An Interview
Scythe
Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 46NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver
Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 46NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">With a Chernobyl Engineer</div> <a href='http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opinterview.jsp?id=ns24611' target='_blank'>Alexander Yuvchenko</a> was working in his office the night of the explosion. On his way to try and minimise the damage caused he saw <b>air glowing as it was ionised by the radiation from the reactor.</b>
Mr. Yuvchenko is one of the luckiest men I know...
--Scythe--
Mr. Yuvchenko is one of the luckiest men I know...
--Scythe--
Comments
Holy ****. That must have been some damn strong radiation. Did he sustain any lasting problems from that like cancer or something?
He, and others like him, should be immortalized in some sort of statue or something. Of course, STALKER comes to mind instantly (being based on the same events, and a little "fast forwarding" in the time-line) and it'd be a excellent learning peice on what Radiation can do...
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Holy ****. That must have been some damn strong radiation. Did he sustain any lasting problems from that like cancer or something? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He says that he only get ulcers now...
Don't drink the 'clean' water!
If it wasn't for the slight problem of the lethal radiation, that glowing air would be pretty neat. I still can't believe that this guy survived, when enough radioactive fallout to cover eastern Europe was released.
Apparently he eats his Wheaties.
holy hell on a bloody pogo stick, that can not be a good sign
holy hell on a bloody pogo stick, that can not be a good sign <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's means "run away."
Short layman version : There was an accident at the Cheronybl nuclear power station in 1986.
It wasn't a full thero-nuclear meltdown or anything, I believe the reaction got out of control, when the control rods were re-introduced they simply melted and there was an explosion.
Chernobyl wasn't just a power plant, it was also a research reactor. Tests and research were being performed constantly. Earlier in the day of the incident some tests were being performed that caused one of the safety locks to trip and shut down the reactor. Every time they tried the test, the reactor would shut down. To avoid this, they overrode the automatic safety switch.
Bloody stupid thing to do.
So they finished their test, leaving the safety overridden, and went home for the day. Later that night something happened in the reactor. I'm not sure exactly, but the reactor would've been instantly SCRAMed if the safety had been on. I think one of the coolant tanks exploded, causing extensive damage to the core and spraying radioactive water around. Now as you all know, a reactor without coolant is not a good thing. The uranium from the rods began to melt and pool in the bottom of the concrete casing around the reactor. A huge blob formed, much larger than the critical mass for continued chain reaction.
An aside: This is known as the "China syndrome". Called this because the blob of molten fissile material would just ooze down and eat though the ground, all the way to china. Of course this wouldn't happen. It would hit the water table first and explode, sending a vast plume of radioactive debris and water over a great area.
The engineers working at Chernobyl knew the possibility of the Syndrome and did everything they could to prevent it. The military was called in to dump water into the reactor from helicopters. Every single soldier and engineer that was in those helicopters were volunteers. Even though they knew that it would be definite suicide. It turned out that dumping in the water was futile, nothing they could do would stop the blob's sinking.
It turned out to be sheer luck that saved most of Europe from a fairly unpleasant fate. The blob encountered an upturned-V shape of bedrock directly under the reactor. The V split the blob into two halves, each below the critical mass for continued reaction. The material began to cool due to the much-reduced reaction rate. The Russians then dumped vast amounts of concrete down the hole to seal it in. This blob remains extremely hot to this day and is known as “The Sarcophagus”.
Not a nice tale.
--Scythe--
P.S. Yes, I wrote all that.
Short layman version : There was an accident at the Cheronybl nuclear power station in 1986.
It wasn't a full thero-nuclear meltdown or anything, I believe the reaction got out of control, when the control rods were re-introduced they simply melted and there was an explosion. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much that.
The roof of the reactor blew out and sent fuel rods out with it, and of course lots of fire. Uranuim burns like a mofo, and there were workers running up onto the roof with shovels and buckets of water trying to put out the fires out and scoop the fuel rods back into the reactor. They were getting so much radiation that they ran up, shovelled/threw water and then turned round, puked and then repeated.
Nasty stuff.
Wow.
Good read.
Does anyone know how many people died as a direct cause of this? Not so much the people living around the area but the workers and army troops that were involved.
I suppose horrific is the word of choice for all this; Reminds me of K-19, a movie that I thought was quite disturbing.
Wait.. a totally self-sustaining reaction? Those exist?
Also, isn't the concrete around it cracking? I'm pretty sure there are some red-tape burdened plans to redo it.
Edit: and yeah, the sarcophagus is falling apart (thats Soviet construction for you).