RadioActive! The Nuclear Blog

Oopsie! Nuke-Equipped B-52 Flies Over Midwest Last Week

2007-09-05T15:22:00.001-05:00

Any of you Midwestern folks out there have a funny feeling last week? You know, that something might have fallen out of the sky? Nope, no reason. Just askin'. From WIRED News:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The incident was so serious that President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were quickly informed and Gates has asked for daily briefings on the Air Force probe, said Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell. He said, "At no time was the public in danger."

Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called the mishandling of the weapons "deeply disturbing" and said the committee would press the military for details. Rep. Edward J. Markey, a senior member of the Homeland Security committee, said it was "absolutely inexcusable. Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible." ...

The plane was carrying Advanced Cruise Missiles from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a Defense Department policy not to confirm information on nuclear weapons. The missiles, which are being decommissioned, were mounted onto pylons on the bomber's wings and it is unclear why the warheads had not been removed beforehand.

This reminds me of an apocryphal story/urban legend I once heard regarding a nuclear near-catastrophe that supposedly occurred at Plattsburgh Air (NY) Force Base - once a strategic missile site - in the late 1980's, where a technician accidentally armed an ICBM warhead during routine maintenance. Allegedly, the error was discovered and corrected only minutes before the warhead was set to detonate.

I haven't found any independent evidence to corroborate the story, but it still gives me the willies to think what might have happened: at the time was living in Plattsburgh, barely a mile from the facility.

California Truck Crash Load Contained 4g Plutonium

2007-01-21T22:36:00.001-06:00

If you think all the hazardous radioactive material being transported across the country is safeguarded - or at least properly packaged and prepared for shipment on public thorofares - think again. The circumstances of last Tuesday's truck crash near the Mojave National Preserve are truly frightening if they're any indication of how carelessly lethal materials like plutonium might be traveling, perhaps in a vehicle rolling alongside you. From the San Bernadino Sun:

Baking soda, bunk beds, fire extinguishers - and a drum with plutonium-238. The truck that crashed Tuesday near Needles [CA] with a load of radioactive waste was a plain old commercial truck carrying plain old products.

When emergency workers checked the truck's manifest they were surprised that radioactive material was being shipped with ordinary goods. "This, in and of itself, is very alarming," said San Bernardino County Fire Marshal Peter Brierty, who also directs his agency's hazardous materials unit. Government and industry officials say shipping radioactive materials by commercial carriers is a perfectly safe, perfectly routine practice. The containers, the routes and the shipping companies are all heavily regulated, and there has never been an accident that resulted in a release of radiation, they said.

The radiation emitted by the truck's amount of plutonium-238 is trillions of times more than is allowed in drinking water, Brierty said. The four grams of plutonium involved in the crash would be roughly the volume of a pencil eraser. But that amount kicks out more than 60 curies, a measure of radioactivity. In contrast, the drinking water standard is 15 picocuries per liter, or 15 trillionths of one curie.
...
The truck, pulling two trailers, crashed into a guardrail on eastbound Interstate 40, rupturing the tractor's fuel tank and causing the rear trailer to overturn and split open. The driver was unhurt. Part of the freeway was shut down for 18 hours. The heavily shielded, 500-pound, 55-gallon drum with the plutonium was in the front of the damaged trailer, California Highway Patrol Officer Michael Callahan said. The entire cargo had to be unloaded to get at the drum.

The drum was undamaged, and there was no leakage of radiation. [But,] "What the hell is that doing in that truck?" said Robert Halstead, an expert in the transportation of nuclear waste. [read full article]

Archives: [20th] Anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster

2006-04-26T10:43:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted 4/26/2004]

So, my research into Chernobyl (which includes scouring the Web and government sites, and the University of Chicago and Harold Washington Libraries) has been slightly delayed. However, for the curious, I have a selection of choice hand-picked links that will provide multi-national insights into the incident, and its continuing aftermath.

UPDATED 4/26/2006:

Controversy over the "Kidd of Speed" website [NeilGaiman.com]
Ukraine Remembers Chernobyl Nuclear Accident [AP, CBS2 Chicago]
An extensive gallery of Chernobyl Images from the INSP (http://insp.pnl.gov/-library-uk_ch_1-1.htm)
BBC: Chernobyl 20 Years On

The German nuclear-safety agency GRS [Gesellschaft für Anlagen und Reaktorsicherheit, mbH] has a well-illustrated, informative 179-page free online technical report called "The Accident and the Safety of RBMK Reactors" [large PDF file, 5Mb].

If you enjoy government reports and "blue books," visit the World Nuclear Association's Chernobyl page, which includes links to UNSCEAR [United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, which published several comprehensive reports on the Chernobyl disaster - many which are available here as free PDF downloads.

Watch This: Chernobyl.co.uk, a UK site which features a link to the BBC's recent 30-minute program [streaming RealPlayer video] on Chernobyl, featuring a look at the history of nuclear power in the former Soviet Union as well as a look inside Ukraine's Exclusion Zone towns. Highly recommended: this program illustrates that the deteriorating reactor site is still an issue of pressing concern through Europe, while it has been all but overshadowed here in the U.S.

Watch This: though the bulk of Chernobyl news coverage occurred before the age of streaming video, the post-date digitized BBC retrospective of the Chernobyl disaster [RealPlayer required] is a wistfully immediate - if lo-res - look back at those fateful days in April 1986.

Ukrainian biker gal (and young scientist) Elena is the Kidd [sic] of Speed: her wildly popular site, Ghost Town, features dozens of startling photos and rueful, blustering commentary from her motorcycle tour through the post-apocalyptic Exclusion Zone in Pripyat': part National Geographic expedition, part Jackass-meets-Evel Knievel. Strange thing is, I'd probably do it too, given the opportunity and a lead X-ray apron - but I'd prefer an enclosed vehicle, like a Bradley.

Got Euskadi? The Basque Website of Pripyat.

Have Paris, Rome, and the Caribbean lost their appeal? Been there, done that? How about a guided group tour through Chernobyl? I don't know if it's a legitimate enterprise, but you can apparently book a tour through the Exclusion Zone via Ukrainian Web Chyornobyl' Tour. You get complimentary disposable outerwear and shoes, and a souvenir computerized dosimeter printout that certifies how much radiation you absorbed during your visit.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Pioneer Robot pages, with photos and diagrams of the Red Zone Robotics radiation-hardened explorer robot that will be used to excavate and explore the hot ruin inside the Sarcophagus.

A recent Kazakhstan Kazinform press release from March, 2004, warning that trouble at the Chernobyl Sarcophagus could be imminent.

From a nation that is also highly dependent on nuclear energy, but has thankfully suffered neither a Chernobyl nor a Three Mile Island type incident - the Canadian Nuclear Association's report on Chernobyl.

USGS satellite photos showing changes in the Chernobyl region from 1986 to 1992.

An August, 1986 EPA Bulletin on short-term American response to the Chernobyl disaster.

Gla55pak.com has compiled some unusual Chernobyl images here, and proclaims "I have a sick curiosity - more of an impulse - to be there that night and watch the thing light up. I would gladly take a good dose just to have seen it. It is, after all, like an immense train wreck that I just can't help but see." Also: link to Disenchanted.com's take on the Chernobyl and TMI incidents, called "Fear's just bad for business".

A high-resolution satellite image of the Chernobyl region from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, suitable for desktop backgrounds.

Some of the best photos of the site I have seen are on the INSP's [International Nuclear Safety Program] Digital Library Website, where you can view over 800 color and black-and-white images, including the one at the top of this post.

2005 Report: Safety State of the (Chernobyl) Sarcophagus

2006-04-18T10:54:00.000-05:00

There is a new 2005 "Safety State of the Sarcophagus" report available online (9.7Mb PDF) from [Gesellschaft für Anlagen und Reaktorsicherheit] GRS/IRSN [Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucleaire], the French-German Initiative for Chernobyl.

The free 70-page color booklet contains narrative in French, German, English and Russian; along with photos of the damaged reactor and the surrounding area, detailed accounts of the damage and radiation released in the 1986 accident, and current plans for abating and controlling the deterioration of the current "shell" surrounding Reactor 4.

What's new and quite interesting here are recent ArcView GIS [Geographic Information System] and computer-generated 3D maps of the site, many which include environmental radiation level isosurfaces (example from the GRS/IRSN 2005 report shown).

A computer rendering of Chernobyl Shelter 2, shown here, depicts the proposed new external containment structure for the hastily-constructed 1986 sarcophagus, now severely deteriorated by harsh weather and intense radiation.

According to the SIP [Shelter Implementation Plan], the goal of building the aluminum semicircular housing is "to safely confine the radioactive materials for at least 100 years and...to allow their retrieval from inside if need be as well as the dismantling of the old structure."

Archives: Chernobyl Reactor 4 "Radioactive Volcano"

2006-04-18T10:30:00.000-05:00

[Originally Posted May 15, 2004] My search for information on Chernobyl has taken me to some very strange places.

This morning, I found this image on a fascinating Italian Chernobyl website, The Humus Project, or Progetto Humus, at http://www.progettohumus.it [the page this image appears on is here]. Look closely.

I can't verify its authenticity (unfortunately, many of the images lack captions or explanations) but it appears to be a shot of the glowing core of Chernobyl Reactor 4 shortly after the explosion. The timestamp on the image reads 01:23:59. But is it 1:23:59 AM on April 26th, 1986?

Thinkquest Library states that the containment lid of Reactor 4 blew off at 01:23:44 am, while the German 'Society for Plants and Reactor Safety', GRS (Gesellschaft für Anlagen und Reaktorsicherheit, in their technical report "The Accident and Safety of RBMK Reactors" [5Mb PDF file]) places the time of the explosion at:

01:24:00

Recording of the shift supervisor: "Strong impacts, the shutdown systems stop before reaching the lower end position ..." Reactor excursion with more than 100 times of the nominal power. Explosion and destruction of the reactor core. The upper plate of the reactor is hurled up, all pressure tubes break off. Core material and burninggraphite parts are ejected. The reactor is burning, further fires start in the surrounding. Massive release of radioactive fission products.

If this photo is genuine, then it would be the first time I've been able to track down an image of the reactor in the earliest stages of the accident. I have not yet found an image of this type anywhere in Chernobyl literature, either on video, in books or and other source. Where did this come from, considering that the former Soviet Union did not inform the outside world of the explosion until days later? Was there a camera trained on the reactor? Did the image come from a flight over the reactor later than the timestamp indicates?

Humus Project Chernobyl Video streams
Google Directory page for Science > Technology > Energy > Nuclear > Safety and Accidents > Chernobyl.
Belarus Guide on Chernobyl Information
Humus Project English version (Progetto Humus, Italy)

Cerenkov Radiation

2006-04-06T11:14:00.000-05:00

A RadioActive! reader sent us this fascinating image of blue Cerenkov radiation from Ohio State University's research reactor:

"...attached is a photo...of our research reactor at OSU, which I took from the pool-top during operation at about 50 kW (thermal). The blue Cerenkov glow caused by photoelectrons, Compton electrons, and beta particles is evident here, but [in my opinion] is much prettier at our licensed power of 500 kW!
Regards,
Carl Willis"

Click on the image at left to expand to a full-size [890 x 1024] detailed image.

Name That Ohio (Nuclear) Plant!

2006-04-05T12:31:00.000-05:00

I'd like to call on the expertise of RadioActive! readers to help me identify this power plant. This photo was taken Tuesday 4/4/06 from interstate highway 80-90 in northern Ohio roughly near Toledo, where the highway parallels state route 2. I think it is a nuclear reactor (judging from the containment structure), but it does not resemble either of Ohio's two reactors on the NRC list, the Davis-Besse or Perry power plants. Any suggestions and clues would be appreciated.

By the way, check out the Google Maps satellite image of Perry, Ohio. On my computer, the grid area directly corresponding to the Perry nuclear facility is blurred/smeared. Is this an intentional censoring of the image for security reasons, I wonder?

UPDATE: The Google Maps image of The Davis-Besse facility, however, is not blurred.

Dounreay Fuel Pellets a Health Risk on Scots Beaches?

2006-03-17T09:53:00.000-06:00

According to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), nuclear fuel particles found on beaches near the defunct [Caithness] Dounreay nuclear facility in Scotland only "pose low-level risk to human health." However, the agency conceded that some pieces of higher-activity fuel rods are still washing up on public beaches. From the Edie News Center:

Fragments of nuclear fuel, which continue to turn up on beaches near the former experimental reactor, prompted SEPA to commission an enquiry into their effects on human health in 1998.

Particles found at the site so far are "relatively low in activity." Visible skin burns could only occur if a person encountered a particle of higher activity, according to the Health Protection Agency (HPA), which carried out the research. It estimated the chances of that happening at one in 80 million.

But the report also warned of particles with a higher radioactivity being brought onto the beach from the seabed. Such particles have not been detected since monitoring began in 1999, however, the researchers said.

The HPA looked more closely at vulnerable groups, such as people walking dogs or digging for bait on the affected beaches, and the time they spent there. It considered the possibility of people accidentally swallowing or inhaling the particles, or sand from the beach being used for children's sandpits.

More: Risk of Dounreay particles 'low' [March 14th, 2006 on BBC web]
"Dounreay nuclear debris could kill," [BBC, 1999]
"Decommissioning Caithness Dounreay" [Power-Technology.com]
"The threats at Dounreay," [N-Base]

Upcoming World Conference in Belarus on "Chernobyl After 20 Years"

2006-03-10T15:58:00.000-06:00

From the Bahrain News Agency:

Minsk, March. 10, (BNA)

A world conference will be held on April 19, in the capital city of Belarus, under the theme of "Chernobyl after 20 years: Urbanization strategy and Sustainable development of the Unfortunate Area." The conference which will mark the 20th anniversary of the disaster will be attended by representatives of 50 countries and 16 international organizations.

The Russian News Agency, Itar Tass, said today invitations for the conference was sent by Belarus President to Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Development Organization (UNDO). During the conference, Belarus, the most hit country, Russia and Ukraine will present reports on the efforts they had made to alleviate the disaster's effects.

Chernobyl Children's Project International's "20 Years, 20 Lives" Series

2006-02-28T12:46:00.000-06:00

A little while back, I received an email from Kathy Ryan of the Chernobyl Children's Project International, with news about the organization's special web series, "20 Years, 20 Lives":

"...I've been reading your Radioactive blog with interest, and I wanted to call to your attention a series that we recently started running on our website. It is called "Chernobyl: 20 Years 20 Lives" and it is a series of eyewitness accounts in words and interviews of people whose lives continue to be affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster...."

Thank you for your message, Kathy - I'm very happy to pass on the word, and thank you for all the good work your organization provides to help those affected by the disaster.

Chernobyl – Twenty Years, Twenty Lives is EarthVision's photo journalistic journey through the countries of the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Latvia, Sweden, France, and UK. It follows twenty people in their daily lives nowadays and reflects on how they changed after the events of April 1986. The goal of the project is to learn from the history and look at the accident from the present perspective at different levels, both locally and globally. Almost 20 years after the Chernobyl disaster, controversy continues about the true effects of the disaster. Chernobyl Children's Project International believes that the story of Chernobyl can be best told through the eyes of the variety of people who have been affected by the disaster.
...
A photo exhibition with the twenty life stories will tour the world beginning at April 2006. EarthVision is currently seeking exhibition hosts. You can reach EarthVision and learn more about the project at 20lives.info.

U.S. Seaports Deal and the Nuclear Terror Threat

2006-02-23T11:14:00.000-06:00

The controversial Dubai Ports deal has spurred heated debate about the widsom of having foreign-owned corporations overseeing management of our national ports of entry. One of our main unsolved port security issues is the problem of uninspected freight containers, which some experts contend may be the route through which nuclear materials or devices could most easily be smuggled into the U.S. for use in a a terrorist attack. From the New York Times's "Big Problem, Dubai Deal or Not":

Only 4 percent or 5 percent of those containers are inspected. There is virtually no standard for how containers are sealed, or for certifying the identities of thousands of drivers who enter and leave the ports to pick them up. If a nuclear weapon is put inside a container — the real fear here — "it will probably happen when some truck driver is paid off to take a long lunch, before he even gets near a terminal," said [retired Coast Guard commander Stephen E.] Flynn, the ports security expert.

That is where concerns about Dubai come in. While the company in question has not been a focus of investigations, Dubai has been a way station for contraband, some of it nuclear. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear engineer, made Dubai his transshipment point for the equipment he sent to Libya and Iran because he could operate there without worrying about investigators.

"I'm not worried about who is running the New York port," a senior inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency said, insisting he could not be named because the agency's work is considered confidential. "I'm worried about what arrives at the New York port." [read full article, reg. req.]

A New Year, A New Look for RadioActive!

2006-02-22T13:58:00.000-06:00

Dear Readers,

It's been much too long since I've last updated this site, especially in light of the resurgence of worldwide nuclear concerns in the news. Recently, I'd discovered a post on the excellent RadWaste blog (now known as RadWaste Pictorial) mentioning RadioActive! - and I was grateful to hear there was still interest in the topic "out there"!

I've also given the template a makeover; I agree, the old one looked as if it needed The Simpsons' "Radioactive Man" as a mascot. Comment capability should be arriving here soon.

Cheers,

L.

UK Hospital Waste Truck Leaks Radiation

2006-02-22T12:54:00.000-06:00

This week, a private nuclear materials handling firm in the United Kingdom apparently neglected to install a protective "plug" on a cask of radioactive hospital waste being transported by truck across Northern England, causing the cask to emit high levels of radiation during transit. "By pure chance," the radiation beam pointed downwards, away from other vehicles, and no injuries were reported. From the Telegraph UK:

A highly radioactive beam was emitted from a protective flask as it was driven 130 miles, for three hours, across northern England on a lorry, a court heard yesterday....The flask belonging to AEA Technology was being used to transport a piece of decommissioned cancer treatment equipment from Cookridge Hospital, Leeds, to the Sellafield complex, Cumbria on March 11, 2002.

A judge was told how the container was "found to be emitting a narrow beam of radiation, of a very high dose rate, vertically down from that package base". [read full article]

The radiation dose rates reportedly "were in the order of 100 to 1,000 times above what would normally be considered a very high dose rate and measurement was beyond the capabilities of normal hand-held monitoring equipment." The company responsible for handling the cask's transport, AEA Technology, "a privatised arm of the UK Atomic Energy Authority," has allegedly admitted to a series of recent safety breaches. The company was due to be fined in a court proceeding in connection with an earlier safety violations, but the court has delayed setting the final judgment in light of this new incident.

More details at The Australian and BBC News Online.

Chernobyl News: Resettlement, More Tourism, and Removal of Nuclear Fuel from Closed Reactor Units

2005-12-08T14:54:00.000-06:00

Crews have begun dismantling the remaining nuclear fuel stockpile from the closed reactors at Chernobyl, including the only recently-decommissioned Reactor 3 (the unit involved in the 1986 explosion was Reactor 4). From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, via AP:

KIEV, Ukraine -- Experts have begun unloading radioactive fuel from one of the closed reactors at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the plant said Tuesday.

Reactor No 3. - the last to continue operating - was closed for good in 2000, but it was never emptied of fuel. The remaining fuel in reactor No. 3 and reactor No. 1 made it impossible to start construction of a new shelter over the fourth reactor, destroyed in the 1986 explosion and fire that spewed radiation over much of northern Europe.

In an effort to prevent further radiation release, engineers hastily erected a concrete-and-steel shelter over the damaged reactor, but parts of it are crumbling, and a new shelter is needed. Originally officials had planned to unload the remaining fuel into a new storage depot, but plans for its construction were suspended until 2010. The plant's spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said the fuel will instead be unloaded into a Soviet-era used fuel depot. Unloading the fuel, which began Monday, is necessary to make the plant entirely inoperative, Chernobyl staff said.

In other Chernobyl news, Pravda reports the Ukraine is seeking to boost national revenue by offering more tours of the ravaged Exclusion Zone to foreign travelers, and RIA Novosti News says Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko has instructed Kiev officials to begin legalizing the homes of squatters who have moved in the area without permission.

Proposed New U.S. Nuclear Arms Plan: Nuke First, Ask Questions Later?

2005-09-13T16:22:00.000-05:00

On September 11th, The Washington Post reported some details about the Pentagon's proposed stepped-up new nuclear arms plan. From the UK Times Online:

A PRESIDENT of the United States would be able to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes against enemies planning to use weapons of mass destruction under a revised “nuclear operations” doctrine to be signed in the next few weeks. In a significant shift after half a century of nuclear deterrence based on the threat of massive retaliation, the revised doctrine would allow pre-emptive strikes against states or terror groups, and to destroy chemical and biological weapons stockpiles.
...
The new document is the first to spell out various contingencies in which a preemptive nuclear strike might be used, including:
If an adversary intended to use weapons of mass destruction against the US multinational or allied forces or a civilian population
In cases of an imminent attack from an adversary's biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy
Against adversary installations, including weapons of mass destruction; deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons; or the command-and-control infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attack against the US or its friends and allies
In cases where a demonstration of US intent and capability to use nuclear weapons would deter weapons of mass destruction use by an adversary.
The previous doctrine, promulgated under the Clinton administration in 1995 made no mention of the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against any target, let alone describe scenarios in which such use would be considered.

Moreover, the new doctrine blurs the distinction that existed during the Cold War between strategic and theater nuclear weapons by "assigning all nuclear weapons, whether strategic or nonstrategic, support roles in theater nuclear operations", according to Kristensen.

Another particularly worrisome aspect of the latest doctrine, according to Oelrich, is its conflation of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as one "WMD" threat that could justify a US nuclear strike, particularly given the huge disparity in destructive and lethal impact between chemical weapons, on the one hand, and nuclear arms on the other.

"What we are seeing now is an effort to lay the foundations for the legitimacy of using nuclear weapons if [the administration] suspects another country might use chemical weapons against us," he said. "Iraq is a perfect example of how this doctrine might actually work; it was a country where we were engaged militarily and thought it would deploy chemical weapons against us."

Critics also fear that resorting to nuclear weapons may have become increasingly attractive to the administration as the Army and Marines have become bogged down in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. [continue reading]

St. Petersburg: Report Says Renovation of Chernobyl-Type Reactor Rushed

2004-10-08T16:37:00.000-05:00

From the St. Petersburg Times, disturbing news about an aging RBMK-1000 type reactor being renovated for reactivation:

Report Says Renovation of Chernobyl-Type Reactor Rushed
October 8, 2004
By Vladimir Kovalev
STAFF WRITER
A series of mishaps has occurred during the renovation of reactor No.1 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, or LAES, in Sosnovy Bor outside St. Petersburg because basic safety regulations were ignored, according to a new report.

Reactor No. 1 is the oldest of four reactors at the plant and its official working life has expired, but the Federal Nuclear Power Agency is seeking to extend it. It is an RBMK-1000 reactor, the same type that caused the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and LAES management plan to restart it this fall.

Sergei Kharitonov, a former employee of the plant and now an environmental campaigner, wrote in the report that the safety systems for the reactors were installed in a rush, in some cases by unqualified workers, breaching standards on how the work should be done, the report said.

As a result, two workers died in the spring, including a 32-year-old construction worker who fell from the wall of bloc No.1 in April and a 42-year-old fitter was crushed while working on bloc No.2 in May.

"[The management] paid most of its attention to [staff] training for the launch of bloc No.1," Kharitonov quoted LAES management as saying in a statement on July 16. "The lectures were poorly attended ... Two lectures remain to be conducted. Such a situation is unacceptable, when the bloc [No.1] is about to launched, but employees are not ready for it."

Engineer Witnessed Chernobyl From Within - And Lives To Tell

2004-08-18T15:39:00.000-05:00

From New Scientist: "Alexander Yuvchenko was on duty at Chernobyl's reactor number 4 the night it exploded on 26 April 1986. He is one of the few working there that night to have survived. He suffered serious burns and went through many operations to save his life, and he is still ill from the radiation. He recently broke his silence for a documentary to be shown on the Discovery Channel. Here he speaks to Michael Bond about what happened that night:"

To get a clearer idea of what had happened we walked outside. What we saw was terrifying. Everything that could be destroyed had been. The entire water coolant system was gone. The right-hand side of the reactor hall had been completely destroyed, and on the left the pipes were just hanging. That was when I realised that Khodemchuk was definitely dead. The place where I was told he'd been standing was in ruins. The huge turbines were still standing, but everything around them was rubble. He must have been buried under that.

From where I stood I could see a huge beam of projected light flooding up into infinity from the reactor. It was like a laser light, caused by the ionisation of the air. It was light-bluish, and it was very beautiful. I watched it for several seconds. If I'd stood there for just a few minutes I would probably have died on the spot because of gamma rays and neutrons and everything else that was spewing out. But Tregub yanked me around the corner to get me out the way. He was older and more experienced.

Zero Hour: Disaster at Chernobyl airs on the Discovery Channel UK.

More Nuclear Troubles in the Ukraine

2004-08-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

Australia's Herald Sun reports of serious problems last week at the new Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant at Neteshin:

The reactor at Khmelnitsky power station had to be shut down on Sunday, less than two hours after it went into operation, Interfax news agency reported on yesterday. Further technical failures prevented it operating on Monday and Tuesday.

"These incidents do not represent any threat to the public or to the environment," state nuclear energy company Energoatom said in a statement.

Ukraine was the scene of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster in 1986, when a reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power station exploded, contaminating large areas in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus and Russia. Energoatom confirmed incidents had occurred at Khmelnitsky but said it "saw no cause for concern".

"Certain media inflated the affair," it said.

The K2 Russian-designed VVER pressurised water reactor at Khmelnitsky, which has a capacity of 1000 megawatts, was brought on stream on Sunday at a ceremony attended by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. But it ground to a halt almost immediately.

An official at Ukraine's governmental commission for atomic energy said that automatic security systems at the power plant had cut off the reactor from the electricity grid. The reactor was reconnected to the grid three hours later but had to be totally shut down later because of a failure in the cooling system caused by a power breakdown, the official added.

The reactor was restarted on Monday, only to be stopped again yesterday, officially to test its shut-down system and cooling units.

Not an auspicious beginning, I'm afraid, despite ITAR-TASS' rather glowing (if spoken-too-soon) praise. I truly hope plant officials don't do something silly...like deciding to bypass safety measures to "get the thing started" - we know where that can lead.

Frighteningly, for many regions of the world like Ukraine, nuclear energy is currently one of the most viable energy options. Having a cold climate with existing high pollution, more use of fuels like coal would cause further damage to air quality and likely increase rainfall pH levels. Additionally, research into developing workable technologies such as geothermal, solar and wind power requires large-scale financial investment that strapped nations like the Ukraine simply can't afford.

From "Non-traditional sources of energy may be key to Ukraine's future," by Roman Woronowycz of Kyiv [Kiev] Press Bureau, in the Ukraine Weekly, April 30, 2000:

Once looked at with keen interest, a Ukrainian government choked by money shortages has cast aside any serious work on the development of non-traditional renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, as an alternative to its primary reliance on atomic energy.

Ukraine has made much of the West's delays in providing financing to complete two traditional and controversial new reactors that Kyiv wants completed to offset the power that will be lost when Chornobyl shuts down at the end of this year. However, there are those here and in ecologically minded countries such as Germany who believe that Ukraine has no recourse but to reconsider non-traditional energy sources as well, which could do the work of the nuclear power plants as efficiently and with none of the risk.

One such person is the institute's director, Viktor Shulha, a gray-haired, 60-something scientist with a strong belief that Ukraine must turn to wind and solar power to meet its energy demands. Mr. Shulha said he has been frustrated in his attempts to turn the government's ear to his cause by the most familiar of laments in Ukraine: there simply is no money for it.

Mr. Shulha became the director of the Institute of Energy Engineering when it was formed 10 years ago by the Ministry of Energy, and at one time had an extensive group of advisors and experts. The team already had developed recommendations and a plan for developing wind energy when it came up against the insurmountable wall of Ukraine's current economic reality.

"We decided that for Ukraine the best potential would be to develop wind and biomass sources, and the government put the accent on wind energy. But, as it turned out, Ukraine had no finances and the experts moved on," said Mr. Shulha.

More than any other nation, the Ukraine should understand the risks of nuclear power and the awesome consequences of "inconsequential" mistakes - but with another bitter winter on the way, time manages to dull the sting of fear almost as smoothly as reassuring official words. "If someone you know was killed in a car crash nearly twenty years ago, would you stop riding in cars for the rest of your life?"

Atomic technology has advanced since the 1986 disaster as wealthier nuclear-dependent nations, like France, Belgium and Italy, have invested considerable sums in developing safer meltdown-resistant reactor designs. Nonetheless, as history has shown, nothing is truly 100% foolproof - and make no mistake, EnergoAtom is a beleaguered interest, by any account [check out news stories linked below]. Let's keep our fingers crossed, and our orbiting Eyes In The Sky watchful.

EnergoAtom's website
EBDR Loan to EnergoAtom Agency of Ukraine [July 21, 2004]
September 13, 2002 Weekly Mirror ["Zerkalo Nedely"]: "COURT RULED: NEDASHKOVSKY MUST RETURN TO HEAD ENERGOATOM"
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, October 18, 2002, "Scandals and lawsuits face Ukraine's Energoatom"

"Night of the Living Dead 4" to be Filmed at Chernobyl

2004-08-11T12:24:00.000-05:00

While dozens of documentaries (and at least one computer video game) are set in the ruins of Chernobyl, no one has shot a feature film in the Forbidden Zone near Pripyat - until now, that is. Night of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis begins filming soon:

Ukrainian-born producer Anatoly Fradis is proud -- despite the obstacles and the cost. "Up to a couple of days before we began shooting, it was touch-and-go whether they would let us in, and I had to pay more than I had budgeted to secure the permission," Fradis says, standing inside Chernobyl's first checkpoint inside the zone.

"Chernobyl is very spooky and serves our purpose -- we are shooting in all these abandoned towns and villages, with rusting equipment lying around everywhere," Fradis says. The sense of a post-apocalyptic world dawns as we follow the Chaika around the Chernobyl district.

Grass and shrubs sprout from holes in the sides of crumbling cottages. A graveyard for helicopters, fire trucks and other equipment used in the cleanup operation in 1986 stretches beside a road. In Pripyat, the deserted town that once housed the reactor's work force and their families, children's toys still litter the rubbish-strewn kindergarten, and fading Soviet slogans adorn the sides of gaunt concrete apartment blocks.

[via Greengrl]

Missing Yankee Nuclear Fuel Rods Found

2004-07-14T11:11:00.000-05:00

From the Champlain Channel WPTZ-TV
Fuel Rods Found In Pool At Plant

POSTED: 8:21 pm EDT July 13, 2004
UPDATED: 9:24 am EDT July 14, 2004

VERNON, Vt. -- Two highly radioactive pieces of spent nuclear fuel reported missing three months ago appear to have been where they were supposed to be all along.

A spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Vermont Yankee has told the NRC it found the fuel rods in the spent fuel pool at the plant. Vermont Yankee officials said last week they had found records at a General Electric laboratory in California that appeared to provide a key clue as to the fuel pieces' whereabouts.

Workers found the spent rods inside a cylinder that was sent to Vermont Yankee by GE specifically to hold the fuel segments. Searchers found the canister at the bottom of the spent rod pool and opened it up, discovering the rods late Tuesday afternoon. Vermont Yankee said it has updated its records to make sure something like that doesn't happen again.

Yankee Nuclear Powers Up Once More...Er, Hold That Thought

2004-07-08T14:21:00.002-05:00

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- There was another scare Thursday morning at Vermont Yankee. This, after the nuclear power plant had just resumed full power Wednesday night following a fire that forced a 19-day shutdown.

Officials said an excess of oil caused black smoke to blow out of a furnace inside a building on the grounds Thursday morning. An onsite fire brigade shut off the furnace switch a little after 4 a.m. A representative for the plant's parent company said there was no damage or injuries from the incident.

I don't know about you, but I'd feel a little leery of uprating an old plant with repeated "problems" like this...and they still haven't found the missing two pieces of fuel rod.

Chernobyl Explorer: Alexander Borovoi

2004-06-24T15:34:00.000-05:00

64-year old Alexander Borovoi is a brave man, and a very lucky one; he is one of the "extreme explorers" who periodically examined the inside of the Chernobyl sarcophagus to spot developing problems. From US News and World Report:

The line between hero and victim was thin in the first frantic weeks after the accident. Firemen fought the flames but lacked instruments to tell them they faced lethal doses of radiation. Military helicopter pilots hovered in the radioactive smoke plume to smother the burning reactor with tons of sand and lead, but their bombing runs missed the mark.

Yet the catastrophe–and the chance for heroism–did not end when the fire burned out. In the months and years that followed, a band of scientists led by physicist Alexander Borovoi explored the reactor's corpse to make sure it could not reawaken. Working in a hot, dark labyrinth where lingering radiation could kill within minutes, they mapped and analyzed tons of reactor fuel remaining. It was heroism of a quieter and more effective order than had come before. "Borovoi knew what he was doing," says Harvard University nuclear physicist Richard Wilson, "and he had the imagination and common sense" to succeed.

To find the remnants, Borovoi and his men had to venture into the heart of the destroyed reactor. Robots were not up to the job; they got stuck in debris or ran amok, circuits scrambled by radiation. "We had only one kind of robots [that worked]," says Borovoi. "Biorobots–ourselves." They called themselves "stalkers." Coveralls, gloves, and a respirator were their protection–lead suits were too bulky for dashes through the reactor. A fall or wrong turn could be fatal.

Late in 1986, beyond a gantlet of highly radioactive rooms and narrow passages, the stalkers discovered a glassy, black formation resembling a giant elephant's foot. Getting a piece to analyze was not easy. It was so fiercely radioactive that the scientists could spend only seconds near it, and its surface shrugged off a drilling machine and an ax. Finally a marksman took aim with a Kalashnikov rifle. The shards gave the first clues to what had happened to the nuclear fuel and the chance of a future catastrophe.

[read full article]

Nuclear SciFi: The Prometheus Crisis (1975)

2004-06-24T11:32:00.000-05:00

From the frontispiece of this creepy summertime read (out of print, but not too hard to find used):

"...another angel approached me.

This one was quietly but appropriately dressed in cellophane, synthetic rubber and stainless steel, but his mask was the blind mask of Ares, snouted for gasmasks. He was neither soldier, sailor, farmer, dictator or munitions-manufacturer. Nor did he have much conversation except to say,

"You will not be saved by General Motors or the prefabricated house, you will not be saved by dialectic materialism or the Lambeth conference, you will not be saved by Vitamin D or the expanding universe. In fact, you will not be saved."

-- Nightmare with Angels, Stephen Vincent Benét

Eerily similar to another passage, used by John Carpenter in Prince of Darkness ("You will not be saved by the Holy Ghost. You will not be saved by the God Plutonium. In fact... YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED!"), the opening sets an ominous tone for this frightening, technically-detailed disaster novel.

Switching dramatically between post-disaster government hearings and the events leading up to it, this fictionalized scenario set at "the world's largest nuclear plant in California" has an exceptional sense of pacing, drawing the reader into a tense technological page-turner not unlike Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain (1971). The Prometheus Crisis predates Three Mile Island by four years, and Chernobyl by eleven, and presciently foretells the tangled bureaucratic nightmare that occured along with the public panic in the real world of TMI and Chernobyl.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl: Exploitive or Educational?

2004-06-24T10:06:00.000-05:00

Kiev, Ukraine-based software developers GSC are releasing a science-fiction PC videogame based on the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl:

This grim environmental disaster was one of the most profound tragedies of the past 20 years. Chernobyl still affects the lives of countless Ukrainians, and most people would deem it unsuitable subject matter for a computer game.

The upcoming PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl will certainly raise many eyebrows. Set in 2012, it blends science fiction with the shocking events of the past to present a Chernobyl populated by mutant creatures and bizarre phenomena...

Rejecting the inevitable criticism that the game is insensitive, Kiev-based developers GSC say their proximity to Chernobyl ensures that the tragedy still evokes much emotion among the team. They hope the game encourages more people to reflect on the consequences of the disaster.

It is an argument often used by war-game developers, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is no less offensive than re-creating D-day, Vietnam or the Battle of Stalingrad in the name of entertainment. Games can be used for political purposes, as the controversial Escape from Woomera demonstrates

If you're into video games, the screenshots look fascinating (click on image above to see the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. gallery), especially in regard to atmospherics.

Vermont Yankee Plant to Remain Offline Indefinitely

2004-06-24T09:54:00.000-05:00

Following a recent transformer fire at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, officials have decided to keep the facility offline for more thorough investigation.

From the Champlain Channel:

UPDATED: 10:40 am EDT June 24, 2004

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Vermont Yankee remained off-line Thursday after two fires there on Friday, but Entergy now says the plant's safety system didn't respond the way it should have.

Vermont Yankee officials said the accident was far less serious than originally feared, but critics charge it's the pattern they're concerned about. It's just one safety lapse after the next, they said. "A fire at a nuclear plant is a big deal," one customer said. Five days after the fire there, critics call the accident more serious -- and more telling -- than first believed.

"Powerplants have what's called a bathtub curve," said longtime nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen. "They fail a lot when they're new. They fail a lot when they're old. In between though, they don't fail a lot. I have been saying that they're on the upslope of the bathtub curve, and we should see more of these failures as the plant gets older." Gundersen cites three forced shutdowns in nine months due to broken valves and pumps.

Vermont Yankee turns 32 this year, but marks the year with a series of embarrassments: cracks in the steam dryer, a pair of missing fuel rods and, most recently, the transformer fire. Public service commissioner David O'Brien sent the state nuclear engineer to Vernon this week for a closer look. "We've got to find out what caused it," Public Service Commissioner David O'Brien said. "Was it a problem with the equipment? Was it a problem with maintenance? We've got to find that out first."

Officials hope to find out what caused the accident within a week. The plant will remain off-line indefinitely. The NRC, meanwhile, still plans to assess Vermont Yankee for its proposed uprate later this summer.