Chernobyl as seen from a Kawasaki...
Re: (Dittoz7)
im down lol 240s through chernobyl?
Re: (brizanden)
Hells Yeah!I'll Bring The Marshmallows!Who Gonna Bring Anti-Radiation Spray?!?!
Re: (Dittoz7)
we wont even have to make a fire we can just bake the marshmellows with radiation
Re: (x240xdrifter)
That's Seabrook. Another tough nut to crack. I've known a few people that worked there. Actually, when I took a course at the SIG Arms academy, one of my instructors was a tactical responder for Seabrook.x240xdrifter wrote:I'm very close to a power plant, you might know of it, on the coast of Southern New Hampshire???
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S13CoupeLover
- Posts: 428
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Re: (4cefed)
so 4cefed, in the OP link. the girls says that when the chernbyl (sp?) exploded there was a place where everyone would go to see the "glowing" cloud that was above the facility. Is that Truly possible to happen?? the glowing cloud i mean, and also the "glowing red" trees. i've talked to my dad about this event, as i talk to him about alot of crap, and i told him what the girl said and he said and i quote: "HELL YEAH" this other part is rendered different from what he really said, "u don't understand the toxicity of nuclear radiation".
just want to confirm with someone who knows his stuff on this subject, and it looks like u know your stuff. unless ur just BSing us and were actually taking your word for it, haha jk jk.
just want to confirm with someone who knows his stuff on this subject, and it looks like u know your stuff. unless ur just BSing us and were actually taking your word for it, haha jk jk.
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AZhitman
- Administrator
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- Location: Surprise, Arizona
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Nuclear power > all. Period.
Spent quite a bit of time around Grand Gulf, Wolf Creek, White Horse Beach, Palo Verde, and numerous other large nuclear generating facilities in the US.
Dad was an engineer for Bechtel, and had a hand in building many of the current plants in operation.
Shame on the left (and the "greenies") for meddling in areas they have no knowledge of, and blame them FULLY for the decline of nuclear power as a reliable source of power generation.
If Ukraine had an NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), they'd have had no disaster. End of story.
But just as you can't build a Space Station on a post-Communism budget, neither can you build and run a reliable and safe nuclear generating facility on a shoestring.
Spent quite a bit of time around Grand Gulf, Wolf Creek, White Horse Beach, Palo Verde, and numerous other large nuclear generating facilities in the US.
Dad was an engineer for Bechtel, and had a hand in building many of the current plants in operation.
Shame on the left (and the "greenies") for meddling in areas they have no knowledge of, and blame them FULLY for the decline of nuclear power as a reliable source of power generation.
If Ukraine had an NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), they'd have had no disaster. End of story.
But just as you can't build a Space Station on a post-Communism budget, neither can you build and run a reliable and safe nuclear generating facility on a shoestring.
Re: (S13CoupeLover)
Glowing cloud? I've heard that it is possible to see the Čerenkov effect in open air but I'm not sure. Here's the wiki page about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiationS13CoupeLover wrote:so 4cefed, in the OP link. the girls says that when the chernbyl (sp?) exploded there was a place where everyone would go to see the "glowing" cloud that was above the facility. Is that Truly possible to happen?? the glowing cloud i mean, and also the "glowing red" trees. i've talked to my dad about this event, as i talk to him about alot of crap, and i told him what the girl said and he said and i quote: "HELL YEAH" this other part is rendered different from what he really said, "u don't understand the toxicity of nuclear radiation".
just want to confirm with someone who knows his stuff on this subject, and it looks like u know your stuff. unless ur just BSing us and were actually taking your word for it, haha jk jk.
If it is possible, I doubt there was one at Chernobyl, because if there was a source of radiation that high, no one would be alive long enough to tell the next guy about it. Just a guess though.
The core was actually on fire for a day or so, so maybe they were seeing the reflection of the fire lighting up the night sky. Red trees? I don't know know about this either. The only colors I know about are the blue or bluish-purple glow underwater near active bundles and other hot stuff, and the green glow of radium. Radium is what they used to make watch dials glow in the dark. Funny thing. Radium adheres to calcium. The guys that used to paint the dials licked their brushes for a finer point. After doing this long enough they could go in a dark room, and see their own bones glowing through their hand and smile in a mirror and see their teeth.
I'm trying to inform to the best of my knowledge. I'm sure there are some details I'm not right on. Google some sh*t and make up your own mind. My points are general and usually real-life experiences. I'll tell you guys if I'm guessing.
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S13CoupeLover
- Posts: 428
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- Car: 1990 240sx hatch
Re: (4cefed)
thank you 4cefed, i'll be reading that once im done with my HW.
Re: (S13CoupeLover)
Very great read. Thanks 4cefed for great info. And for people to lazy to jfgin stuff:
Nuclear power plants provide about 17 percent of the world's electricity. Some countries depend more on nuclear power for electricity than others. In France, for instance, about 75 percent of the electricity is generated from nuclear power, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. In the United States, nuclear power supplies about 15 percent of the electricity overall, but some states get more power from nuclear plants than others. There are more than 400 nuclear power plants around the world, with more than 100 in the United States.
Have you ever wondered how a nuclear power plant works or how safe nuclear power is? In this article, we will examine how a nuclear reactor and a power plant work. We'll explain nuclear fission and give you a view inside a nuclear reactor.
UraniumUranium is a fairly common element on Earth, incorporated into the planet during the planet's formation. Uranium is originally formed in stars. Old stars exploded, and the dust from these shattered stars aggregated together to form our planet. Uranium-238 (U-238) has an extremely long half-life (4.5 billion years), and therefore is still present in fairly large quantities. U-238 makes up 99 percent of the uranium on the planet. U-235 makes up about 0.7 percent of the remaining uranium found naturally, while U-234 is even more rare and is formed by the decay of U-238. (Uranium-238 goes through many stages or alpha and beta decay to form a stable isotope of lead, and U-234 is one link in that chain.)
Uranium-235 has an interesting property that makes it useful for both nuclear power production and for nuclear bomb production. U-235 decays naturally, just as U-238 does, by alpha radiation. U-235 also undergoes spontaneous fission a small percentage of the time. However, U-235 is one of the few materials that can undergo induced fission. If a free neutron runs into a U-235 nucleus, the nucleus will absorb the neutron without hesitation, become unstable and split immediately. See How Nuclear Radiation Works for complete details.
Nuclear FissionThe animation below shows a uranium-235 nucleus with a neutron approaching from the top. As soon as the nucleus captures the neutron, it splits into two lighter atoms and throws off two or three new neutrons (the number of ejected neutrons depends on how the U-235 atom happens to split). The two new atoms then emit gamma radiation as they settle into their new states. There are three things about this induced fission process that make it especially interesting:
* The probability of a U-235 atom capturing a neutron as it passes by is fairly high. In a reactor working properly (known as the critical state), one neutron ejected from each fission causes another fission to occur.
* The process of capturing the neutron and splitting happens very quickly, on the order of picoseconds (1x10-12 seconds).
* An incredible amount of energy is released, in the form of heat and gamma radiation, when a single atom splits. The two atoms that result from the fission later release beta radiation and gamma radiation of their own as well. The energy released by a single fission comes from the fact that the fission products and the neutrons, together, weigh less than the original U-235 atom. The difference in weight is converted directly to energy at a rate governed by the equation E = mc2.
Something on the order of 200 MeV (million electron volts) is released by the decay of one U-235 atom (if you would like to convert that into something useful, consider that 1 eV is equal to 1.602 x 10-12 ergs, 1 x 107 ergs is equal to 1 joule, 1 joule equals 1 watt-second, and 1 BTU equals 1,055 joules). That may not seem like much, but there are a lot of uranium atoms in a pound of uranium. So many, in fact, that a pound of highly enriched uranium as used to power a nuclear submarine or nuclear aircraft carrier is equal to something on the order of a million gallons of gasoline. When you consider that a pound of uranium is smaller than a baseball, and a million gallons of gasoline would fill a cube 50 feet per side (50 feet is as tall as a five-story building), you can get an idea of the amount of energy available in just a little bit of U-235.
In order for these properties of U-235 to work, a sample of uranium must be enriched so that it contains 2 percent to 3 percent or more of uranium-235. Three-percent enrichment is sufficient for use in a civilian nuclear reactor used for power generation. Weapons-grade uranium is composed of 90-percent or more U-235.
Inside a Nuclear Power PlantTo build a nuclear reactor, what you need is some mildly enriched uranium. Typically, the uranium is formed into pellets with approximately the same diameter as a dime and a length of an inch or so. The pellets are arranged into long rods, and the rods are collected together into bundles. The bundles are then typically submerged in water inside a pressure vessel. The water acts as a coolant. In order for the reactor to work, the bundle, submerged in water, must be slightly supercritical. That means that, left to its own devices, the uranium would eventually overheat and melt.
To prevent this, control rods made of a material that absorbs neutrons are inserted into the bundle using a mechanism that can raise or lower the control rods. Raising and lowering the control rods allow operators to control the rate of the nuclear reaction. When an operator wants the uranium core to produce more heat, the rods are raised out of the uranium bundle. To create less heat, the rods are lowered into the uranium bundle. The rods can also be lowered completely into the uranium bundle to shut the reactor down in the case of an accident or to change the fuel.
The uranium bundle acts as an extremely high-energy source of heat. It heats the water and turns it to steam. The steam drives a steam turbine, which spins a generator to produce power. In some reactors, the steam from the reactor goes through a secondary, intermediate heat exchanger to convert another loop of water to steam, which drives the turbine. The advantage to this design is that the radioactive water/steam never contacts the turbine. Also, in some reactors, the coolant fluid in contact with the reactor core is gas (carbon dioxide) or liquid metal (sodium, potassium); these types of reactors allow the core to be operated at higher temperatures.
Outside a Nuclear Power PlantOnce you get past the reactor itself, there is very little difference between a nuclear power plant and a coal-fired or oil-fired power plant except for the source of the heat used to create steam.
Outside a Nuclear Power PlantOnce you get past the reactor itself, there is very little difference between a nuclear power plant and a coal-fired or oil-fired power plant except for the source of the heat used to create steam.
The reactor's pressure vessel is typically housed inside a concrete liner that acts as a radiation shield. That liner is housed within a much larger steel containment vessel. This vessel contains the reactor core as well the hardware (cranes, etc.) that allows workers at the plant to refuel and maintain the reactor. The steel containment vessel is intended to prevent leakage of any radioactive gases or fluids from the plant.
Finally, the containment vessel is protected by an outer concrete building that is strong enough to survive such things as crashing jet airliners. These secondary containment structures are necessary to prevent the escape of radiation/radioactive steam in the event of an accident like the one at Three Mile Island. The absence of secondary containment structures in Russian nuclear power plants allowed radioactive material to escape in an accident at Chernobyl.
Uranium-235 is not the only possible fuel for a power plant. Another fissionable material is plutonium-239. Plutonium-239 can be created easily by bombarding U-238 with neutrons -- something that happens all the time in a nuclear reactor.
Subcriticality, Criticality and SupercriticalityWhen a U-235 atom splits, it gives off two or three neutrons (depending on the way the atom splits). If there are no other U-235 atoms in the area, then those free neutrons fly off into space as neutron rays. If the U-235 atom is part of a mass of uranium -- so there are other U-235 atoms nearby -- then one of three things happens:
* If, on average, exactly one of the free neutrons from each fission hits another U-235 nucleus and causes it to split, then the mass of uranium is said to be critical. The mass will exist at a stable temperature. A nuclear reactor must be maintained in a critical state.
* If, on average, less than one of the free neutrons hits another U-235 atom, then the mass is subcritical. Eventually, induced fission will end in the mass.
* If, on average, more than one of the free neutrons hits another U-235 atom, then the mass is supercritical. It will heat up.
For a nuclear bomb, the bomb's designer wants the mass of uranium to be very supercritical so that all of the U-235 atoms in the mass split in a microsecond. In a nuclear reactor, the reactor core needs to be slightly supercritical so that plant operators can raise and lower the temperature of the reactor. The control rods give the operators a way to absorb free neutrons so the reactor can be maintained at a critical level.
The amount of uranium-235 in the mass (the level of enrichment) and the shape of the mass control the criticality of the sample. You can imagine that if the shape of the mass is a very thin sheet, most of the free neutrons will fly off into space rather than hitting other U-235 atoms. A sphere is the optimal shape. The amount of uranium-235 that you must collect together in a sphere to get a critical reaction is about 2 pounds (0.9 kg). This amount is therefore referred to as the critical mass. For plutonium-239, the critical mass is about 10 ounces (283 grams).
Problems with Nuclear Power PlantsWell-constructed nuclear power plants have an important advantage when it comes to electrical power generation -- they are extremely clean. Compared with a coal-fired power plant, nuclear power plants are a dream come true from an environmental standpoint. A coal-fired power plant actually releases more radioactivity into the atmosphere than a properly functioning nuclear power plant. Coal-fired plants also release tons of carbon, sulfur and other elements into the atmosphere (see this page about coal pollution for details).
Unfortunately, there are significant problems with nuclear power plants:
* Mining and purifying uranium has not, historically, been a very clean process.
* Improperly functioning nuclear power plants can create big problems. The Chernobyl disaster is a good recent example. Chernobyl was poorly designed and improperly operated, but it dramatically shows the worst-case scenario. Chernobyl scattered tons of radioactive dust into the atmosphere.
* Spent fuel from nuclear power plants is toxic for centuries, and, as yet, there is no safe, permanent storage facility for it.
* Transporting nuclear fuel to and from plants poses some risk, although to date, the safety record in the United States has been good.
These problems have largely derailed the creation of new nuclear power plants in the United States. Society seems to have decided that the risks outweigh the rewards.
There. I pasted it from http://www.howstuffworks.com
I find this very interesting. I love to read about it.
I was 2 years old when Chernobyl catastrophe happened, and i was about 500 miles away. YAY!
So, who's caravaning to the Chernobyl? I'm down!!
Nuclear power plants provide about 17 percent of the world's electricity. Some countries depend more on nuclear power for electricity than others. In France, for instance, about 75 percent of the electricity is generated from nuclear power, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. In the United States, nuclear power supplies about 15 percent of the electricity overall, but some states get more power from nuclear plants than others. There are more than 400 nuclear power plants around the world, with more than 100 in the United States.
Have you ever wondered how a nuclear power plant works or how safe nuclear power is? In this article, we will examine how a nuclear reactor and a power plant work. We'll explain nuclear fission and give you a view inside a nuclear reactor.
UraniumUranium is a fairly common element on Earth, incorporated into the planet during the planet's formation. Uranium is originally formed in stars. Old stars exploded, and the dust from these shattered stars aggregated together to form our planet. Uranium-238 (U-238) has an extremely long half-life (4.5 billion years), and therefore is still present in fairly large quantities. U-238 makes up 99 percent of the uranium on the planet. U-235 makes up about 0.7 percent of the remaining uranium found naturally, while U-234 is even more rare and is formed by the decay of U-238. (Uranium-238 goes through many stages or alpha and beta decay to form a stable isotope of lead, and U-234 is one link in that chain.)
Uranium-235 has an interesting property that makes it useful for both nuclear power production and for nuclear bomb production. U-235 decays naturally, just as U-238 does, by alpha radiation. U-235 also undergoes spontaneous fission a small percentage of the time. However, U-235 is one of the few materials that can undergo induced fission. If a free neutron runs into a U-235 nucleus, the nucleus will absorb the neutron without hesitation, become unstable and split immediately. See How Nuclear Radiation Works for complete details.
Nuclear FissionThe animation below shows a uranium-235 nucleus with a neutron approaching from the top. As soon as the nucleus captures the neutron, it splits into two lighter atoms and throws off two or three new neutrons (the number of ejected neutrons depends on how the U-235 atom happens to split). The two new atoms then emit gamma radiation as they settle into their new states. There are three things about this induced fission process that make it especially interesting:
* The probability of a U-235 atom capturing a neutron as it passes by is fairly high. In a reactor working properly (known as the critical state), one neutron ejected from each fission causes another fission to occur.
* The process of capturing the neutron and splitting happens very quickly, on the order of picoseconds (1x10-12 seconds).
* An incredible amount of energy is released, in the form of heat and gamma radiation, when a single atom splits. The two atoms that result from the fission later release beta radiation and gamma radiation of their own as well. The energy released by a single fission comes from the fact that the fission products and the neutrons, together, weigh less than the original U-235 atom. The difference in weight is converted directly to energy at a rate governed by the equation E = mc2.
Something on the order of 200 MeV (million electron volts) is released by the decay of one U-235 atom (if you would like to convert that into something useful, consider that 1 eV is equal to 1.602 x 10-12 ergs, 1 x 107 ergs is equal to 1 joule, 1 joule equals 1 watt-second, and 1 BTU equals 1,055 joules). That may not seem like much, but there are a lot of uranium atoms in a pound of uranium. So many, in fact, that a pound of highly enriched uranium as used to power a nuclear submarine or nuclear aircraft carrier is equal to something on the order of a million gallons of gasoline. When you consider that a pound of uranium is smaller than a baseball, and a million gallons of gasoline would fill a cube 50 feet per side (50 feet is as tall as a five-story building), you can get an idea of the amount of energy available in just a little bit of U-235.
In order for these properties of U-235 to work, a sample of uranium must be enriched so that it contains 2 percent to 3 percent or more of uranium-235. Three-percent enrichment is sufficient for use in a civilian nuclear reactor used for power generation. Weapons-grade uranium is composed of 90-percent or more U-235.
Inside a Nuclear Power PlantTo build a nuclear reactor, what you need is some mildly enriched uranium. Typically, the uranium is formed into pellets with approximately the same diameter as a dime and a length of an inch or so. The pellets are arranged into long rods, and the rods are collected together into bundles. The bundles are then typically submerged in water inside a pressure vessel. The water acts as a coolant. In order for the reactor to work, the bundle, submerged in water, must be slightly supercritical. That means that, left to its own devices, the uranium would eventually overheat and melt.
To prevent this, control rods made of a material that absorbs neutrons are inserted into the bundle using a mechanism that can raise or lower the control rods. Raising and lowering the control rods allow operators to control the rate of the nuclear reaction. When an operator wants the uranium core to produce more heat, the rods are raised out of the uranium bundle. To create less heat, the rods are lowered into the uranium bundle. The rods can also be lowered completely into the uranium bundle to shut the reactor down in the case of an accident or to change the fuel.
The uranium bundle acts as an extremely high-energy source of heat. It heats the water and turns it to steam. The steam drives a steam turbine, which spins a generator to produce power. In some reactors, the steam from the reactor goes through a secondary, intermediate heat exchanger to convert another loop of water to steam, which drives the turbine. The advantage to this design is that the radioactive water/steam never contacts the turbine. Also, in some reactors, the coolant fluid in contact with the reactor core is gas (carbon dioxide) or liquid metal (sodium, potassium); these types of reactors allow the core to be operated at higher temperatures.
Outside a Nuclear Power PlantOnce you get past the reactor itself, there is very little difference between a nuclear power plant and a coal-fired or oil-fired power plant except for the source of the heat used to create steam.
Outside a Nuclear Power PlantOnce you get past the reactor itself, there is very little difference between a nuclear power plant and a coal-fired or oil-fired power plant except for the source of the heat used to create steam.
The reactor's pressure vessel is typically housed inside a concrete liner that acts as a radiation shield. That liner is housed within a much larger steel containment vessel. This vessel contains the reactor core as well the hardware (cranes, etc.) that allows workers at the plant to refuel and maintain the reactor. The steel containment vessel is intended to prevent leakage of any radioactive gases or fluids from the plant.
Finally, the containment vessel is protected by an outer concrete building that is strong enough to survive such things as crashing jet airliners. These secondary containment structures are necessary to prevent the escape of radiation/radioactive steam in the event of an accident like the one at Three Mile Island. The absence of secondary containment structures in Russian nuclear power plants allowed radioactive material to escape in an accident at Chernobyl.
Uranium-235 is not the only possible fuel for a power plant. Another fissionable material is plutonium-239. Plutonium-239 can be created easily by bombarding U-238 with neutrons -- something that happens all the time in a nuclear reactor.
Subcriticality, Criticality and SupercriticalityWhen a U-235 atom splits, it gives off two or three neutrons (depending on the way the atom splits). If there are no other U-235 atoms in the area, then those free neutrons fly off into space as neutron rays. If the U-235 atom is part of a mass of uranium -- so there are other U-235 atoms nearby -- then one of three things happens:
* If, on average, exactly one of the free neutrons from each fission hits another U-235 nucleus and causes it to split, then the mass of uranium is said to be critical. The mass will exist at a stable temperature. A nuclear reactor must be maintained in a critical state.
* If, on average, less than one of the free neutrons hits another U-235 atom, then the mass is subcritical. Eventually, induced fission will end in the mass.
* If, on average, more than one of the free neutrons hits another U-235 atom, then the mass is supercritical. It will heat up.
For a nuclear bomb, the bomb's designer wants the mass of uranium to be very supercritical so that all of the U-235 atoms in the mass split in a microsecond. In a nuclear reactor, the reactor core needs to be slightly supercritical so that plant operators can raise and lower the temperature of the reactor. The control rods give the operators a way to absorb free neutrons so the reactor can be maintained at a critical level.
The amount of uranium-235 in the mass (the level of enrichment) and the shape of the mass control the criticality of the sample. You can imagine that if the shape of the mass is a very thin sheet, most of the free neutrons will fly off into space rather than hitting other U-235 atoms. A sphere is the optimal shape. The amount of uranium-235 that you must collect together in a sphere to get a critical reaction is about 2 pounds (0.9 kg). This amount is therefore referred to as the critical mass. For plutonium-239, the critical mass is about 10 ounces (283 grams).
Problems with Nuclear Power PlantsWell-constructed nuclear power plants have an important advantage when it comes to electrical power generation -- they are extremely clean. Compared with a coal-fired power plant, nuclear power plants are a dream come true from an environmental standpoint. A coal-fired power plant actually releases more radioactivity into the atmosphere than a properly functioning nuclear power plant. Coal-fired plants also release tons of carbon, sulfur and other elements into the atmosphere (see this page about coal pollution for details).
Unfortunately, there are significant problems with nuclear power plants:
* Mining and purifying uranium has not, historically, been a very clean process.
* Improperly functioning nuclear power plants can create big problems. The Chernobyl disaster is a good recent example. Chernobyl was poorly designed and improperly operated, but it dramatically shows the worst-case scenario. Chernobyl scattered tons of radioactive dust into the atmosphere.
* Spent fuel from nuclear power plants is toxic for centuries, and, as yet, there is no safe, permanent storage facility for it.
* Transporting nuclear fuel to and from plants poses some risk, although to date, the safety record in the United States has been good.
These problems have largely derailed the creation of new nuclear power plants in the United States. Society seems to have decided that the risks outweigh the rewards.
There. I pasted it from http://www.howstuffworks.com
I find this very interesting. I love to read about it.
I was 2 years old when Chernobyl catastrophe happened, and i was about 500 miles away. YAY!
So, who's caravaning to the Chernobyl? I'm down!!
Re: (AZhitman)
What is White Horse Beach? Is that a DOE site or something? The furthest west I've worked is Comanche peak in Texas and Palisades in Michigan. I hear Palo Verde is a huge plant.AZhitman wrote:Nuclear power > all. Period.
Spent quite a bit of time around Grand Gulf, Wolf Creek, White Horse Beach, Palo Verde, and numerous other large nuclear generating facilities in the US.
Dad was an engineer for Bechtel, and had a hand in building many of the current plants in operation.
Shame on the left (and the "greenies") for meddling in areas they have no knowledge of, and blame them FULLY for the decline of nuclear power as a reliable source of power generation.
If Ukraine had an NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), they'd have had no disaster. End of story.
But just as you can't build a Space Station on a post-Communism budget, neither can you build and run a reliable and safe nuclear generating facility on a shoestring.
Pop quiz. Who was the first man to orbit the earth? Well, it's wasn't Yuri Gagarin. He was the first one that survived. The first cosmonaut suffocated because there was a leak in the orbiter I think. Since Russians do not fail, the world never knew about the existence of the first guy until recently. I don't even know his name. This is the mentality they have and why it took them like two days to tell the public there was a problem at Chernobyl.
I remember talking to an older HP tech that was working out in Washington state in 1986. Some other HP and Chemistry techs were actually some of the first people outside Russia to know there was something wrong. I think they were analyzing an air sample like 12 hours after the accident and they were coming up with strange isotopes that couldn't even be by-products of our fuel. They didn't know what was going on at the time, but they knew something was up. Kind of scary.
Within months after the accident a few techs were reporting to a job somewhere and were getting strange readings on a whole body count upon entrance. When workers report to a plant for the first time they stand in a machine that is super sensitive and lets the operator know exactly how much of what isotopes are in the workers body before they enter the plant. FOr example, eating bananas raises your potassium (K-40) which is naturally radioactive. These workers were full of all kinds of stuff. They figured out they they were Caribou hunting in western Canada a while ago. Fallout from Chernobyl settled there in the soil, plants sucked it up, Caribou ate it, and the workers ate the Caribou. Freaky huh?
Re: (4cefed)
At first I didn't believe this. After a little searching it looks like it is right.http://english.pravda.ru/accid....html4cefed wrote:Pop quiz. Who was the first man to orbit the earth? Well, it's wasn't Yuri Gagarin. He was the first one that survived. The first cosmonaut suffocated because there was a leak in the orbiter I think. Since Russians do not fail, the world never knew about the existence of the first guy until recently. I don't even know his name. This is the mentality they have and why it took them like two days to tell the public there was a problem at Chernobyl.
Seems there were three who died. Which makes Yuri a very brave guy for follow three failures.
Anybody do a doubletake on whatever that dude is holding in the left top picture?
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Cold_Zero
- Posts: 6714
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2005 Nissan Pathfinder
Re: (AZhitman)
I have vacationed at White Horse Beach, Mass. You can actually drive by the Pilgrim Nuclear Reactor. Kind of funny naming it after the Pilgrims...AZhitman wrote:Nuclear power > all. Period.
Spent quite a bit of time around Grand Gulf, Wolf Creek, White Horse Beach, Palo Verde, and numerous other large nuclear generating facilities in the US.
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AZhitman
- Administrator
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- Location: Surprise, Arizona
- Contact:
Re: (Cold_Zero)
Yep - We lived just south of there, at Sagamore Beach. WHB was a small reactor IIRC.Cold_Zero wrote:
I have vacationed at White Horse Beach, Mass. You can actually drive by the Pilgrim Nuclear Reactor. Kind of funny naming after the Pilgrims...
PaloVerde is a monster. I've toured it several times, very impressive.
Quick political rant: SUPPORT NUCLEAR POWER.
That is all.
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1unar3clipse
- Posts: 1543
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Re: (AZhitman)
"Support Nuclear Power" but with rules and regulations.AZhitman wrote:
Yep - We lived just south of there, at Sagamore Beach. WHB was a small reactor IIRC.
PaloVerde is a monster. I've toured it several times, very impressive.
Quick political rant: SUPPORT NUCLEAR POWER.
That is all.
I'm all for nuclear power, but vary wary of what the government and the companies who run reactors will do if unchecked.
People are still living with the effects of the SRE experiments that ended in a melt down in 1959, the AEC/DOE boldly lied to the people of our town and the country. But at least now they are making the attempt to clean up now.
Re: (1unar3clipse)
Ok Ok.... let's make this clear. Support COMMERCIAL nuclear power. In no way to I condone any of the sh*t that went on at DoE and DoD sites. Those people were incredibly irresponsible. If an experiment didn't work out right they poured it down the drain. These sites are being cleaned up now. These things are a blight to the technology. There were also a few experimental reactors that went awry early on. One of them exploded and killed four operators. It took them a few days to find the last guy because he was pinned to the top of containment by the control rod blade. After I post this I'm going to see what I can dig up on the clean up at Hannford. Scary stuff there.1unar3clipse wrote:
"Support Nuclear Power" but with rules and regulations.
I'm all for nuclear power, but vary wary of what the government and the companies who run reactors will do if unchecked.
People are still living with the effects of the SRE experiments that ended in a melt down in 1959, the AEC/DOE boldly lied to the people of our town and the country. But at least now they are making the attempt to clean up now.
Re: (Cold_Zero)
I WORKED THERE!!! I loved it too. Great people and a great plant. I was there this last spring, too bad I have to wait another year for another shut down there. They have a boiling water reactor that is a little different.Cold_Zero wrote:
I have vacationed at White Horse Beach, Mass. You can actually drive by the Pilgrim Nuclear Reactor. Kind of funny naming it after the Pilgrims...
BTW, any of you guys in that area go to P+L paintball? Awesome place.
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1unar3clipse
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Re: (4cefed)
Great now I'm going to have nightmares.4cefed wrote:After I post this I'm going to see what I can dig up on the clean up at Hannford. Scary stuff there.
Here's the Wiki page on Hanford. Not to detract, but it seems to be written by an anti-nuke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
This is the online Health Physics Museum. If you have time to waste, it' skind of cool to go digging around.
http://www.orau.org/ptp/museumdirectory.htm
Check out the video about the INL's Advanced Test Reactor.
http://nuclear.inl.gov/atr/index.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
This is the online Health Physics Museum. If you have time to waste, it' skind of cool to go digging around.
http://www.orau.org/ptp/museumdirectory.htm
Check out the video about the INL's Advanced Test Reactor.
http://nuclear.inl.gov/atr/index.shtml
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1unar3clipse
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Re: (4cefed)
Great links! especially when I'm bored at work...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...atory
I used to live literally 7 miles from this place. although the canyons that run up and all around this place are wicked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...atory
I used to live literally 7 miles from this place. although the canyons that run up and all around this place are wicked.
Ah ha. A few good Chernobyl videos. A long time ago I watched a special on PBS's Nova. It was fascinating but I can't find a copy of it anywhere.
Bio-Robots: These guys were shoveling pieces of the core and reactor back into the hole. They got smoked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...=user
The elephant's foot: This is a section of the core that fused with graphite and sand. It formed a new unidentified crystalline structure named chernobylite.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z82GkhcqDKw
This is from the discovery channel special Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEgkGNO-sQ
Part 2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_sD7bPSvg
Part 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEO9JAMfWUc
Part 4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLlrxplNnbI
Part 5http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwEIX4KU7r8
And Part 6http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iDqzsTb3OM
Bio-Robots: These guys were shoveling pieces of the core and reactor back into the hole. They got smoked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...=user
The elephant's foot: This is a section of the core that fused with graphite and sand. It formed a new unidentified crystalline structure named chernobylite.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z82GkhcqDKw
This is from the discovery channel special Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEgkGNO-sQ
Part 2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_sD7bPSvg
Part 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEO9JAMfWUc
Part 4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLlrxplNnbI
Part 5http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwEIX4KU7r8
And Part 6http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iDqzsTb3OM
Re: (4cefed)
^ cool dude can u change those to links i dont think u can embed on nico
Re: (brizanden)
Sigh.... fixed.brizanden wrote:^ cool dude can u change those to links i dont think u can embed on nico
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Cold_Zero
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On the anniversary of Chernobyl, NPR did a big expose on the disaster. The accounts of the Liquidators really got to me. Military troopers were bussed in, given a shovel or a hose and sent to the reactor. After a certain amount of time they were relieved of duty, given a medal and sent home to die. If they made it that far. I will try to dig up the segment.
Re: (Cold_Zero)
I think those were the bio-robots. Poor suckers. You know what killed them or helped anyway? The lead aprons they made them wear. They didn't offer d!ck for shielding and just slowed down the work. If they didn't wear them they could have finished the job sooner and maybe survived. The three keys to reducing total dose are time, distance, and shielding. Dose is dose, so if you are in a slightly higher field for a shorter time, things may work out in your favor.Cold_Zero wrote:On the anniversary of Chernobyl, NPR did a big expose on the disaster. The accounts of the Liquidators really got to me. Military troopers were bussed in, given a shovel or a hose and sent to the reactor. After a certain amount of time they were relieved of duty, given a medal and sent home to die. If they made it that far. I will try to dig up the segment.
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x240xdrifter
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Re: (4cefed)
skin turning black, and peeling off!!!!! omg
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Cold_Zero
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Wasnt to hard to find... Thanks NPRhttp://www.npr.org/templates/s...69553
They have a lot of good stories on the 20th Anniversary of the disaster.
Over 100K people evacuated from Ukraine and Byelorussia. Apparently some of the highest contamination was in Byelorussia.
They have a lot of good stories on the 20th Anniversary of the disaster.
I think that is pretty much the Soviet mentality. Keep them working as long as possible. If the lead aprons allow them to work longer (which as you pointed out obviously didn't) then do it. The Soviets really didn't care much about its people, they just cared about what was expedient to advance the State.4cefed wrote:
I think those were the bio-robots. Poor suckers. You know what killed them or helped anyway? The lead aprons they made them wear. They didn't offer d!ck for shielding and just slowed down the work. If they didn't wear them they could have finished the job sooner and maybe survived. The three keys to reducing total dose are time, distance, and shielding. Dose is dose, so if you are in a slightly higher field for a shorter time, things may work out in your favor.
Over 100K people evacuated from Ukraine and Byelorussia. Apparently some of the highest contamination was in Byelorussia.
Re: (MX-Ham)
Holy f**k. That was amazing. That was right up there with the Nova special in 1987 or whatever. I can't believe the fields these guys were working in. To put this in perspective, The NRC limits workers to 5 REM per year. A REM (or R) is Roentgen Equivalent Man and is almost identical to one Roentgen, but it is a wighted measurement of biological damage based on energy levels. Most plants have an administrative limit of 2 R per year. I have worked with things that were reading 200R/hr before, but they have been point sources. (200R/hr means that in one hour you would receive a dose of 200 R) The field drops off rapidly with distance. So the fields I have been exposed to are more like 2 or 3 R/hr, and they have been for literally seconds at a time.
If i had to do work in in an area of 200R/hr in this country I would receive my YEARLY dose in 36 seconds. An area of 500R/hr would get my dose in 14 seconds, FOR THE YEAR. They would have to turn around and pay me the same money to sit at a desk in an admin building for the rest of the year. The only exceptions allowed by the NRC are these two: You may receive a whole body dose of 50R to save vital plant equipment in an emergency, and you may receive 75R to save a life in an emergency. Anything else, lots and lots of people go to jail. And by the way, at an acute dose of 20-25R you will start to see small changes in blood forming organs.
Those scientists are heros in my opinion as well as anyone who gave their life and health to try and contain the disaster. Too bad they will likely never be recognized.
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Cold_Zero
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http://www.npr.org/templates/s...56000
NPR on the building of the Sarcophagus, last year they claimed the sarcophagus would be in place by 2009 and cost $1billion dollars.
NPR on the building of the Sarcophagus, last year they claimed the sarcophagus would be in place by 2009 and cost $1billion dollars.