Chernobyl

[Pat]

I came across this story and was quite shocked.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/sou ... 291528.stm
I had no idea people were still living in badly contaminated areas.
It also reminded me of where I was when the radiation reached Scotland.
About a week after the initial explosion I played my first gig in a place called Rhu.We were all drunk and out in the rain afterwards,we were all buzzing ,it was a good gig,we thought we could quit our day jobs.We were all drinking out of pint glasses when the radiation fallout alarms started going off at the Faslane Naval base a few miles up the road.I was soaked through, we all were......we've all been lucky so far.

Anybody else have memories of the time?

[6FeetOver]

Some excellent photo essays can be found here and here.

WARNING: Some of these images are shocking, disturbing, and horrifying; most are just plain heartbreaking.

[Planet Dave]

I came across this story and was quite shocked.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/sou ... 291528.stm
I had no idea people were still living in badly contaminated areas.
It also reminded me of where I was when the radiation reached Scotland.
About a week after the initial explosion I played my first gig in a place called Rhu.We were all drunk and out in the rain afterwards,we were all buzzing ,it was a good gig,we thought we could quit our day jobs.We were all drinking out of pint glasses when the radiation fallout alarms started going off at the Faslane Naval base a few miles up the road.I was soaked through, we all were......we've all been lucky so far.

Anybody else have memories of the time?

Certainly no memories as worrying as yours Pat, but yeah, I guess this is what happens when man plays with fire. Namely, 'the' man runs a mile,whilst trashing everyone in his wake in order to make sure he's 'safe'. Nice aren't they, these 'men'.

[EvilBastard]

I remember this quite well, most specifically...

Q. Why shouldn't you wear Russian underpants?
A. Cuz Chernobyl fallout.

[Dark]

I want to play a gig in Pripyat. Or at least somewhere in the contamination zone. Think about it, "Live At Chernobyl"...

In related news, thanks for reminding me, I have a ton more to do on my Nuclear Physics project.

[_emma_]

Anybody else have memories of the time?

I was playing on the meadow. I was one of those careless children who liked to touch, smell and taste everything, so I nibbled various grasses and berries and wild apples from the orchard as usually. The morning after we had the official warning on TV/radio, and everybody was forced to drink some disgusting antidotum at school. That was about a week after the whole thing happened. It was quite a frightening experience, for a child, yes.
I'm rather healthy so far though, the only thing that I think might be connected to it is my hormones which tend to be really unstable.

[stefan moermans]

Anybody else have memories of the time?

I was playing on the meadow. I was one of those careless children who liked to touch, smell and taste everything, so I nibbled various grasses and berries and wild apples from the orchard as usually. The morning after we had the official warning on TV/radio, and everybody was forced to drink some disgusting antidotum at school. That was about a week after the whole thing happened. It was quite a frightening experience, for a child, yes.
I'm rather healthy so far though, the only thing that I think might be connected to it is my hormones which tend to be really unstable.

except for the green shimmering ligth that surrounds you at nigthfall hey emma Long time ago indeed. It gives me the shivers though if you look how many people die of cancer these days. I sometimes wonder why... Not so long ago I saw a kind off documentary on television (played by actors). It was scary to see how long it took them before everybody was informed and before it was leaked to the rest of the world.

Let's hope it won't happen again and that our fearless leaders start thinking with some sence rather than with their wallet.

[Elise]

I remember this quite well, most specifically...

Q. Why shouldn't you wear Russian underpants?
A. Cuz Chernobyl fallout.

I don't remember where I was when "Mother Russia rained down on us "

[scotty]

I remember this quite well, most specifically...

Q. Why shouldn't you wear Russian underpants?
A. Cuz Chernobyl fallout.

[6FeetOver]

Let's hope it won't happen again and that our fearless leaders start thinking with some sence rather than with their wallet.

Good luck with that one...

[eotunun]

Funny that this thread comes up now, when public procecutors seek evidence for lacking maintanance and not performing repairs demanded by technical examiners was reason for the blaze at the nuclear power plant at Kruemmel.
The fire did affect critical parts of the plant, as investigations later showed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6250458.stm

Buisness administrators saving money seem to be more dangerous than millitary madness nowadays.

[6FeetOver]

Buisness administrators saving money seem to be more dangerous than millitary madness nowadays.

What's the difference, though, really? Aren't the tw@ts in big business ultimately behind all of the rotten sh1te in the world, anyway?

"I don't think there are any Russians
And there ain't no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin' with tanks"

[eotunun]

Sinnie 1, Silly 0.

[6FeetOver]

Wasn't silly, as I saw it. Sorry, Jummy chum.

[eotunun]

Noshing to excuse for, I just admitted defeat.
You arguments simply were superior.
Back on topic, I was taught that the german design of water cooled reactors was safe. That statement probably was considering that the operators kept the maintenance schedule. It should be foolproof.
What's worse than fools?
: Businessmen. QED

[bushman*pm]

bbc quote:
The children have already been taken to a local McDonald's restaurant for lunch

Have they not suffered enough?

Dont buy 'McMurder's !

[Dark]

Back on topic, I was taught that the german design of water cooled reactors was safe.

The following reply was based only on my own knowledge of nuclear power, which I've only studied to A2 level, so apologies for inaccuracies, which I'm sure the better physicists here may correct:

Reactors which use water as a neutron moderator and a primary and secondary coolant are certainly safer than using, for example, liquid sodium as a coolant. They're also cheaper, as water is fairly cheap, even when pure. That said, they're also safer because of the pressure, which is high enough to require less fuel for the same level of reactivity.

They're also safe enough in that the core itself (since the water is radioactive) HAS to be kept within a biological shield (usually concrete) so that if the core goes into supercritical meltdown mode, it can only explode into the concrete shield, which is designed to withstand much of the pressure. That secondary shield was what Chernobyl lacked, so the core was then exposed to the air.

As far as I understand, though, Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (more efficient at any rate) may be safer, in that the reactor core can be shut down quicker (control rods will enter the core faster if it's just gas they're passing through, rather than water). It's only a few milliseconds of difference, but when you think that in every millisecond, there are countless reactions occurring.. well, every second is priceless

Short attention span version: Water-cooled reactors are safer because they need less fuel. Gas-cooled reactors are more efficient and can be shut down faster. All reactors now need huge concrete shells to stop them spewing their fuel if it all goes tits-up

[markfiend]

Shorter shorter version:

If people are serious about cutting CO2 emissions, we need to build more nuclear power stations. Wind, wave, solar and other "green" energy sources aren't reliable enough (yet) and have output which is too unpredictable (due to weather variations).

Nuclear power stations let out less radioactivity per unit energy than coal-fired power stations. Although there are CO2 emissions associated with uranium mining and so forth, IIRC a breeder reactor can make its own fuel.

[eotunun]

One option allways is left out: Why don we try to save energy? Simply reduce the need for power!
Just think how many PCs there are in the world.
Now mine only is there for surfing, watching films, hearing music and writing purposes.
My old 800MHz served the purpose well, on a 150 Watt power supply.
My current one requires 350 Watt.
A friend of mine lately bought a high end gamer PC. 550 Watt required.
For what? Moving pictures.
Spell bulls.
On another note: The half-life period of the reactor's waste make these reactors produce a problem of a completey different quality.
I doubt that you can by sure today the nuclear waste can be stored securely under the earth or anywhere for thousands of years.
I think we can only hope that the fusion reactor will be ready for service soon, as these won't have the problem of the nuclear waste.

[pikkrong]

I remember that for a while those bastards (authorities of the USSR) didn't tell to their own people what had happened. We, people in Estonia, knew about it from foreign radio stations (which were prohibited).
People in Ukraine and Belarus were not so lucky.
I have heard that children (so-called pioneers) had to parade on the 1st of March in Kiew that year.

[nowayjose]

I don't know why they don't build nuclear power plants deep in the earth... apart from the cost factor, of course. Do we really need power that is so cheap that its source can't be properly secured? I'm certainly prepared to pay more for power if I knew the nuclear reactors couldn't vent to the outside in case of a meltdown, instead of, more or less, setting it up in a garden shed. But probably I'm just being naive, not being a nuclear technician and all.

[nowayjose]

I think we can only hope that the fusion reactor will be ready for service soon, as these won't have the problem of the nuclear waste.

I think you could just throw the fission waste into the fusion reactor then and it'll get burned up, so that is really only a medium-term storage problem.

More problematic might be, will we after all get that fusion thingy before uranium runs out? I've read that uranium mines might be depleted in those "50-60" years (same as with oil), which might just be scaremongering from a certain lobby or for real, I don't know.

[James Blast]

the waste will still be pumped into the sea

[Dark]

I think we can only hope that the fusion reactor will be ready for service soon, as these won't have the problem of the nuclear waste.

I think you could just throw the fission waste into the fusion reactor then and it'll get burned up, so that is really only a medium-term storage problem.

More problematic might be, will we after all get that fusion thingy before uranium runs out? I've read that uranium mines might be depleted in those "50-60" years (same as with oil), which might just be scaremongering from a certain lobby or for real, I don't know.

The amount of uranium needed is tiny. Off the top of my head, 20g of enriched uranium-235 is needed to keep a chain reaction going.. yes, a lot has to be dug out for enrichment, etc, but not to anywhere near the same extent as fossil fuels.
In context (sorry if these figures aren't quite accurate, they're just meant to provide a scale.. should have paid more attention in class!) one lump of coal is burned and chemically rearranged, giving out about 6 electronvolts. One uranium nucleus which undergoes fission (IIRC) gives around 20 million electronvolts.