Putting A Lid On Chernobyl 293
slicer622 writes "Chernobyl is finally getting a containment structure (Washington Post). Billed as the largest moveable structure ever built, its designed to help take apart the wreckage and keep most of the radioactive material from spreading. It will be 800 feet across, and 300 feet high and will cost $800 mil."
Cost (Score:5, Informative)
The dome itself will not cost $800 million, the whole project, including cleaning up inside the dome once it's there, will cost $768 million.
Re:Surrounding areas (Score:5, Informative)
This map [brama.com] shows the "hot zone." It actually covers quite a large area.
Chernobyl accident information (Score:5, Informative)
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster On April 25th -26th, 1986 the World's worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the former USSR (now Ukraine). The Chernobyl nuclear power plant located 80 miles north of Kiev had 4 reactors and whilst testing reactor number 4 numerous safety procedures were disregarded. At 1:23am the chain reaction in the reactor became out of control creating explosions and a fireball which blew off the reactor's heavy steel and concrete lid.
The Chernobyl accident killed more than 30 people immediately, and as a result of the high radiation levels in the surrounding 20-mile radius, 135,00 people had to be evacuated.
Changes not as big as people thought (Score:4, Informative)
For example: Years ago, some researchers theorized that a severe nuclear accident like the one at Chernobyl would cause such severe genetic damage that animals would be born showing drastic changes in appearance. So far, the Chernobyl accident has not borne that out, the researchers note.
and
"For instance, there are probably two million people in the contaminated areas, and only a few thousand are actually sick from diseases than can be reasonably linked to the high levels of radioactive contaminants. We really don't know why this is yet," said Dallas.
Re:Reactor covers, build it before the accident! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Twighlight Zone (Score:3, Informative)
The wife and kid are out of town at a relative's house.
The nuclear detonation is from an accident at a nearby airbase while the crews were preparing the planes in case of war.
The 'scavengers' Joe Mantegna and his buddy hear are actually recovery crews looking for survivors, and bulldozing the contaminated rubble into as small an area as possible prior to encasing it in the concrete dome later to be known as the "Peace Dome."
Eventually Joe Mantegna's buddy goes stir crazy and leaves the shelter, against Mantegna's wishes. He later returns and begs for readmission to the shelter, but Mantegna refuses because the buddy is now contaminated.
The ending is great-- the camera focuses in on Joe Mantegna, sitting alone in his shelter/tomb... it slowly pulls back, 'through' the door and into the dead world outside. Mantegna's buddy is lying dead outside the door, IIRC. We get to see a lot of blackened rubble and destroyed cars (think the scenes from 2029 in the Terminator flicks), and it's dark as night. The camera keeps pulling back, and then goes through another wall, and boom, suddenly there's birds singing, green grass, blue sky, and sunshine. Cut to a reporter who fills the audience in on the Peace Dome. Then we see the wife and kid. Presumably the wife knows Mantegna is still in there, but has decided that since he was so overbearing and loved the shelter so much, she'll just let him die in it so she can be free.
~Philly
Bechtel: Poor Safety Record (Score:2, Informative)
"Although Bechtel did not build the ill-fated Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant, as co-manager of the cleanup operation at TMI it did help make a bad situation worse. The NRC's Office of Investigations found that Bechtel schemed to avoid making the necessary repairs and that the company "improperly classified" modifications to the plant as "not important to safety" in order to avoid safety controls. When workers such as Senior Safety Start-up Engineer Richard Parks complained that Bechtel and TMI's owner were deliberately circumventing safety procedures, they were harassed and intimidated. In 1985, the NRC fined the two companies for this abuse. Bechtel also disregarded the health and safety of the cleanup crew at TMI. A 1985 series in the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed the details of the neglect: workers were sent into radioactive sections of the plant without adequate protective clothing or respirators; workers were routinely given clothing that was already contaminated; and equipment intended to detect radiation hazards often malfunctioned. Contamination incidents have been routine since the accident, averaging two a week.
Source: http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1989
RADIATION MAP! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Hundred Years? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, no.
First of all, neutrons are stopped fairly easily by minimal shielding. Most of the irradiated debris would not get bombarded by a single neutron from that neutron bomb.
Secondly, adding a neutron to an atom will have wildly differing effects depending on many factors such as the speed of the neutron, the geometry of the collision, and the nuclear structure of the atom. Some atoms, such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and other light elements tend to form stable or long-lived isotopes that give off fairly low levels of radiation. Others, such as uranium, can form highly radioactive elements and can start limited chain reactions - not a good idea in a closed environment. Take a look at this site [chemcases.com] for more information on nuclear chemistry.
One last thing you should know is that a neutron bomb is not a totally "clean" bomb. It still has a pretty decent amount of radioactive fallout, it just tends to produce quicker forms of radiation which will dissipate more easily. There will still be a fairly "hot" zone which will only add to the bad situation in Chernobyl.
Still, this is probably just a troll judging from your comment about the whole mess being cleaned up in a week. I thought you trolls were attending some sort of training sessions on how to be subtle? If you are then you had better take a refresher course on troll techniques, the first one didn't take.
Re:Thats All Great but.... (Score:3, Informative)
what happens if the existing "sarcophagus" fails after the bigger one is built over top of it?
If the existing sarcophagus fails inside the new one, the dust and debris that are kicked up will remain inside the outer structure. The purpose of the outer structure is to prevent this dust from being picked up by the wind and contaminating the surrounding countryside.
Re:And that's not the REALLY scary part (Score:2, Informative)
They were running a low power test yes, that required them to turn off many of the plants exteranious support devices yes.
What caused the reactor to blow up was a FUNDAMENTAL design flaw which allowed for pockets of gas to get trapped within the core when operating in low power mode.
What happend was that during the low power test a system failed and the "operators" turned the reactor back to near full power (to get the emergency backup systems online) without purging the gas pockets they had created.
Boom.
The accident was caused by design flaw, broken system, followed by human error. Reving #3 back up is like blowing on dice for luck.