Doubts on the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors
experts are still studying the cancerous, continent-spanning impact of the 1986 meltdown, which took place just outside the small town of Prypyat, some 150 kilometers north of Kyiv, and belched billions of radioactive particles into the wind.
In Ukraine alone, nearly two million people are estimated to have been victims in some way of the disaster, caused by cost-cutting and negligence. The Ukrainian government pays the price today: in compensation to the families of at least 35,000 people who died of Chornobyl related cancers. Across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, fatality estimates reach into the hundreds of thousands
A major complaint is that Energoatom’s environmental impact assessments are unconvincing. Safety and security are insufficiently addressed, waste disposal is barely mentioned and plans to mitigate risks are severely lacking in detail..
Ukraine’s nuclear power disasters may not be over, experts warn, Kyiv Post, By Jack Laurenson. July 19 2019
After more than three decades in the shadow of the Chornobyl catastrophe — the world’s worst nuclear energy-related disaster — Ukrainians continue to live with nuclear power plants as part of their country’s landscape. A whopping 15 reactors power their towns and cities, while Ukraine’s total installed capacity makes it the seventh-largest nuclear nation in the world today.
At the same time, experts are still studying the cancerous, continent-spanning impact of the 1986 meltdown, which took place just outside the small town of Prypyat, some 150 kilometers north of Kyiv, and belched billions of radioactive particles into the wind.
In Ukraine alone, nearly two million people are estimated to have been victims in some way of the disaster, caused by cost-cutting and negligence. The Ukrainian government pays the price today: in compensation to the families of at least 35,000 people who died of Chornobyl related cancers. Across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, fatality estimates reach into the hundreds of thousands.
Only two nuclear energy-related disasters have been rated at the maximum severity available on the International Nuclear Event Scale: the Chornobyl explosion, and the meltdowns that shook Japan and the world during the 2011 Fukushima disaster. There, some 170,000 evacuees still cannot return to their irradiated homes in the exclusion zone.
Today in Ukraine, difficult questions linger. Have the painful lessons of Chornobyl and Fukushima been learned, and can a country struggling with war, corruption and political turmoil guarantee the safety of its nuclear infrastructure?
Safety, security lacking
These days, at least 55 percent of all Ukrainian electricity comes from its 15 fission reactors, operating at four different nuclear power plants, or NPPs, around the country. They are all operated by the state-owned National Nuclear Energy Generating Company of Ukraine, widely known as Energoatom.
These nuclear reactors in Ukraine are still not as safe and secure as they could be. They are vulnerable to external shocks, internal sabotage, cybersecurity threats and terrorism, according to shortcomings identified in expert assessments.
Ukraine scored poorly in a 2018 security index published by the Nuclear Threat Initiative organization, scoring 70 out of 100 points, ranking it 30th out of the 45 countries indexed.
The most recent overall safety assessment of all Ukrainian NPPs, completed in 2010 by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, and the European Commission, found that Ukrainian plants were non-compliant with 22 out of 194 vital safety requirements. Weak areas included the “consideration of severe accidents, NPP seismic resistance, completeness of deterministic safety analysis, and post-accident monitoring.”
The National Ecological Center of Ukraine, or NECU, and other nongovernmental organizations here warn that nine Ukrainian nuclear reactors are currently operating beyond their safe lifespan, on the basis of 10-year lifetime extension permits granted following an assessment they have labelled as “deeply flawed.”
And now, in Khmelnytsky Oblast, scientists, experts and campaigners are starting to raise their voices in protest at the latest and perhaps most serious concern.
Experts say that two new reactors which are planned to go into operation there have serious, known safety flaws and do not meet modern safety standards, widely adopted following lessons learned from the Fukushima disaster in Japan eight years ago………..
Khmelnytsky expansion
On May 16, a senior official with an Austrian government ministry taking part in talks on the Khmelnytsky project, contacted the Kyiv Post to express concern over its feasibility and safety. The official asked not to be named for fear of jeopardizing talks with Ukrainian counterparts, but shared an official report with the Kyiv Post that makes for alarming reading.
The 87-page report from Austria’s environment agency was commissioned by the country’s Federal Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism. Its lead authors are two Austrian scientists — Oda Becker, a physicist specializing in nuclear safety, and Gabriele Mraz, an expert on nuclear policy.
A major complaint is that Energoatom’s environmental impact assessments are unconvincing. Safety and security are insufficiently addressed, waste disposal is barely mentioned and plans to mitigate risks are severely lacking in detail.
And Energoatom’s plan to simply “continue” construction of facilities that would house KhNPP 3&4 is unthinkable, because the partially-finished constructions have been largely abandoned for nearly three decades and are no longer suitable, the report’s authors said.
“I was surprised that (KhNPP 3&4) was restarted…the site is in ruins… nothing has been done to protect the construction and the conditions there,” the official said.
The official asked how anyone can “think of using this ruin to build a nuclear power plant,” considering that the site and components had been exposed to ice, snow and rain over the years.
The experts also voiced concerns over the shady choice of supplier for the two new reactors.
Energoatom has selected a type of Russian-built reactor from the Czech-based (but ultimately Russian-owned) company Škoda JS. The reactor is cheap and fits within the existing, partially abandoned buildings, but features a number of known safety deficiencies, according to experts.
“They wanted a cheaper reactor — but this reactor is not considered good enough and it lacks safety features that have become required after what we learned since Fukushima,” the official said.
The Kyiv Post repeatedly tried to speak with Energoatom about its plans for the Khmelnytsky NPP, but the agency was uncooperative. Ultimately, Energoatom did not provide information or answer questions by deadline.Unanswered questions
In the report from Vienna seen by the Kyiv Post, the Austrian environment agency poses at least 89 separate questions to Energoatom which it said had so far gone unanswered. Some questions are highly technical, while others address issues of basic safety and security. The authors state that the Ukrainian side has not responded to many questions, or have provided materials that are insufficient and do not address their concerns.
Questions relating to the proposed choice of a reactor, a VVER‑1000/V‑320, and its safety deficiencies, are raised repeatedly. It states that the Ukrainian side has not sufficiently demonstrated how it will cope with any of the “known safety issues” of the reactors……… https://www.kyivpost.com/business/ukraines-nuclear-power-disasters-may-not-be-over-experts-warn.html?cn-reloaded=1
Chernobyl radiation
Ed note: This article considers only external radiation emitters – fails to consider internal emitters
UC San Francisco’s Lydia Zablotska, MD, PhD, grew up in Ukraine, trained as physician in Belarus, and has studied the long-term health impacts of radiation exposure on the Chernobyl cleanup workers, local children and others in the region. Her research helped uncover the connection between radiation exposure, thyroid conditions and leukemia, and remains relevant to global health today.
We talked with her about the real-life health impacts from the disaster portrayed in the HBO miniseries. The following answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What kind of radiation were people exposed to at Chernobyl?
The first responders, including firefighters and nuclear workers who tried to put out the multiple fires and prevent the explosion of other reactors at the nuclear power plant, were exposed to large doses of gamma radiation. Gamma radiation originates during the decay of radioactive isotopes of uranium or plutonium used as a nuclear fuel in nuclear power plants. As a result of decay, packets of electromagnetic radiation, which consist of high-energy photons, are emitted and could penetrate body tissues and cause damage to cells and their genetic material. Subsequently, DNA mutations could lead to the development of cancer.
The miniseries shows some workers dying instantly from acute radiation syndrome – what symptoms did they really experience?
The latest report from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation found 134 first responders who were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome (ARS) after the Chernobyl accident. Of these, 28 died in the first four months, but not instantaneously. Then 19 more died over the next 20 years. But the majority of these survived and lived a long life after that. There were no cases of ARS among the general public living in cities and villages around the Chernobyl power plant.
Large doses of radiation could affect a number of systems in the body that are necessary for survival. Patients with ARS could develop a bone marrow syndrome, which suppresses their immunity, or a gastrointestinal syndrome, which could lead to damage to the lining of the intestines and associated infection, dehydration, and electrolyte imbalance. Then, a couple days later, the circulatory system collapses so people start having blood volume issues and so forth. The whole body is essentially collapsing.
Can those exposed to intense radiation exposure “pass on” their radioactivity to others, as the HBO show suggests?
There are types of radiation where human bodies could retain radioactive particles and remain radioactive over time, but this is not the type that was seen at Chernobyl. After gamma radiation has passed through the body, the person is no longer radioactive and can’t expose other people.
Based on what we know, at Chernobyl, there were also no effects on children who were exposed to radiation in utero.
How does radiation exposure relate to thyroid conditions?
We conducted two studies of thyroid conditions in children who lived at the time of the Chernobyl accident in affected areas in Ukraine and Belarus. We confirmed that the particular type of radiation in Chernobyl, radioactive iodine, could cause thyroid cancer. Unexpectedly, we also showed that radiation to the thyroid gland from ingesting radioactive iodine within two months after the Chernobyl accident by children and adolescents could lead to development of non-cancer thyroid diseases, such as thyroid follicular adenoma, thyroid benign nodules, and hypothyroidism.
We also showed that the youngest children were at the highest risk for developing these diseases. Children’s thyroid glands are very active and act as a sponge for iodine, because our body needs iodine. But our bodies cannot distinguish between dietary iodine, from salt or fish, and radioactive iodine. After the explosion of the nuclear reactor, parts of the core were dispersed in clouds and carried by the prevailing winds. This is how Belarus, which was in the path of winds in the first days after the accident, got really large doses. One of the most contaminated products was milk from pastured cows, mostly consumed by children.
We did a study of cleanup workers in Ukraine and confirmed that gamma radiation causes leukemia, as was found in atomic bomb survivors in Japan. Our truly unique finding was that radiation exposure can cause many types of leukemia, not just a select few. In particular, we showed that radiation doses of gamma radiation were associated with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most prevalent type of leukemia in adult, Caucasian men. CLL was not increased in the study of atomic bomb survivors, but as our group at UCSF reported in a later study, CLL is very rare in Japan, so this finding could have been missed. …… https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2019/07/414976/real-chernobyl-qa-radiation-exposure-expert
The dangers of Chernobyl nuclear site being turned into a tourism mecca
The grounds remain coated with plutonium, cesium, strontium and americium — radionuclides (atoms that emit radiation) that could pose potentially serious health risks to those who touch or ingest them. Some areas are more radioactive, and therefore more dangerous, than others.
“Even though the accident occurred over 33 years ago it remains one of the most radiologically contaminated places on earth.”
Chernobyl tourists should avoid plant life, and especially the depths of the forests.
Those areas were not cleaned in the aftermath of the disaster and remain highly contaminated by radiation. Research has showed that the fungus, moss and mushrooms growing there are radioactive. Eating or drinking from the area is not safe.
Those who stay on the paved pathways, which officials cleaned, are much less likely to absorb harmful toxins.
Ukraine wants Chernobyl to be a tourist trap. But scientists warn: Don’t kick up dust. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/07/12/ukraine-wants-chernobyl-be-tourist-trap-scientists-warn-dont-kick-up-dust/?utm_term=.5e82b547ceaf By Katie Mettler, July 12 2019
The tourists first started flocking to Chernobyl nearly 10 years ago, when fans of the video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. wanted to see firsthand the nuclear wasteland they’d visited in virtual reality.
Next came those whose curiosity piqued when in 2016 the giant steel dome known as the New Safe Confinement was slid over the sarcophagus encasing nuclear reactor number four, which exploded in April 1986, spewed radiation across Europe and forced hundreds of thousands to flee from their homes.
Then in May, HBO’s “Chernobyl” miniseries aired, and tourism companies reported a 30 to 40 percent uptick in visitors to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, abandoned and eerily frozen in time.
Now the Ukrainian government — capitalizing on the macabre intrigue — has announced that Chernobyl will become an official tourist site, complete with routes, waterways, checkpoints and a “green corridor” that will place it on the map with other “dark tourism” destinations.
“We must give this territory of Ukraine a new life,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a visit to Chernobyl this week. “Until now, Chernobyl was a negative part of Ukraine’s brand. It’s time to change it.”
Zelensky, who was inaugurated in May, signed a decree July 10 to kickstart the Chernobyl Development Strategy, which the president hopes will bring order to the 19-mile Exclusion Zone that has become a hotbed for corruption, trespassing and theft. At the nuclear facility and in the nearby town of Pripyat, wildlife has returned and now roams freely. Flora and fauna grow up around decaying homes, playgrounds and an amusement park. Letters, dinner tables and baby dolls remain where their owners abandoned them 33 years ago.
Radioactive dust still coats it all.
“Chernobyl is a unique place on the planet where nature revives after a global man-made disaster, where there is a real ‘ghost town,’” Zelensky said during his visit. “We have to show this place to the world: scientists, ecologists, historians, tourists.”
Though exploiting a historical space like Chernobyl could infuse Ukraine’s economy with tourism dollars and motivate developers to revive the sleepy towns surrounding the “dead zone,” there are significant downsides, experts say.
[Thanks to HBO, more tourists are flocking to the eerie Chernobyl nuclear disaster site]
The grounds remain coated with plutonium, cesium, strontium and americium — radionuclides (atoms that emit radiation) that could pose potentially serious health risks to those who touch or ingest them. Some areas are more radioactive, and therefore more dangerous, than others.
“Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident in human history,” said Jim Beasley, an associate professor at the University of Georgia who has been studying wildlife in the Exclusion Zone since 2012. “Even though the accident occurred over 33 years ago it remains one of the most radiologically contaminated places on earth.”
More than 30 people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, and officials are still debating the full extent of the longterm death toll in Ukraine and nearby countries where people grew sick with cancer and other illnesses.
The World Health Organization estimates total cancer deaths at 9,000, far less than a Belarusian study that put the death toll at 115,000, reported Reuters.
Today, radiation levels inside the Exclusion Zone vary widely from location to location, said Dr. T. Steen, who teaches microbiology and immunology at Georgetown’s School of Medicine and oversees radiation research in organisms at nuclear disaster sites. Because of that, she advises anyone visiting to be educated and cautious while inside the Exclusion Zone, and to limit time spent there.
“The longer you’re exposed, the more that future impact is,” she said.
She advises visitors to the Exclusion Zone to wear clothes and shoes they are comfortable throwing away. If they’re going to be touching or disturbing anything, she recommends a mask and gloves. Most importantly, Steen says, Chernobyl tourists should avoid plant life, and especially the depths of the forests.
Those areas were not cleaned in the aftermath of the disaster and remain highly contaminated by radiation. Research has showed that the fungus, moss and mushrooms growing there are radioactive. Eating or drinking from the area is not safe.
Those who stay on the paved pathways, which officials cleaned, are much less likely to absorb harmful toxins.
Generally speaking, Chernobyl can be safe, Steen said, “but it depends on how people behave.”
And so far, the accounts of tourists behaving badly are abundant.
Timothy Mousseau, a biologist and University of South Carolina professor, has been studying the ecological and evolutionary consequences of radioactive contaminants on wildlife and organisms at Chernobyl for 20 years. He just recently returned from his annual, month-long trip to the Exclusion Zone and said he was shocked to see 250 tourists in street clothes wandering Pripyat.
Some hopped in bumper cars at the abandoned amusement park there to take selfies.
“Part of the reason people don’t think twice about it is because there is this highly organized tourism operation,” Mousseau said. “A lot of people don’t give it a second thought.”
He is concerned that the government’s tourism campaign could only make that worse.
“The negative aspects that are being completely ignored are the health and safety issues of bringing this many people, exposing this many people to what is a small risk, albeit a significant risk, to this kind of contamination,” Mousseau said. “The more traffic there is, the most dust there is, and the dust here is contaminated.”
[We’re in the age of the overtourist. You can avoid being one of them.]
But Mousseau’s worries, and the anxieties of his colleagues, extend beyond health factors.
For decades, biologists, ecologists and medical researchers have been studying the mostly undisturbed expanse that is the Exclusion Zone. They’ve studied DNA mutations in plants and insects, birds and fish. As larger mammals, like moose, wolves and fox, have slowly re-occupied the surrounding forests, biologists have searched for clues about the ways short-term and long-term radiation exposure have altered their health.
Scientifically, there is no place on earth like Chernobyl. Beasley, who studies wolves there, calls it a “living laboratory.” An influx of humans — especially reckless ones — could destroy it.
“This is really the only accessible place on the planet where this kind of research can be conducted at a scale both spatial and temporal that allows for important scientific discovery,” Mousseau said. “Given increased use of radiation in technology and medicine, in going to Mars and space, we need to know more about radiation and its effects on biology and organisms.”
“And Chernobyl provides a unique laboratory to do this kind of research,” he said.
Tourism’s negative footprint in the Exclusion Zone is not theoretical, either.
They are leaving behind trash, rummaging through abandoned homes and buildings and, in Mousseau’s experience, stealing his research equipment. Cameras he has hidden in the depths of the most radioactive parts of the zone to capture the wildlife he studies have been vandalized or gone missing, he said.
It’s something that absolutely astounds me,” he said.
Theoretically, more government oversight at Chernobyl could help curb this kind of interference, especially if a financial investment in the zone will help preserve the ghost town there and bring in more guards and checkpoints to patrol who comes and goes.
None of that will prevent tourists from disturbing Chernobyl’s spirit.
“I think it is important to not lose sight of the fact that Chernobyl represents an area of tremendous human suffering,” Beasley said, “as hundreds of thousands of people were forever displaced from their homes or otherwise impacted by the accident.”
Chernobyl’s $1.7B nuclear confinement shelter finally revealed
Chernobyl’s $1.7B nuclear confinement shelter revealed after taking 9 years to complete, By Paulina Dedaj | Fox News 4 July 19 A new structure built to confine the Chernobyl reactor at the center of the world’s worst nuclear disaster was previewed for the media Tuesday.
Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded and burned April 26, 1986.
The structure itself cost 1.5 billion euros (almost $1.7 billion) and the entire shelter project cost 2.2 billion euros. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development managed a fund with contributions from 45 countries, the European Union and 715 million euros in the bank’s own resources.
The shelter is the largest moveable land-based structure ever built, with a span of 843 feet and a total weight of over 36,000 tonnes.
“This was a very long project,” said Balthasar Lindauer, director of the bank’s Nuclear Safety Department. He noted that preliminary studies began in 1998 and the contract for the structure was placed in 2007.
He said Ukraine was a big contributor, contributing 100 million euros in cash along with expertise and personnel. ……. https://www.foxnews.com/world/chernobyl-nuclear-confinement-shelter-revealed
Huge expenses of the project to cover the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear reactor
Inside new £1,300,000,000 structure built over destroyed Chernobyl nuclear reactor https://metro.co.uk/2019/07/03/inside-new-1300000000-structure-built-destroyed-chernobyl-nuclear-reactor-10106545/ Georgia Diebelius [excellent photos] 3 Jul 2019 Anew structure built to confine the Chernobyl reactor at the centre of the world’s worst nuclear disaster was previewed for the media yesterday. Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded and burned April 26, 1986. The complex construction effort to secure the molten reactor’s core and 200 tons of highly radioactive material has taken nine years to complete under the control of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The structure itself cost £1.5 billion and the entire shelter project cost £2.2 billion. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development managed a fund with contributions from 45 countries, the European Union and £715 million in the bank’s own resources.‘
Chernobyl survivors confirm the accuracy of the TV series, about nuclear radiation
Chernobyl survivors assess fact and fiction in TV series,
Secret militaty facility near Chernobyl nuclear site
Inside the Russian Woodpecker, the top secret military facility in the shadow of Chernobyl, We all know about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster but few have heard of the nearby secret military facility whose purpose is shrouded in mystery. News.com.au, Benedict Brook@BenedictBrook 23 June 19
“…….in the highest echelons of the Soviet military, Chernobyl had long been known for something else: an ominous top secret Cold War facility buried deep in the forest just a few kilometres from the notorious power plant.
To the USSR military it was known as the Duga array. To those who discovered its existence in the West it was dubbed the “Russian Woodpecker.” A cheery name that belied the fear and mystery that surrounded the facility.
When Chernobyl blew, it wasn’t just the city of Pripyat which disappeared off the map; so did the enormous military installation. It became bathed in radioactive dust and was left to rust in the exclusion zone, where it remains to this day.
Not that Duga was on any maps. It was marked, instead, as a children’s camp. But there were no kids here. Secret it may have been but come anywhere near it and it was hard to miss.
Built in 1976, from afar it looks like a giant wall towering over the forest. But get closer and it’s far more porous — a massive metal lattice work that stands some 50 stories tall and stretches for 500 meters long.
Despite its size, few outside of Chernobyl knew of its existence. Few of the West knew of it either — but then they began to hear it.
From the mid 1970s onwards a strange rapidly repeating interference began to be noticed on some radio frequencies. The incessant tapping was reminiscent of a woodpecker. Now and then, the signal would stray off little used frequencies and interrupt radio stations around the world.
THE RUSSIAN WOODPECKER’S ROLE
Ham radio enthusiasts, as well military experts, deduced the signal was coming from somewhere north of Kiev, now in Ukraine but at the time part of Moscow ruled USSR. The Duga array had successfully given away its own secret location.
Luke Johnson, who took a tour of the Duga for Atlas Obscura magazine, said it wasn’t just the west that was picking up the eerie signal from Chernobyl.
“Higher-end Soviet television sets were sold with a special ‘woodpecker jamming’ device built in. More alarmingly, the mysterious signal began to interfere with emergency frequencies for aircraft,” he wrote.
But what exactly was the purpose of the Russian Woodpecker? Speculation in the West was rife with some theories that it could control the weather or even that the huge structure transmitted some kind of mind control power.
At the time the US and USSR were at the height of the Cold War with thousands of nuclear tipped missiles ready to be launched at a moment’s notice.
The Duga’s main role was as a huge radar receiver, part of a network of facilities designed to detect the launch of missiles headed towards the USSR.
…….. THREE MINUTE WARNING
While most visitors to Chernobyl make a beeline for the power station and abandoned town of Pripyat, the Duga array remains off the beaten track.
“During the Cold War, even approaching this spot would have had dire consequences, but today there is just one guard, near a dilapidated guard house with wood smoke rising from the chimney,” writes Mr Johnson.
…… Masses of discarded computer terminals, that once would have provided the USSR with the three minute warning, now lie broken and battered in the snow.
“While the nuclear reactor remains a nexus of international concern, the Russian Woodpecker stands largely forgotten,” said Mr Nazarayan.
….. The distinctive tapping sound was last heard sometime around 1989. And with that, the Russian Woodpecker fell silent.
benedict.brook@news.com.au https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/inside-the-russian-woodpecker-the-top-secret-material-facility-in-the-shadow-of-chernobyl/news-story/2b179ed778ac4b7f850c9fb27dff9d08
Latest Chernobyl Shelter Implementation Plan operating this year, at cost of nearly £2billion
Chernobyl: The staggering amount it cost to install protective roof over reactor core https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1143610/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-hbo-drama-series-sky-atlantic-new-safe-confinement-spt
THE CHERNOBYL nuclear power plant has had a new roof installed to contain radioactive waste, 33 years after the April 1986 disaster. By ABBIE LLEWELYN Jun 21, 20196
The roof has been in construction since 2010, moved into position in 2016 and systems began operation in February this year. The huge structure was placed over the original sarcophagus, which was hastily put together in 1986 after Reactor 4 exploded and released huge amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The New Safe Confinement (NSC) aims to prevent the release of radioactive material for the next 100 years.
The Shelter Implementation Plan, of which the roof is the main element, has cost around £1.9billion – the roof alone costing around £1.3billion.
The NSC is designed to withstand temperatures ranging from -43C to 45C, a class-three tornado and an earthquake with a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale.
The first container that encased the offending reactor was assembled in just five months. But by 1996, the original sarcophagus was damaged beyond repair from prolonged exposure to the radiation.
Rain water was leaking through the roof and came into contact with radioactive material before dripping into the soil, posing a serious threat to the environment.
Radiation levels in the area had risen to 10,000 roentgens per hour – normal levels are around 20-50 roentgens per hour.
The first sarcophagus was meant to last 30 years and repairs and maintenance was carried out until as recently as 2011, but ultimately it was decided that a second sarcophagus would be necessary.
The new roof is 162m long, 257m wide and 108m tall: the arch could house the Statue of Liberty or Notre Dame Cathedral – before the fire.
It was built so large in order to allow for machines to enter and remove the old sarcophagus.
After the nuclear disaster, a 30km exclusion zone was put in place, and 335,000 forced to evacuate – 115,000 from the surrounding area in 1986 and 220,000 more people from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine after the fact.
However, there has still been an increase in the incidence of cancer amongst those living near Chernobyl.
There have even been studies suggesting that the DNA of birds in the area has been altered.
Interest in Chernobyl has skyrocketed in recent weeks due to the HBO historical drama series ‘Chernobyl’.
The programme, available in the UK on Sky Atlantic, shows the events of that fateful day unfold, as well as the attempted cover-up by the Soviet Union.
It has been rated the highest of any programme on IMDB.
Veteran of Chernobyl nuclear clean-up: HBO TV episode was very accurate
Chernobyl Episode 4 Scene | HBO | Graphite Clearing
This man knows what it’s really like shovelling radioactive debris on top of Chernobyl’s reactor ABC News
Key points:
- At age 32, Jaan Krinal was forced to go to Chernobyl and clean the roof of the reactor
- He says men were initially enthusiastic to help eliminate the radiation
- One-third of the men of his town he served with in Chernobyl have died
When he left his wife and two children on May 7, 1986 and went to work, Jaan Krinal didn’t know he would be one of those people.
The 32-year-old was working on a state-owned farm in Soviet-occupied Estonia.
Because he’d been forced to complete the Soviet military’s retraining a year before, he was confused when officers surprised him at work and said he’d been called up again — immediately.
Jaan and 200 other men were taken to a nearby school. Once they’d walked through the door, no-one was allowed to leave.
The men’s passports were seized before they were loaded onto buses and taken to a forest, where they were told to slip into brand new army uniforms.
“That’s when I first questioned what’s really going on here,” Jaan recalls………
Workers told radiation could have health benefits
It all happened fast.
Hundreds of men boarded a Ukraine-bound train on May 8. By the next evening, they were setting up camp on the edge of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone.
They were just 30 kilometres away from the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster — the still-smouldering wreckage of a reactor torn apart by a series of explosions and spewing radiation in a plume across Europe.
Jaan was among the first group sent to clean up in the aftermath of the catastrophe.
Tasked with hosing down radiation on the houses in nearby villages, he was thrown into the thick of it……
Despite the apparent uselessness of the job, they continued to work 11-hour days without a day off until the end of June. After that, they had two days of downtime a month.
As the weeks rolled on, suspicions grew.
“We started to have doubts. But all the officers said, ‘Why are you fretting, the radiation levels aren’t that high.”
In a cruel irony, the commanders told the men that being exposed to radiation would actually have health benefits.
“They joked that whoever has cancer can now get rid of it — because the radiation helps,” Jaan says.
Men unaware of deadly reason behind roof time limit
By the end of September, whatever enthusiasm the men initially felt had faded.
As many developed a cough, concerns grew about whether they were being lied to about the radiation being harmless. The respirators the men were given wouldn’t stay on because of the heat and were used until they got holes in them.
Later they found they should have been replaced every day…….
A rumour had it that the very last leg of the assignment was going on the roof of the reactor to clean up as much debris as possible.
Humans were going to be given a task that remote-control robots had previously attempted, but failed. The machines simply stopped working due to the unprecedented levels of radiation.
“When they told us, ‘You have to go to the roof’, we thought, ‘Oh, this means we can go home soon’,” he says.
On the day, he changed his army uniform for a protective suit, glasses and a gas mask, and a metal groin guard.
“We were all lined up and told, ‘who doesn’t want to go on the roof, step forward’. But only a couple of us did,” he says.
“There was no mass rejection. Most people went up there.
“It had to be done. We couldn’t just leave it. I think everyone realised the longer the reactor would have stayed open, the more dangerous it would have become.”
Jaan was shown on a small screen exactly which piece of debris he had to pick up with a shovel and throw off the roof of the reactor, but strictly warned against going too close to the edge.
He had two minutes to complete the assignment — a bell would ring to tell him when to run back.
The two-minute timeframe was to limit exposure to radiation, which could kill a man.
But this wasn’t communicated to the men at the time.
Jaan says the roof-cleaning scene depicted in HBO’s mini-series Chernobyl mirrored real life events…….
A staggering one-third of the men of his town who went to Chernobyl have died.
The average age of death has been 52.
“Over the past couple of years, just a couple of us have died. But not too long ago it was around 10 men a year,” he says.
“There have been cancers. There have been suicides too, but thankfully not too many.”……
he hopes tourists won’t start flocking to the ghost city.
“I hope they’ll never start sending large groups of tourists there. It’s still a dangerous zone,” he says.
He hasn’t seen the mini-series, but welcomes the attention Chernobyl disaster is getting — he thinks it acts as a warning to the human kind. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-22/chernobyl-what-it-was-really-like-on-top-of-reactor/11223876
The dogs of Chernobyl
Chernobyl workers are adopting the site’s contaminated dogs, but not all of them are safe to pet, Business Insider ARIA BENDIX, JUN 19, 2019,
“Chernobyl” TV series – was drawn from the testimony of those who were there
The truth about Chernobyl? I saw it with my own eyes. Guardian, 16 June 19, Kim Willsher reported on the world’s worst nuclear disaster from the Soviet Union. HBO’s TV version only scratches the surface, she says.There is a line in the television series Chernobyl that comes as no surprise to those of us who reported on the 1986 nuclear disaster in what was the Soviet Union – but that still has the power to shock:
“The official position of the state is that global nuclear catastrophe is not possible in the Soviet Union.”
It was not possible, so in the days and months after the world’s worst such accident, on 26 April, the Kremlin kept up its pretence. It dissembled, deceived and lied. I began investigating Chernobyl in the late 1980s after Ukrainian friends insisted authorities in the USSR were covering up the extent of the human tragedy of those – many of them children – contaminated by radiation when the nuclear plant’s Reactor 4 exploded, blasting a cloud of poisonous fallout across the USSR and a large swathe of Europe.
When photographer John Downing and I first visited, the Soviet Union, then on its last political legs, was still in denial about what happened despite president Mikhail Gorbachev’s new era of glasnost. Continue reading
Chernobyl meltdown: the melted metal, with uranium and zirconium, formed radioactive lava.
How The Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Meltdown Formed World’s Most Dangerous Lava, Forbes, David Bressan 16 June 19 “………Even areas thousands of kilometers away from Chernobyl are still today contaminated with radioactive particles, transported by the wind in a gigantic plume over Europe.
As the cooling system of the reactor was shut down and the insertion of control rods into the reactor core failed, the nuclear fission went out of control, releasing enough heat to melt the fuel rods, cases, core containment vessel and anything else nearby, including the concrete floor of the reactor building. The fuel pellets inside the fuel rods are almost entirely made of uranium-oxide while the encasing in which the pellets are placed is made of zirconium alloys. Melting at over 1,200°C the uranium and zirconium, together with melted metal, formed radioactive lava burning through the steel hull of the reactor and concrete foundations at a speed of 30 cm (12″) per hour. Concrete doesn’t melt, but decomposes and becomes brittle at high temperatures. Part of the concrete was incorporated in the lava flow, explaining its high content of silicates, minerals composed mostly of silicon, aluminum and magnesium. Due to its chemical composition and high temperature, the lava-like material has a very low viscosity. When lava has low viscosity, it can flow very easily as demonstrated by stalactites hanging from valves and tubes in the destroyed reactor core.
Four hundred miners were brought to Chernobyl to dig a tunnel underneath. It was feared that the radioactive lava would burn through the containment structure and contaminate the groundwater. Only later it was discovered that the lava flow stopped after 3 meters (9 feet). Chemical reactions and evaporating water cooled the mixture below 1,100°C, below the decomposition temperature of the concrete.
About eight months after the incident and with the help of a remotely operated camera, the solidified lava was discovered in the ruins of the reactor building. Externally resembling tree bark and grey in color, the mass was nicknamed the Elephant’s Foot.
At the time of its discovery, radioactivity near the Elephant’s Foot was approximately 10,000 roentgens, a dose so high, only minutes of exposure would prove fatal. In 1996, radioactivity levels were low enough to visit the reactor’s basement and took some photographs. The photos are blurry due to radiation damage. The lava-like material resulting from a nuclear meltdown is also named corium, after the core of the reactor. An unknown uranium-zirconium-silicate found in the corium of Chernobyl was named later chernobylite. Chernobylite is highly radioactive due to its high uranium content and contamination by fission products. Corium will likely remain radioactive for the next decades to centuries. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2019/06/14/how-the-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-meltdown-formed-worlds-most-dangerous-lava-flow/#4d73b4f01691
Chernobyl ‘suicide divers’ saved Europe from nuclear devastation
The world held its breath as the brave volunteers risked it all to but to prevent a second huge explosion. he world owes him an eternal debt, but for Chernobyl hero Alexei Ananenko, it was just part of the job.Engineer Alexei was one of three men who volunteered to wade through radioactive water to prevent a second cataclysmic explosion at the stricken nuclear reactor.
Decked from head to toe in protective clothing, they descended into the bowels of Reactor 4 on a doomsday mission as the world held its breath.
Their heroism gripped viewers of Sky Atlantic drama Chernobyl. But with great understatement, 60-year-old Alexei insisted last night: “It’s nothing to brag about. Why should I feel a hero?
“I was on duty and it was my job. I was trained in what to do.”………
Experts believed that if 185 tons of molten nuclear lava hit the water below it would cause a radioactive steam explosion of 3-5 megatons – so massive that it would leave much of Europe uninhabitable for 500,000 years. Alexei was one of the few employees who knew where the latches and valves were located to drain water from the coolant system.
He, senior engineer Valeri Bespalov and shift supervisor Boris Baranov were tasked with turning them off.
Firefighters drained a huge volume of water so the men would not have to swim, but they were still forced to walk through radioactive fluid three metres below ground level.
The image of them carrying search lights as they wade through a toxic soup is captured in the TV drama…….
After the explosion a cloud of radioactive strontium, caesium and plutonium affected mainly the Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus, as well as parts of Russia and Europe. Between 1987 and 1990, 530,000 workers – known as liquidators and conscripted from across the USSR – worked in and around Chernobyl to clear up the toxic mess. ……….. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/selfless-chernobyl-suicide-divers-saved-16523155
The clean-up of the Chernobyl nuclear wreck- the costs and international effort
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Viewpoint: Chernobyl and a very modern safety culture, WNN, 10 June 2019
The HBO/Sky mini-series Chernobyl is a stark reminder of the immensity of the accident that destroyed unit 4 in 1986. It vividly recalls the pain and suffering of those people, in particular, who tried to address the consequences of the accident in the first few days and weeks. But Chernobyl also clearly highlights how a culture of secrecy and obedience contributed to the accident and hampered efforts to deal with its aftermath. Soviet authorities knew about precursors to the Chernobyl accident but did not share this vital information with operators, who were ordered to run the fatal test without sufficient knowledge about unstable core conditions. A key reminder, if one was needed, is that an effective nuclear safety culture requires well-informed and empowered operators and transparency as well as competent, independent oversight. While Soviet authorities eventually managed to get unit 4 into a relatively stable state by using hundreds of thousands of ‘liquidators’ to cover the reactor with what became known as the ‘object shelter’, the site remains a radiological and technical challenge to this day. If one good thing came out of the Chernobyl disaster, it was the unprecedented international cooperation and solidarity to tackle the consequences of the accident and the cooperation on nuclear safety issues in general. The international community, including the EBRD, has engaged with Ukraine on the various challenges posed by the Chernobyl site since the mid-1990s. One of the first tasks was to finance safety and security upgrades at the sister unit, immediately adjacent to the shelter, which almost unbelievably continued producing electricity until the year 2000. Permanent closure of units 1 to 3 was a clear demand by the international community and, when achieved, it was the first major improvement at the site. In 1997, the EBRD agreed to set up a Donor Fund to finance the Shelter Implementation Plan – a strategy to transform unit 4 and the shelter into an environmentally safe condition. This task came to be supported by 45 donor governments and the EBRD, even though at the time the exact scope, schedule and cost were tentative. The first phase consisted of studies to determine the radiological situation in various parts of the object, the structural stability of the shelter (which had been built quickly using remote technologies as far as feasible), and the possibility of criticality in the destroyed core. What slowly emerged was the outline for a strategy including the construction of a New Safe Confinement (NSC) to enclose unit 4, including the old shelter. A possible collapse of the shelter was the biggest risk to the success of the programme and it could have jeopardised finding a sustainable solution for decades. A priority, therefore, was the design and implementation of measures to stabilise the shelter to minimise that risk. Before the sliding of the NSC, the most visible feature in recent years was a gigantic yellow steel structure to stabilise the western wall of the shelter and to take off most of the weight of its roof. That was one of a dozen measures implemented inside and outside of the shelter, and carried out under extremely difficult radiological conditions, which helped extend the lifetime of the old structure. In parallel, the design for the NSC took shape. One of the requirements was to assemble this structure of more than 100 meters high and 250 meters wide, away from the shelter and to slide it into place once completed. This was necessary to keep radiation exposure to workers to a minimum. A consortium of French companies, Vinci and Bouygues, accomplished this feat. By the end of 2016, the arch-shaped steel structure, complete with a sophisticated crane system, ventilation ducts and cabling for monitoring and control systems, was slid into position over unit 4. The completion of the structure’s sealing and commissioning of all systems was achieved in April 2019. This successful operational test is a game changer for Chernobyl. Now, with the NSC in place and with a design life of 100 years, the conditions have been created to take the next steps……. Thanks to this international effort, Chernobyl is now in a much better shape than it has been for the last 33 years. But it remains a challenging place. Used fuel from units 1 to 3 is stored in a Soviet-era wet storage facility that needs to be decommissioned. Transport of fuel assemblies to a new dry interim storage facility, also funded through an EBRD-managed Donor Fund and EBRD’s own resources, is expected to start before the end of this year. Ukraine will have to decommission Chernobyl units 1 to 3, operate the NSC and waste management facilities (most of which have been funded by international donors), develop an integrated waste management strategy and manage the exclusion zone, large parts of which will not be released for general use for decades to come……. Future work in Chernobyl would greatly benefit from continued international cooperation due to the scale of the task, and including a number of unique challenges. Today, Ukraine would of course no longer be the recipient of technical assistance in dire need of international solidarity that it was when the country emerged from the Soviet Union with the worst nuclear legacy in the history of mankind. Future cooperation will need to be a partnership, the foundation of which has been successfully created by Ukraine and the international community by solving key technical challenges in Chernobyl. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is an international financial institution founded in 1991. As a multilateral developmental investment bank, the EBRD uses investment as a tool to build market economies. Read more about the EBRD’s work at Chernobyl. http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Viewpoint-Chernobyl-and-a-very-modern-safety-cultu |
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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