Chernobyl

“The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel and without proper regard for safety.”
– World Nuclear Association[1]

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was one of many created in the former Soviet Union in order to provide energy for its many cities. The actual city of Chernobyl (1986 pop. 10,000 people) is located not far from Kiev , the present-day capital of

Ukraine

, as well as many medium sized cities in the area. In all, over 2.4 million people were directly affected by radiation exposure after the accident.[2]

Chernobyl was a Soviet designed RMBK, a Russian acronym for Reactor Bolshoi Moschnosti Kanalynyi “Channelized Large Power Reactor.” This type of reactor was used in over seventeen power plants throughout the Soviet Union , and was partially created to produce plutonium for ulterior uses (mainly for the purpose of creating nuclear weapons). This type of power plant also encompassed many flaws that have since been fixed.[3]

Even still, the problems that faced Chernobyl in the mid 1980s prove what could happen in the case of a nuclear accident. It is thus a prime example for the reasons nuclear power plants are considered dangerous and even poisonous.

In the middle of a shutdown test that took place at 1:21 AM in the morning on 26 April, 1986 , there was an electrical surge and reactor number four responded in kind. It exploded, releasing radioactive poisons into the atmosphere.[4]

The power surge was created by a huge flaw in the RBMK reactor. The design allowed the nuclear materials to overheat if any of the coolant water was lost. When the test was performed, the team cut down on the power which resulted in a loss of water. As a result, the uranium rods quickly overheated, caused too much steam, and sent the 1,000 metric ton reactor ceiling into the air. This put too much stress on the pressurized water tubes (used in light water reactors such as the RBMK) causing all 1,600 of them to explode leaving a gaping hole open for the radiation emitting from the reactor to leak out into the atmosphere.

The test that was conducted was actually against the power plant’s official policies; it was done by a small group that wanted to test out the ability of the reactor to create electrical power without its source of energy being connected. Without the approval of the safety commission for the plant, the team that led the test attempted to run the plant on low-power, ignoring many safety regulations.[5]

Along with the fact that proper safety precautions were not being followed, the RBMK reactor itself had other major flaws that allowed for massive amounts of radiation to escape. Unlike the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, during which the radiation was contained within the facility, Chernobyl was not constructed to withstand such a large blast of radiation.

The building at Three Mile Island was constructed with a final layer of concrete on the outside specifically put there to contain radiation. The RBMK facility did not have this containment layer to protect the environment from radiation.[6]

Even so, most officials maintain that even with the extra layer, the amount of radiation released after the accident was enough to have penetrated and contaminated the area surrounding the power plant.[7]

The immediate results of the explosion, which killed 31 people immediately from heat and radiation poisoning, spread across Ukraine , Belarus , and

Russia

.[8] The explosion released radioactive materials in the form of cesium-137 and strontium-90, both of which have about 30 year half lives. Radioactive poisons had been released into a radius larger than 100 miles, but, furthermore, they became airborne and are known to have affected areas in Sweden , northern Russia , and even Alaska .[9]

“Patients who came into that hospital were more radioactive when they left than when they came in…”
- Nowhere to Hide: a Look at the Chernobyl Disaster[1]

No one actually knew about the accident until three days later when Sweden published a report stating that it had found increased radiation coming out of the Soviet Union . In fact, the Soviet Union was doing all it could to cover up what had happened and assess the damage before the world could find out.[10]

In the midst of the cold war, the Soviet Union did not want to undermine any credibility it had been assuming. A disaster of such massive proportions would cause (and did cause) international and national embarrassment. Indeed, such measures were taken to cover up the incident that medical treatment and clean up was delayed in order to make the public think that nothing was wrong.

Child born with birth defects because of radiation resulting from Chernobyl
http://www.ely-standard.co.uk/man/community/Ely/asp/Chernobyl/Chernobyl2.asp

The results of radioactive poisoning, however, were too large to ignore. Sweden quickly determined that extremely high levels of radiation were coming from somewhere in the Soviet Union .

For three days the Soviet Union had kept the incident completely under wraps, trying to do anything it could to contain the disaster and make it seem things were okay. When the Swedish report was published, however, it was impossible to continue covering up the facts of the matter.

Four hundred thousand people were evacuated and resettled to another place following the disaster, but millions of others continued to live in contaminated areas. The r adioactive results were staggering. People exposed to the immediate radioactive clouds often died within a week from radiation poisoning. People living farther away from the incident suffered immediately from thyroid cancer. Since the accident birth defects have gone up 22%; the live birth rate has decreased immensely.[11]

Almost twenty years have passed since the Chernobyl accident, which truly was an eye-opener for the world. After the incident, the IAEA forced operating plants to change their safety standards.

All facilities are now required to have backup systems in case of a meltdown. This means that if one system fails another one will kick in and take over the job of cooling and moderating the materials.

Containment structures are being built stronger and those that existed before the Chernobyl incident are being reinforced to keep in radiation in the case of an explosion. While an incident on the same scale as Chernobyl would not be completely contained even with these reinforced walls, any smaller incidents will be. Furthermore, the walls would contain most of the results of an accident on such a large scale. The effects would not be as big or as problematic and will cover a much smaller area.

Nonetheless, the possibility for nuclear meltdown and radiation poisoning still exists. As mentioned in the safety section of the "Nuclear Reactor Specific" page, human error or malicious intent can still cause an accident to occur.

     [1] World Nuclear Association, Chernobyl Accident, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.htm.

         [2] Ibid.

    [3] Global Security.org, RBMK Reactor, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/rbmk.htm.

         [4] World Nuclear Association, Chernobyl Accident.

        [5] Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI – the Chernobyl Accident and its Consequences, http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?docid=456.

     [6] Global Security.org, RBMK.

     [7] Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI – the Chernobyl Accident and its Consequences.

     [8] Some sources maintain that the USSR covered up the fact that 31,000 people died from immediate exposure, however, it is all dependent upon which categorizations one uses to classify this term.

         Nowhere to Hide: A Look At the Chernobyl Disaster, video, http://www.ucg-terrehaute.org/video/chernobylbb.rm.

     [9] United Nations, The United Nations and Chernobyl, http://www.un.org/ha/chernobyl/history.html.

     [10] Ibid.

     [11] Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI – the Chernobyl Accident and its Consequences, http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?docid=456.