe, America, Japan, Israel, or Canada would make either of these two mistakes. Although Israel has had a couple problems with irradiation plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents). :roll:

[Kapitan]

i was wondering that one cause some picture ive seen arnt from that area and dont show the radiation moniters

[XabbaRus]

Just so everyone is clear on that "motorcycle" woman:

That website and story are old news. It turns out she went on one of the tours available, and they didn't stray off the trail (road). So, she sure as hell wasn't "riding her motorcycle" through the area. The pictures from the ghost towns are from someone else's camera, who was documenting the area with authorization from the Russian government. The tours don't go through that area, and she wasn't authorized to do any kind of research or monitoring of radiation levels.



Where did you find out about her going on one of the tours and using someone elses photos?

I did wonder if she went alone as some of the pictures had to be taken by someone else ie the ones where she is in them, and from the way she is standing and the angle I doubt they were taken on auto-timer.

BTW would love to do the "drive"

[Kapitan]

id doubt authorities would allow anyone to go in alone like that the just about let small coach tours go in so one woman on a motor bike i not to sure.

only people that go in alone well in pairs are inspection teams so its puzzeling

[XabbaRus]

I remember when I first saw it in the Guardian Weekend's magazine I went to her site and she said her dad works in the Atomic Energy Ministry. Now depending how high up he is it might not be entirely unfeasible that she got a pass to drive through the area.

Ukraine like Russia is very much a case of who you know and how your daddy is....

[Kapitan]

yeah but still i mean i wouldnt go in there even if my father was president of ukrain id like to stear clear of that area

[Type941]

Ukraine like Russia is very much a case of who you know and how your daddy is....
In some ways, networking is important in every single country, but in Russia and former soviet republics this is indeed much more important.


Reading that report I had goose bumps, not at least due to her narrative style of writing. The details are downright scary, like staying in middle of asphault, glowing trees, people watching the radioactive glow like deers in headlights and the mail still left in the mailbox. So sad. And I feel ashamed that neither Russia mainly nor even the rest of the neighbours are helping Ukraine to rebuild the sarcophagus. It's like noone cares about it before it opens up again. I can't imagine what kind of animals live there now, but I've seen some photos and pics on TV back a few years which showed pigs with few heads and worse. Next year, it will be a 20 year aniversary. With 300 or so more to go before the area will be safer.

I still don't buy any juices or sugar produced in Ukraine.

There is going to be a PC game released, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Shadow of Chernobyl by THQ, next year based on a russian novel about the 'zone' and the developers have actually filmed and modelled the whole 30sq meters of the area of the reactor and around it and recreated it in a game. Could be as close as I ever want to get to the place, but if you ever followed that game's progress, it looks photorealistic. Just a shame takes so long to get it released.


http://www.stalker-game.com/download/gallery/screenshots/middle/sb_xray_48.jpg

this is their website: http://www.stalker-game.com/index_eng.htm

[Kapitan]

not you aswell type 941 my friend is always on about stalker

as for rebuild the sarchophicause america and britain has jointly pledged $740 million to do such a project

[Type941]

not you aswell type 941 my friend is always on about stalker

as for rebuild the sarchophicause america and britain has jointly pledged $740 million to do such a project

Yes, the money which the corrupt Ukraine government uses for whoknows what. Perhpas that fancy M6coupe and 40000 dollar phones the son of Yushenko is cruising around. I guess with the Katrina effort the 'new' Ukraine isn't getting any american money which is now making this whole puppet government being on a brink of collaps!

I think it's a crime that Russia isn't involved more. They should be building an man made mountain over that thing. So many people died, all of europe affected up to Sweden. It's awful. I think this is much more important debate than that demagogy that's going on in the 'I don't get it' thread about who did what in Nazi germany and Stalin Russia. This thing needs much more attention and it still can be fixed...

[XabbaRus]

Well I have at home somewhere a Samizdat copy of "Roadside Picnic" or "Picnic na obochine"

You see when the book was written it wasn't allowed to be published but as always people did get it and read it.

I have to find it as what I have is an artefact of Soviet Russia.

It was printed on a dot-matrix printer on that super long interconnected paper that was used.

I wonder how much it would be worth.

I plan to get the book in Russian and in English.

The film I had a bad copy of and want to get the DVD. The game looks very haunting.

[Skybird]

[There is going to be a PC game released, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Shadow of Chernobyl by THQ, next year based on a russian novel about the 'zone' and the developers have actually filmed and modelled the whole 30sq meters of the area of the reactor and around it and recreated it in a game. Could be as close as I ever want to get to the place, but if you ever followed that game's progress, it looks photorealistic. Just a shame takes so long to get it released.


Heared of it, impressive graphics.

Starforce yes or no?

[Type941]

[There is going to be a PC game released, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Shadow of Chernobyl by THQ, next year based on a russian novel about the 'zone' and the developers have actually filmed and modelled the whole 30sq meters of the area of the reactor and around it and recreated it in a game. Could be as close as I ever want to get to the place, but if you ever followed that game's progress, it looks photorealistic. Just a shame takes so long to get it released.


Heared of it, impressive graphics.

Starforce yes or no?

Oh, lol, let's just wait for the release.

[Skybird]

Why waiting for release? If it will ship with SF my interest will immediately drop to exactly zero.

[Neptunus Rex]

Just so everyone is clear on that "motorcycle" woman:

That website and story are old news. It turns out she went on one of the tours available, and they didn't stray off the trail (road). So, she sure as hell wasn't "riding her motorcycle" through the area. The pictures from the ghost towns are from someone else's camera, who was documenting the area with authorization from the Russian government. The tours don't go through that area, and she wasn't authorized to do any kind of research or monitoring of radiation levels.

So, that is to say, she lied. It's still completely valid information, and a wonderful read...in the "quasi-non-fiction" section of the intarweb library. It's much more exciting the way she tells it, in a Fallout (Interplay) kind of post-apocalyptic kind of way.




And the Chernobyl reactor was incredibly unique in it's design. No other reactor in the entire world has it's capabilities, and it was actually quite safe. The problem was that it was being used as a test reactor. The engineers were testing if the reactor could be run without pumps, relying on fluid convection to cool the reactor core. The problem was exacerbated by two things:

A.) A nuclear power plant requires engineers from all manner of disciplines. Mechanical, electrical, chemical, civil, industrial, computer, nuclear, petroleum. It was a weekend, and since the test wasn't being performed on the actual reactor core, rather it's turbines, the core engineer (nuclear) was sent home.

B.) They were running behind schedule. To speed things up, they dropped the plant's output below 10%. This led to an increase in radeon gas, which "poisons" the reaction. When they went to do the plant test, they had the control rods completely inserted to "accelerate" the reactor core to normal power production levels; it simply would not go above 10% power output (because of the gas). Once they got all the fuel rods inserted, it suddenly jumped to critical power levels, and the rod retraction mechanism failed under the heat (thermal expansion). They slammed the control rods in (keep in mind this plant operated completely different than any other reactor in the world), and the graphite tips on the control rods immediately caused the entire pile to go fully critical. Nuclear reactors are designed to run at 98% critical, which leaves them controllable but still producing heat.

Had they not been running behind schedule from Moscow (the Government) telling them to keep producing power for several hours, they would not have tried to rush the test. Had the reactor core engineer been there, he would have immediately told them of the radeon gas danger, and the plant would have been shut down cold before being restarted. If they hadn't been doing a bloody research experiment on an actual line plant, then it would never had it's safety backup systems disabled to attempt a power increase.

Coupled with the fact the reactor was an extra-ordinary "breeder" reactor. It produced plutonium for weapons (or for other reactors!!!), it didn't have to be taken off-line to change out fuel rods (unique!), and it produced the same amount of power that a depleting reactor does (1000MW!!), the design was absolutely awesome.





The problem was the Russian government. Have a core engineer for each shift instead of sending him home for the weekend, and don't run experiments on line production plants.

For obvious reasons, no one in Europe, America, Japan, Israel, or Canada would make either of these two mistakes. Although Israel has had a couple problems with irradiation plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents). :roll:

I had read some where (a long time ago) that the plant used graphite as a moderator instead of heavy water. And that is was a bubble of hydrogen gas that had formed on top of the core.

The operators (or system) failed to initiate emergency cooling, the H2 bubble grew and when the superheated bubble contacted the graphite moderator, the graphite (and core) suffered a sudden critical disassembly. (explosion). I never heard anything about the core going super-critical.

This is why graphite is not used in US reactors.

But is was a long time ago and my gray matter is getting old.

[Type941]

I think what's also mind boggling is the fact that the other reacors were operational for like naother 10 years after the accident! I think Ukraine couldn't afford to buy all energy and wanted to exploit it as much as possible. I could be wrong about this though (reasons for working it). But it's a fact that the plant remained operational for quite some time after the reactor.

Again, I can't imagine how horryfying it was for those who stood on that tallest Prepyat' building and watched at the radioactive glowing cloud after the explosion.

You could understand that they screwed up in the 60s and used wrong equipment when dealing with K-19, but in 86, for fuks sake they still sent thousands of civilians and 18 year old miliatry kids to fight it all... I mean those pictures of fire engines and trucks frozen in time...

I can understand why one would want to visit the place had it been safe COMPLETELY - just to look at history stopped in reality. I don't think there's anything like that in the world.

[Kapitan]

they do say it is the true city where time stands still this city will be exactly the same in 500 years time and in 600 years time i think the clean up will begin and after that rehabitation of the area but

they never removed the radioactive elements in any reactor at chernobyl and i doubt its going to stand for 5 or 600 years it will collapse the sarchophicus is bearly 20 and thats all ready falling to bits so if it does collapse what then ? its all fine at the moment containing it using the existing building but when that falls down no hope

[XabbaRus]

The reactor design itself wasn't bad...

It blew up cos the guys running the experiment turned off basic safety equipment. Had they not then it most likely wouldn't have happened.

I read a declassified KGB report on the building of Chernobyl signed by Andropov citing equipment etc being stolen and bad construction practices......

My father in-laws father helped design Chernobyl..In fact he was one of the guys in from the ground floor of the nuclear industry. Anyway his father had to go down and poke around given he had design responsibility.

Get this, he was also forced to admit responisibility along with the other designers that it was some of their fault. He was even shown an admission that he had supposedly signed. When he protested that he hadn't signed it they (KGB) told him "you have a family and grandaughter etc" So like most people he accepted the letter...

From what I understood from then on his health deterioated and stuff...

[Kapitan]

ahhh yes the good old you got this havnt you so sign and you keep i can remember stuff like that pretty bad

overall the reactor design is pretty much the same as the powerstation we have down here at bradwell almost identicle my father goes in thier often to repair plant machinery that is decommissioning the nuclear plant.

this will take years and they only just begun my father has said that people tell him that this could be one long road everything is checked by gieger counters

before he can leave his van is screaned he is screened and tools and such any trace of radiation would mean he is taken away and his tools and vieachle empounded.

thankfully that aint happend

[Wim Libaers]

It was xenon poisoning, positive void coefficient, and general incompetence during the test. Good overview:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/cherno.html

By the way, if you're worried about that one, Chelyabinsk is supposed to be worse. No single incident, but lots of separate incidents.

[Kapitan]

the chelbinsk one update me on that please

[Wim Libaers]

Mayak, the production facilities for plutonium.

Brief overview:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/chelyabinsk-65_nuc.htm

More details:
http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/fissmat/pumayak/nucwaste.htm

[Kapitan]

thanks i didnt know about this

[tycho102]

I had read some where (a long time ago) that the plant used graphite as a moderator instead of heavy water. And that is was a bubble of hydrogen gas that had formed on top of the core.

The operators (or system) failed to initiate emergency cooling, the H2 bubble grew and when the superheated bubble contacted the graphite moderator, the graphite (and core) suffered a sudden critical disassembly. (explosion). I never heard anything about the core going super-critical.

This is why graphite is not used in US reactors.

But is was a long time ago and my gray matter is getting old.

You're getting Three-Mile-Island mixed up. 3MI had a small amount of hydrogen that exploded. Chernobyl's explosion was caused by the water vaporizing.

And although I mixed up my description a bit, I'm almost certain they didn't use enriched-uranium ("U-235") fuel rods. Uranium is difficult to enrich, and the plutonium is very easy to make and seperate from uranium 238; during any kind of sustained nuclear reaction, large quantities of U238 will be converted into Pu239. This is exactly why North Korea has plutonium to harvest, right now; Clinton gave them the reactors!! :rotfl:

Western countries dislike it (Pu) for this very reason; proliferation is far more difficult to prevent when plutonium is involved. Jimmy Carter felt the same way, which is why he suspended out breeder reactor program in the late 70's.

Graphite isn't used because about the only way you can use it is with a positive-coefficient. Because water flows and vaporizes during a critical event, it's a far safer moderator. If the reactor becomes out of control, vaporizing of the water will immediately reduce the neutron action.

[Type941]

tycho, you didn't learn in this all in chemistry class, now did you? :know:

[Kapitan]

i learnt nuclear physics in class and school very intresting we even learnt theres radioactive material in smoke alarms :yep: :smug:

[The Avon Lady]

i learnt nuclear physics in class and school very intresting we even learnt theres radioactive material in smoke alarms :yep: :smug:
I learned that in the hardware store. It didn't take 4 years and I didn't have to pay tuition. :smug:

[Kapitan]

i didnt pay tuition either school in england is free and is compolsory from 5 to 16 years

it acctualy learnt it all in the 5 years of senior school (11 to 16) i passed with very good grades in physics chemistry and biology my strongest subject being physics i acctualy passed with the highest mark for my course and paper i managed to achive 98% only thing was we all did foundation paper :damn:

i could have got an A* so i was told if i did the higher paper but oh well i got a C well got CC so im happy

[Bob Sakamano]

Hi all,

Long time reader, first time poster.

I served onboard a US submarine as a reactor operator in the early '90s and we had a really good incident report on the Chernobyl Disaster. Wim Libaers link earlier in the thread pretty much summarizes the technical aspects. Our report was more critical of the design of the reactor. A positive temperature coefficient, very complex piping arrangement (didn't allow for natural circulation with the pumps secured), and aluminum cased graphite control rods were all major contributing factors to the massive human error and several violations of operating procedure that caused the disaster. Turning off emergency cooling systems and reactor safeguards at the same time? It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that that's not such a good idea... :88)

Basically they were trying to test the ability of residual heat in the core to power the reactor feed pumps until the local diesels came online. They did this with no reactivity control due to the Xenon transient, all the while adding reactivity due to boiling in the core caused by pressure drop due to lowering temperature by using residual heat to power the feed pumps and by reduced flow caused by securing the coolant pumps as per one of the few parts of the they actually followed..

Bad design plus Bad Operators=Disaster, or a car made by Ford. Take your pick; but I'll choose the Ford any day.

Have a great day!

(Just kidding about the Ford...I'd never actually buy one :D )