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Chernobyl 23 years on

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Renesis

Sun Apr 26 2009, 07:16PM

Registered Member #2028 Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319

The chernobyl accident is my favourite example of how dangerous Murphy's law can be. Reactor 4 was not fully tested and an important safety feature in the steam turbine did not function by the time the reactor was put in to service. This rush to complete the reactor was to ensure the contractors their bonuses.

That faithful day on the 26. April 1986, this emergency system was finally going to be tested. The test was to be executed in the day shift, with specially trained engineers present. After the test the reactor would be shut off, and the night shift was only supposed to monitor the cooling systems as the reactor would still be warm.

A power shortage delayed the test many hours, the engineers went home, and the poorly trained night shift was left to perform the test. You all know the outcome of that.

This wikipedia article explains the whole chain of events, and reading it sends a chill down my back.

The radiation in the reactor area was so high that the electronics in the robots used to clean up the mess was fried. Thus the only way to build the sanctuary and clean the area was to sacrifice young volunteers life. What's worse is that the temporary sanctuary buildt around the reactor 4 crater is on the brink of collapse, and needs to be replaced by a permanent structure.

Proud Mary

Sun Apr 26 2009, 07:52PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

There's no other sort of technology which never goes wrong. No matter how well maintained, aeroplanes fall out of the sky from time to time, and Titanics sink against all expectations.

As the number of nuclear reactors in the world continues to grow, it would be unreasonable to believe that that there will not be further Chenobyls, and possibly worse.

Outside of the PR tours of gleaming show -case reactors, no serious nuclear engineer would ever claim that a reactor was totally 100% safe and foolproof in every way.

Everything has a Mean Time Between Failures.

So given that there is at least some risk of another nuclear catastrophe - no matter how small that risk may seem to be at any one point in time - it stands to reason that given enough reactors and enough time, then one or more of them will melt down and blow up.

That seemingly small and distant risk must be weighed against the economic and political advantages of nuclear power in the here and now.

The rocks are full of fossils of creatures that once had their day in the sun. If we had been able to tell Giganotosaurus that the morning would come when all that would be left of his kind were dim shapes in the rocks, like the shadows of vapourized people burnt into the concrete at Hiroshima, the huge saurian would have laughed and ripped our heads off by way of a light supper.

None of the other hominids that have ever lived on this planet have been saved from utter extinction by any kind of Providence, and all are fossils now.

Chris Russell

Sun Apr 26 2009, 08:15PM

... not Russel!
Registered Member #1 Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 12:18AM
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Posts: 1052

Harry wrote ...

Everything has a Mean Time Between Failures.

So given that there is at least some risk of another nuclear catastrophe - no matter how small that risk may seem to be at any one point in time - it stands to reason that given enough reactors and enough time, then one or more of them will melt down and blow up.

Yes, but we can, by design, decide what types of failures will happen. Reactor designs exist which physically cannot melt down. Twist whatever knobs you want in the control room, crash whatever you like into the containment vessel, the reactor simply cannot melt down, any more than a wind turbine can melt down. Shut down the cooling, and the higher temperatures halt the reaction. Breach the containment vessel, and the helium escapes, halting the reaction.

Failures happen, but it's entirely possible to remove a meltdown as a possible failure mode through careful and clever design. It's not like building some safety features into the Titanic and calling it unsinkable. It's more like building the Titanic in the middle of the desert and calling it unsinkable.

coillah

Sun Apr 26 2009, 10:17PM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

Generation of plutonium is not an issue. Invest in places to store it, and don't think twice.

Did you know, if we took all the radioactive waste in the world and spread it out evenly over the entire planet, the increase in radiation would negligible compared to background radiation... therefore I propose a new plan, get some planes and some plutonium and lets go crop dusting!

As for fusion... its a fun project, and we'll see about it getting off the ground. Instead, we should be focusing on developing better solar technology. Fusion may be a long ways away, but solar is here and now. Hell you can practically work on it in your garage!

just my 2c

Hon1nbo

Sun Apr 26 2009, 11:16PM

Registered Member #902 Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: Pacific Northwest USA
Posts: 1042

I just hope that the "Nuclear Barge" never takes off, or if it does that it doesn't have issues: a reactor having a meltdown on land is one thing, but in the water things get worse.

likewhat

Sun Apr 26 2009, 11:38PM

Account deactivated by user request on 6/11/2009.
Registered Member #1071 Joined: Fri Oct 19 2007, 02:13AM
Location:
Posts: 44

coillah wrote ...

Did you know, if we took all the radioactive waste in the world and spread it out evenly over the entire planet, the increase in radiation would negligible compared to background radiation... therefore I propose a new plan, get some planes and some plutonium and lets go crop dusting!

I would like to see where you got this from and if they actually did any math to get it. My back of the envelope calculation base on the ~1000 metric tons of Cs-137 in US spent fuel makes it seem like there would be a significant effect. Also much like how gold can end up in a gold vein and not evenly spread out over the entire planet, radioactive elements can become concentrated by natural geochemical processes. I realize that you are half if not entirely joking, but the waste problems are not trivial. There are always nuclear advocates on one side saying it is no big deal and environmental extremists on the other side that cry when they hear the word atom, unfortunately useful information seems to get lost in all of that.

coillah

Mon Apr 27 2009, 02:56PM

Registered Member #1517 Joined: Wed Jun 04 2008, 06:55AM
Location: Chico CA
Posts: 304

I am half joking, but I heard this from my physics professor. From what it sounded like, he had actually done the calculation himself in his spare time, but I might be embellishing a bit. Take it as you will, but really... is it so hard to believe?

No one said anything about processes after the crop dusting!

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