Interview With Chernobyl Engineer 584
An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist has posted an interview with a former Chernobyl engineer, Alexander Yuvchenko, who was not only there the night of the explosion, but is still alive today to tell about it. A fascinating recollection of some pretty heroic acts."
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Ditto. (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite a few (Score:5, Interesting)
But how many of them (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But how many of them (Score:5, Funny)
Stood there and watched the blue ionized air as it poured out of the reactor?
"Is small fire comrade, under control now."
(Hey at least it's not an "In Soviet Russia..." joke)
Re:But how many of them (Score:4, Funny)
You mean they got for free that "clean, healthy air" those Sharper Image hacks are trying to sell on TV for $400 each?
Re:Quite a few (Score:5, Interesting)
-
I know quite a few in the Cherynobe area who survived just fine. I even have some messed up film, somewhere
:) Still sounds scary though.
Umm, yeah that's true but this guy was working at the plant the night it exploded and even saw the interior of what was left of the pile at one point. (Which is amazing to read about.) Most of those there that night died, in fact at one point he tells he went with 3 other guys who were ordered to manually lower the rods. He propped the door open for them to go in and see for themselves almost nothing was left. The three guys who went through the door all died very soon afterwards but he's still here. (He credits the door and wall for saving his life.)You really should read this interview, it's both fascinating and scary as hell at the same time. I don't think I'll forget his description of the light from the ionized air above the reactor for a long time.
Re:Quite a few (Score:5, Insightful)
-Jesse
Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:3)
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:3, Funny)
I'd bet he'd win a head-to-head with Mussoulini too!
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a 4th generation american let me step up for the rest of us and clue you in:
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781
If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free -- in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. --Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
Ever heard "Freedom isn't Free" The United States of America is better then every other nation so long as each and every citizen does their part to keep the government in check. If you don't believe me, read the constitution it shouldn't take very long for you to get the theme of the document. The duty of every citizen is to watch the government like a child trying to get away with something.
If you accept everything your government tells you as gospel, you become the trailer park woman on Jerry Springer who believes everything her derelict 13 year old drug addicted car thief son tells her. "And I did axe him, I taid Timmy, where'd you get dat Merchedes Benz? And he did tell me dat he had done founded it." Just like being a parent you need to be in your kid's (government's) face 24-7. It's your duty to, it's your job and responsability to cry foul. Living in the US you get all these great rights and responsabilities, but they aren't a gift. You have a job to do in exchange for them.
I'm reminded as well of Lewis Black's comentary where he adds "Ever here people say 'America is the GREATEST country in the world', but they've never been to another country? How do you know? How do you know for sure that there isn't something better out there? For all you know there are countries out there just giving stuff away for free, like HEALTHCARE!"
Yeah if you think the US has gone downhill, or if there's just one thing or two that another country does better, it isn't the US government that's been slackin' IT'S YOU!
That concludes how to be American 101.
Amen! (Score:3, Informative)
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President." - Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the president said so:
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:4, Informative)
God damn revisionist warmongers...
The reason given prior to the invasion was that, according to Bush & Co., Saddam Hussein had in his possession an arsenal of weapons of mass destructions with missiles to launch them beyond the range allowed by the U.N., and deployable within 45 minutes.
Bush said that he would deliver the proof after his "hundreds of thousand" of "weapons inspectors" (troops) had been there for 2 weeks.
Its been what, a year and a half? Bush lied, the U.N., France, Germany and Russia were right, the weapons inspector were right, they did their job, there were no weapons of mass destruction.
But now you'll hang on to any justification once that the actual motivation has been debunked. So this week, apparently, its Russia's word that Saddam was planning something, somewhere, against the U.S. Really?
Questioning your government to the point of them becoming ineffective because the media "told you so" isn't patriotic, it's being led like a sheep to your own slaughter.
Who was led to the slaughter [cnn.com] like sheep under false pretenses again?
And the death toll is what, 5 to 1 Iraqis killed compared to U.S. troops? Bah...they don't count, their lives have no value, they weren't born in the U.S., who cares if they live or die...
Will Bush be afraid to use force the next time America is threatened?
Dammit, if you support the damn war, at least have the guts to support the real motivations for it. Not the pretend reason of the week.
P.S. Wanna use the "Saddam did bad things in the 80's while we were supporting him and financing him so we can invade his country all we want now that he isn't obbeying us anymore" excuse? How about some follow through [wikipedia.org] on that idea?
Re:Unpatriotic (Score:5, Insightful)
-- Theodore Roosevelt
(any typos or misspellings are mine)
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Interesting)
You're kidding, of course. Although the USSR's health care system was universal, the quality was utterly abyssmal for the average citizen.
I was unfortunate enough to see first-hand the state of Soviet-era medical facilities and the quality of care in the mid 1980's. Many third-world countries had much better medical care than that of the "typical" Soviet hospital that we toured. And, given that this was a state-sponsored tour (as was everything that we saw), I suspect that it was something better than typical.
-h-
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever seen anything about the ice surgeons performing heart surgery with no life support? They administer drugs to block adrenaline, and pour crushed ice around the body until the heart stops. From there they have about 60 minutes to get in and out. When they are done they wrap the person in heated blankets and heating pads and inject them with a large dose of adrenaline, maybe an electric shock if necessary. The lesson is that the tools are only half of the story; the doctors are the other half.
Re:Would YOU want to be that patient? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Insightful)
Quick question: how many people here would honestly trade their political, civil, and economic freedom just for free health care? It's okay if you do, just be consistent about it. I suspect there aren't many who'd agree with this, though. Otherwise, you can't just point to Communist nations and say "well, if you ignore the mass murder and gulags, it really wasn't that bad. . . "
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Insightful)
- Quick question: how many people here would honestly trade their political, civil, and economic freedom just for free health care?
Quick question: How many people here [in the U.S.] would honestly trade their political, civil, and economic freedom just for the illusion of safety? I think we already know the answer to this...Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Informative)
Eight months ago, I pulled my adopted son out of a Russian hospital in Novosibirsk against the will of the doctor. He had severe asthma and bronchitis which he had contracted while there for minor outpatient surgery. He hadn't been bathed or had his clothes changed in weeks. He was lying in a wet cloth diaper. His crib was made from knit kite string. This is the same hospital where I saw, with my own eyes, supplies being delivered by horse-drawn cart. He is covered in scars. He had more scars at 1 year old than I had at 33. One of them is a scar on his scrotum where they split it front to back for exploratory surgery. In the US, they would have ordered a cat scan. This was last winter. Would you say things have improved since soviet times?
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone, who was not only born then, but also lived there -- in Kyiv -- at the time, I authoritatively state: you are wrong.
This is a sign, that nuclear engineers were a really prized folk. Dozens of firefighters and lower-rank workers died right there -- radiation is like that, you don't feel it, until it is too late and noone bothered to warn them. Soviets most certainly did not care of their people, unless -- as in the case of these engineers -- educating them took a while.
They flew these guys to Moscow, which also means, that Kyiv -- Ukraine's capital, a city of 2.5 million people merely 100 miles away -- did not have the proper facilities. The medicine was not top -- individual scientists and labs did have notable successes, but the public health was awful.
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. Good job.
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Funny)
There may be an element of truth in this since Americans need good teeth to consume the amount of food they do but I haven't actually studied this correlation.
I think this is some kind of reaction to the fact they have to pay directly for their Health Service.
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:3, Interesting)
If the English healthcare system is so great, why is there a separate, private healthcare system there for those who can afford to pay? How long does one wait for an elective surgery like, say, a hip replacement?
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:3, Informative)
In the US, if you want healthcare, you fucking work for it. This provides a great incentive to people in our country. As for your claim that increasingly few jobs come with healthcare coverage, do you even know what you're talki
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Informative)
Life expectancy in the US (m/f) (yr 2000): 74.1/79.4
Combined total healthcare costs per capita, Britain (yr 1998): 4,178$
Combined total healthcare costs per capita, USA (yr 1998): 1,461$
I'll take the British system, thanks (and several dozen others) over the US system. If I have to fork over some extra to take care of my teeth, it's no big deal
Re:Treatment was prompt (Score:5, Informative)
The British system was the cheap one. That's what I get for not previewing....
Great ... More Space Junk (Score:3, Funny)
Would Be Interesting to View in US (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone up for recording this and making it available?
Back in 1990 I caught a photo exhibit by Igor Kostin [time.com] in Baltimore, MD. He was the first photographer in the area after the accident [infoukes.com] and toured it afterwords, taking many pictures [time.com] which are still very disturbing to remember.
It's remarkable how optimistic he is on nuclear power, even with his concerns of safety above finanancial or even political concerns.
Re:Kidd of Speed - Ghost Town (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, it seems to be the case [museumofhoaxes.com].
But, the images are still pretty incredible.
Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you think about nuclear power?
I'm fine about it, as long as safety is put head and shoulders above any other concern, financial or whatever. If you keep safety as your number one priority at all stages of planning and running a plant, it should be OK.
There you have it. From a man who nearly died and is still sick today from Nuclear power.
It's imperative for people to realize that Nuclear Power is not devil incarnate. By stopping Nuclear development, you are slowly killing yourselves with Coal and Oil plants. The number of people killed by nuclear power rate in the dozens (most at Chernobyl). The number of people killed by coal plants rate in the hundreds of thousands. Think about it.
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, one big problem with nuclear is the low safety standards in certain nations that could lead to a disaster.
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:5, Insightful)
"The accident released about as much radiation as one atmospheric nuclear test," Jackson notes. "Think of Chernobyl, which exuded hundreds of thousands of square meters of radioactive gas into the atmosphere. Think of all the hundreds of atmospheric tests, and think about the next breath you inhale. How many bits of Hiroshima, and Chernobyl, and Nagasaki you are inhaling each time you breathe in."
I think it speaks for itself...
P.S.: Is it ok to copy a paragraph from a copyrighted article if I reference it?
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. There's an exception in copyright laws for referencing.
Chernobyl = 100s of nuclear tests (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:5, Informative)
Coal is one of the most impure of fuels. Its impurities range from trace quantities of many metals, including uranium and thorium, to much larger quantities of aluminum and iron to still larger quantities of impurities such as sulfur. Products of coal combustion include the oxides of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur; carcinogenic and mutagenic substances; and recoverable minerals of commercial value, including nuclear fuels naturally occurring in coal.
MORE NUCLEAR MATERIALS ARE RELEASED BY COAL BURNING THAN ANY NUCLEAR PLANT HAS EVER RELEASED. That's a VERY important thing to know, because COAL KILLS PEOPLE.
Radon mainly (Score:5, Informative)
Some links:
http://www.stormingmedia.us/76/7636/A7636
http://www.lenntech.com/Periodic-chart-el
Especially http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/energy/factshts/163-
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not even mentioning the fact that coal smoke is incredibly toxic and even radioactive.
Coal as a nuclear fuel... wow. (Score:5, Informative)
Fissioning U-235 releases about 200 MeV/fission, or about (2e8 eV/fission)(1.6e-19 J/eV)(6.02e23 fissions/235 g)(0.075 g) = 6e9 Joules per tonne of the more enriched coal. That's about 1.6 megawatt-hours of heat, that can be derived from fissioning the U-235 in a tonne of coal.
Bituminous coal has an energy density of combustion of about 25e9 Joules per tonne, or about 7 megawatt-hours of heat from burning a tonne of coal.
At first glance, the combustion seems to win, especially when you consider that you can only get about 10% of the energy out of the uranium without reprocessing. But if you use the U-238 too (to make plutonium, which will then also fission in a conventional reactor), you get about 100x as much energy as from fissioning just the U-235. Of course, that takes reprocessing the fuel at least once, which is energy intensive, and there will of course be losses in the system. So maybe you only win by 30x. The fission should yield about 50 megawatt-hours of heat in a proper breeder-reactor setup. That's more than ten times the heat of combustion. Even "crappy" coal with only 1.5ppm of uranium in it could match the energy of combustion.
Wow.
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason why this isn't done (save for some allowance for the second case I listed), is that the government considers it a threat to national security. Their problem with these options is that evil terrorists may intercept nuclear materials shipments, then use them for evil deeds. So their solution is to pile it all in a big cave somewhere. *sigh* Things are pretty bad when our own government doesn't understand. [llnl.gov]
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:3, Informative)
To be fair it wasn't banned because the US government was concerned about reprocessed fuel being stollen and used for weapons.
The reason is because we wanted to si
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:3, Interesting)
What options do we have today that we didn't have in the 1950's? How many of those are capable of outright replacing the Coal/Oil/Nuclear infrastructure?
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. A few hundred kilometres north of here is the Canadian Shield, which has been geologically stable for about 3 billion years. Vitrify the waste (turn it into glass with radioactives as dopants), put that in standard radioactive waste storage barrels (you know, the kind they test by dropping 30 feet onto spikes), and put those at the bottom of a mine shaft in non-porus shield rock. Plug the hole with clay, and it'll stay there until north america is subducted back into the mantle. The barrels decay after a few centuries, but they're mainly to prevent tampering and accidents in transit. Vitrified waste in non-porus bedrock in geologically stable areas goes nowhere.
The volume of waste to deal with is also far lower than, say, the volume of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and other heavy metals that have comparably nasty effects that we have to dispose of on a yearly basis.
As for cleanup - most of the wastes are still heavy elements. They can be concentrated and removed from contaminated areas following a hypothetical nasty accident the same way other heavy metals are.
And the answer has to be better than 'bury it'.
What could possibly _be_ better? Any reprocessing scheme will give you more opportunity for contamination that sticking it in the shield for the rest of eternity. There really isn't much waste to _deal_ with - last I heard all of the high-level waste produced by the world's power reactors would fit in a couple of swimming pools if piled in one place.
If you really need fancy toys, look up the actinide-burning fast neutron reactor designs that others have proposed for destroying radioactive waste.
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:3, Insightful)
You basically have one of two choices to make in the coming (10ish) years: Nuclear or Coal. No other technology is at the point where it can be made ready to deploy when petroleum starts (~50+yrs, generous est.) to run out and gets really, really expensive.
So take your pick: the world has the technology to create Nuclear reactors whose byproduc
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you about oil and coal, but there are options where they are looked for.
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:3, Interesting)
Wind and solar energy accounted for less than 2% of our (USA) total power consumption from 2001. Our solar technology basically hasn't changed since the mid-70s - it's about 2% efficient. These are not technologies that we have significantly invested in, and the time to find an altern
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:5, Insightful)
So how do we clean up the billions of metric tons of coal byproducts released into the atmosphere every year.
How about we put it in your backyard for starters?
Why do I always hear this back yard argument? If you took an average size suburban house and made it water tight, all of the nuclear waste made by all of mans reactors since the beginning of the nuclear age wouldn't even fill the basement.
Tell me, what have you read of experimental nuclear reactors called PBMR's? Read this [worldandi.com] and pay close attention to the section labeled "Gas turbines heated by nuclear furnaces. When people mention nuclear energy, all they can think of is some 1950's, slow neutron reactors. Because of careless mistakes by humans, not their machines, all development of nuclear research has been severely limited. The much safer and, fool proof, technology of the PBMR's could have replaced most of the older reactors in this country if it weren't for panicky people who rely on sensational news outlets for their education. Who knows what we would be capable of now if development hadn't ground to a halt.
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite correct, I work in a nuclear plant. If you take the volume of your high-end single family home, 2 stories + basement, you have a volume about equal to the fuel used by a single reactor in it's lifetime.
That being said, to generate the same amount of electricity, you need to burn 4-5 times that volume in coal per day, and several times the weight.
A nuclear fission event releases 2 million times the energy of any chemical reaction (i.e. burning). The amount of waste fuel a nuke plant generates is incredibly small by any reasonable standard.
Of course, we also generate lots of low level radioactive waste (contaminated tools, clothing, instruments, neutron sources, etc) but much of this stuff really isn't harmful, it's just that since we know it's more radioactive on it's way out of the plant than on the way in, we have to exercise ridiculous controls.
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently, wastes from using fossil fuels are dumped into the environment and basically ignored. How is this fundamentally better than burying nuclear waste?
Re:Yeah? Clean it up! (Score:4, Interesting)
Couple this with the new intrinsicaly safe nuclear reactors (these are reactors which, due to their design, have physical principles which mean they shut down themselves if anything goes wrong...no faulty electronics, we're talking simple mechanics here) and yeah, nuclear power is the only green power there is.
What bugs me most is that so-called 'action groups' like Greenpeace haven't a fucking clue. But then again, that's becuase they have hardly any PHD's working for them...and when they do, those phd's are for law, no (applied) physics, no chemistry...the only technical phd working for Greenpeace in the Netherlands came from fucking Aeronautics! A bloody plane builder! Greenpeace and it's ilk, whilst doing some good work, is ignorant becuase they're staffed like a goddamn PR firm.
Oops: sorry for the rant
Re:Safety of Nuclear Power (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know anything about your statistics, but I will accept them for the purposes of this argument. Even if 30,000 died, that number is wholly insignificant in comparison the environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels. Millions of cases of cancer the world over can be attributed in some way to the pollution caused by these power plants. The enivironmental damage is also very difficult to quantify, but there are many who believe global warming caused by fossil fuels reduces arable land, which results in more frequent famines.
No matter how you look at it, the immediate cessation of using fossil fuels and the largscale adoption of nuclear power is the simplest ethical choice one can make. Millions of lives will be saved, and we will take an important step in avoiding serious ecological damage in the future.
Ironic medals (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ironic medals (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that's correct. The greater mass of Alpha particles causes them to be more easily deflected than beta particles. Gamma radiation has a near-zero mass, so it can penetrate most forms of matter. (Penetration being the act of "missing" most of the matter.)
No, the greater mass of alpha particles (2 protons and 2 neutrons, basically a Helium nucleus) makes them more difficult to deflect, not less. However, other factors have an impact on the scattering cross section, including particle charge and energy.
Gamma particles have a zero rest mass, since they are simply energetic photons.
I think you may be getting confused by Neutron radiation, which is the most massive type of radiative particle. Neutrons do a LOT of damage due to their mass, but they don't actually have a lot of penetrating power.
No, Neutrons are less massive than alpha particles.
Re:Ironic medals (Score:5, Informative)
No, beta particles are deflected more in a magnetic field than alpha particles are, all things being equal.
Alpha particles are essentially helium nuclei, they have a charge of +1 and a mass of 4. Beta particles are electrons, they have a charge of -1 and a negligible mass when compared to an alpha particle (each proton is about the mass of 1800 electrons). Gamma particles are high-energy photons with no charge and essentially no mass at all.
When they are ejected in the same direction with the same velocity through a uniform magnetic field it is the beta particle which will be deflected more. This is due to the fact that both particles will have the same force acting upon them, but they have a different mass. Since the alpha particle has much more mass it will be deflected a lot less by the force and so it will curve less than the beta particle. The gamma radiation will not curve at all because photons have no charge and will hardly be affected by a magnetic field.
As for deflection, the alpha particles take up a lot of room. When they encounter other material they are much more likely to have a collision than beta particles which have a very small volume. This means that the alpha particles usually only travel a small distance through a material before slowing down enough to be stopped. Beta particles get slowed down less because they tend to be able to slip right past the atoms (actually past the nuclei) in the material. Gamma particles penetrate the furthest because they really are only captured occasionally by atoms and quite a large percentage will manage to get through even a couple of feet of low-density material.
heroism in the face of bad design and decisions (Score:5, Interesting)
Although the fire itself was caused by human error, the RBMK style reactors are much worse than the machines run by the US or western Europe and the powers that came up with that style of reactor are at least partly to blame for that tragedy.
The end isn't in sight yet, the "coffin" that is encasing the bad reactor is cracking, it may collapse causing another giant radioactive cloud of dust to blow all over the Ukraine, Russia, and Europe.
Re:heroism in the face of bad design and decisions (Score:4, Funny)
It reminds me of a story of the F-16 pilot sitting on the ground who thought the aircraft would stop him raising the gear when on the ground. So he tried it and discovered that yes he could indeed raise the gear contrary to his expectation, now I ask you why would to do something so dumb?
I also ask, why would the plant engineers at Chernobyl disable safety systems to *test* another *backup* safety system? Utterly moronic, and there's not a lot a plant designer can do to avoid that kind of rank stupidity. A good old fashoned Soviet show trial followed by swift execution of the plant managers is the appropriate remedy.
Re:heroism in the face of bad design and decisions (Score:5, Informative)
Most likly a myth. Every airplane with retactable gear I know of have what they call squat switches that prevent the gear from retracting when the plane is on the ground. Also the way the gear on the F16 retracts I doubt that it could retract with the plane sitting on it.
Re:heroism in the face of bad design and decisions (Score:4, Informative)
More than anything, the Chernobyl disaster reminds me of a Windows user who disables the firewall and antivirus just to install that nifty Explorer toolbar. The difference being that an average Windows user doesn't kill thousands of people through his stupidity...
Re:heroism in the face of bad design and decisions (Score:3, Funny)
>Subcritical reactor - fission reaction rate is declining over time
>Critical reactor - fission reaction rate is constant over time, self-sustaining chain reaction has been achieved
>Supercritical reactor - fission reaction rate is increasing over time
And the fourth:
Prompt critical reactor - Hey, did you just see the whole office turn blue for a second? Oh... shit.
"My neighbors don't know who I am" (Score:4, Interesting)
I had no idea that someone who was involved in Chernobyl would feel the need to hide the very fact that he was there.
What if this man was your neighbor and Chernobyl was your hometown? Would you harbor a grudge against him because he worked there?
After all, just because someone was there doesn't mean they were responsible for the accident. Like he said, "there was nothing we could do."
Re:"My neighbors don't know who I am" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:real-life Radioactive Man? (Score:4, Interesting)
Dropping the control rods. (Score:5, Insightful)
The disaster was caused partly by one engineer previously over-riding automatic safety protection in order to increase reactor power to levels needed to run a safety test.
Moreover manuals were outdated with areas simply crossed out. Human error at its worst.
Re:Dropping the control rods. (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, IIRC the reason the thing blew is that the power levels were decreased to too low a level to sustain stable reaction.
I'm not a nuclear physicist, but I believe in that style of reactor, the presence of the particular water they were using decreased the reaction speed, instead of increasing it as it is done in modern, western reactors. So they had the control rods pulled all the way out, and the water flow super low.
Then the water started to boil a little, and that boiling caused bubbles in the moderating water, which allowed the reaction speed to launch into some nasty exponential power spike that could not have been prevented in the time it took to see the spike.
I'm pretty sure what I just wrote was mostly right. I'm just too lazy to find links. But I am sure that the power level was super super low, and the control rods were pulled all the way out. Bad idea.
Muerte
Stability and Xenon (Score:5, Informative)
Xe-135 is destroyed when it absorbs a neutron. So in an operating reactor is it "burned" rapidly as it is produced. But when you shut off the reaction, Xe-135 levels rise over the next eight hours to a peak level and then decay. This makes it very difficult to start a power reactor eight hours after you shut it down: the Xe-135 acts like an additional control rod, damping the reaction. You find that you have to pull the control rods much farther out to get the reaction started.
There's a problem with that: as soon as you get the reaction going in the core, the Xe-135 will rapidly "burn" off, restoring the usual control laws. That is dynamically unstable, as more neutrons -> less Xe-135 -> more reactive core -> even more neutrons!
The operators should have known what was happening when the found they had to pull the rods much farther than expected in order to bring the reactor stable "zero"-power operation ("zero-power" operation means that a chain reaction is being sustained but is not producing a significant amount of power. It is an important first step in operating the reactor: you start the reaction going, demonstrate positive control, calibrate your control settings, and then proceed to the power level you want. In the reactor where I worked, 5 watts of power, out of a rated maximum of 250 kilowatts, was considered "zero power".).
That unstable positive coefficient (as the Xe-135 burned off) made the reactor spike rapidly in power to a high thermal level -- where the reactor's positive void coefficient [what the Muerte23 described in the parent article] took over. That is a poor element of reactor design -- the Chernobyl reactors were "over-moderated". Fission neutrons come out fast, but uranium absorbs neutrons best when they're moving slowly. So you put the reactive material in a medium (water or graphite or Zirconium hydride or whatever) that will absorb energy from the neutrons without absorbing the neutrons themselves -- they bounce around, losing energy, until they can be absorbed by the core. Too little moderation, and the core won't start up. Too much moderation, and the neutrons will get absorbed and the core won't start up. The Chernobyl reactors were over-moderated, so that small voids in the graphite/water matrix in the core would increase the reactivity of the core. That's just stupid -- properly designed reactors are under-moderated, so that if the water boils the reaction tends to shut itself down.
Anyhow, all that would be moot except that the operators had disabled the main reactor shutdown mechanisms -- they couldn't SCRAM (or rapidly re-insert the rods into the core), but were forced to rely on the much slower drive mechanisms -- which couldn't contain the reaction. A rapid-drop SCRAM system existed (and would have saved the facility) but had been disabled for testing.
The problem (as I see it) with nuclear power is that people are such fuckin' idiots. Reactors are completely safe around people with what is called "common sense" but unfortunately, common sense isn't. Eventually, pointy haired bosses and Joe Sixpack rule the day.
(BTW, I hold a no-longer-current nuclear reactor operator's license).
Heroism and Chernobyl (Score:5, Insightful)
If not for them, things could have gotten much worse. Many of these brave men knowingly gave their lives.
Oh, I'm soooo sure! (Score:3, Funny)
Catch-22 (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately more stations means more opportunity for smaller incidents... Tut mir leid.
Russian R.B.M.K reactors were badly designed ... (Score:5, Informative)
The following is the Paper [world-nuclear.org] everyone will link to. And the following provides some nice diagrams to look at [nucleartourist.com]
And just for kicks: Some really freaky pictures [a-newsreport.com]. (The second one really gets to people, he is working IN the bloody thing!!)
Sunny Dubey
Re:Russian R.B.M.K reactors were badly designed .. (Score:4, Interesting)
The upshot to this design is that if something breaks, the reflector simply stops, and the core cools down back to it's normal static decay rate. For instance, you have a power surge that causes a turbine trip, which in turn causes a surge in high pressure steam feed. The operator or automation would take note of it, tripping emergency venting on the secondary coolant loop, finally ordering the reactor to SCRAM. The refector stops moving and things cool down and the community relies on the auxillary generator until a technician can come out to check things out before resetting the system back to normal power generation.
Interesting, IMO. (Score:4, Interesting)
What do you think about nuclear power?
I'm fine about it, as long as safety is put head and shoulders above any other concern, financial or whatever. If you keep safety as your number one priority at all stages of planning and running a plant, it should be OK.
This is why this is not going to happen in the U.S.
Good Chernobyl Reference (Score:5, Informative)
More detailed article also published... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More detailed article also published... (Score:5, Informative)
Poor guy (Score:3, Funny)
Grigori Medvedev (Score:4, Informative)
I got my copy several years ago when I was researching the politics of obedience and whether engineer subordinates should be responsible to authority or the laws of physics for a course in Ethics.
The book, "The Truth about Chernobyl", by Grigori Medvedev (ISBN 0-465-08775-2) ( English translation - by the way very well done ) Copyright 1991 by Basic Books, Inc.
( Incidentally, from my research in Ethics, I just about got the feeling that if you were gonna toe the line on Ethics, you had better work for yourself.).
Interesting fact... (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought that was fairly interesting, that they have a lifelong ban on all people's blood that lived/were born within a certain perimeter of the accident.
Re:His description of radiation sickness (Score:5, Insightful)
I submit that he was grasping for any alternative he could make himself believe that didn't involve him dying a horrible death.
Re:disgusting (Score:3, Insightful)
Who do you think "we" are, that we had the same enemies in 1986?
Re:Chernobly today (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chernobly today (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Chernobyl...18 Years Later (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/05/26/girl_photobl
Google is your friend.
Re:Chernobyl...18 Years Later (Score:3, Informative)
The fact that she drove through on a motorcycle at high speed is the hoax.
It was a guided tour, she took a helmet and took pictures of it. (Never see the bike in actual situ.)
Re:Most Amusing Line in the Article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why Nuclear will never work.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The best example for nuclear power safety is the fact that after 50 years of operation of hundreds of Nuke power plants only 1 serious accident occurred - and that was at a poorly designed USSR station that would never have been allowed to be built in the US.
But, nowadays, we have some relaly, really, really fail safe designs that could be used like the Pebble Bed Reactor [wikipedia.org] that can never ever melt down even assuming a complete and total failure of all safety backups, coolant etc (of course, it could still cause contamination if a break in the cooling or such occurred).
Now, OTOH, you have people like the US Navy who have a *perfect* record for Nuclear safety simply because if their was ever an accident the Navy knows that would likely be the end of all their Nuke powered boats (helluva a motivator eh?)
Re:Why Nuclear will never work.. (Score:4, Informative)
Er...no.
Here's a British one [wikipedia.org], Here's a list of them [wikipedia.org], and oh here's a nice big page [greenpeace.org] on a really fucking scary one that released more radiation than Chernobyl. Scared? You should be.
Despite this, I'm still a supporter of nuclear power, mind.
Re:Why Nuclear will never work.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right on. The only safe way to generate nuclear power is to have the government do it. Like in Soviet...oh yeah.
Yes I know that we do have nuclear reactors in this country now. They are extremly regulated. They are being deregulated every day. When they are de-regulated enough for the companies, a disaster will soon follow. (5-10 years)
Strong regulation is essential for nuclear power. I don't see that private or public ownership automatically provides a better system. Public ownership works well in France, but was a disaster in the USSR. Britain's nuclear industry was state owned until quite recently and is hardly a convincing example [bbc.co.uk] of state superiority.
Re:Why Nuclear will never work.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? Was Chernobyl run by a private enterprise? No, the world's worst nuclear power accident was caused by exactly what you are proposing- putting it in government hands.
I don't know what makes you think government is the ultimate safety blanket. Governments are big, bloated, and not accountable for their actions. Just look at how they sit in Washington and go back and forth like children trying to decide who reported for duty and who did what on a boat 40 years ago. Yeah, these fuckers will keep us safe.
A private company at least has to endure the threat of going out of business if something bad happens. Unfortunately, that isn't always enough. But I'll still take it over Kerry or Bush.
Re:Why Nuclear will never work.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You should study the record on nuclear power in the USA. Zero people have been killed by private nuclear power, (except in non-nuclear related ordinary accidents like falling off a ladder at a nuke plant) but many have been killed and many endangered by government programs.
The number may be different today, but some years back they said that 98% of the high level nuclear waste in the USA is from weapons, not power plants. Yet nearly 100% of the national debate and are directed at the 2% civilian waste, because most facts about weapons waste are classified and because civilians are not asked to give their opinion about weapons programs.
Still because industry's #1 priority is profit, they are ineligible for trust in your eyes. Politicians, motivated solely by re-election are more credible to you.
In the USA and many other countries, nuclear power plants are owned and operated by non-profit government utilities. If those plants are demonstratively safer than profit-motivated plants, the evidence should be plain from the records. Can anyone cite such evidence?
As long as we need a majority to change anything, and as long as we can't find a majority to decide whom to trust, we're stuck with perpetual gridlock. The status quo, no matter how good or bad, reigns supreme.
Re:Why Nuclear will never work.. (Score:3, Informative)
All elected officials (and bureaucrats) need to live in the immediate vicinity of a power plant. Nuclear, coal, wind, hydro, solar, etc. They need to live with (and provide budget for) the plants that supply them with power, and they need to live in the immediate vicinity of the risk too! Chalk it up to their elected (or appointed) "duty."
On the flip side, you've got
Re:Actual interview text... (Score:4, Insightful)