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Nuclear lighthouses built by the Soviets in the Arctic [video]
- ricardobayes 6y agoThe Soviets sure liked nuclear energy. The only remaining nuclear icebreaker/merchant ship (the Sevmorput) is still in operation. However it's a bit tricky to actually ship anything with it as most countries don't allow it to enter their ports, let alone their water. They mostly use it to ship stuff to Antarctica.
- Alupis 6y ago> However it's a bit tricky to actually ship anything with it as most countries don't allow it to enter their ports, let alone their water I'm curious, why is that? The US, and other nations, routinely sail nuclear powered ships into ports all around the world.
- Fezzik 6y agoMy hunch is that most Western countries would be hesitant to allow anything that is nuclear + Russian on their shores. This article does not answer your question, but it sounds like as of 12/2020 the boat may be headed to the scrapyard due to needing costly repairs. https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htseamo/articles/20201225.aspx https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htseamo/articles/20201225....
- Alupis 6y agoYour hunch is in line with my hunch, mostly. I doubt it has to do with it being of Russian origin - but more-or-less the unknown level of maintenance the ship and it's reactor have had since the fall of the USSR. The reactors on these ships cannot be readily weaponized; there's practically no risk there. However, the reactors require a full crew to operate, even when just sitting in port being babysat (there is no "turning off" a rector). During the collapse of the USSR, regular maintenance and full crew staffing would have likely been challenging, putting the condition of the reactor in uncertain territory.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoYes I thought many aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered?
- GekkePrutser 6y agoAll US ones are yes. Most of their subs too I believe.
- ethbr0 6y agoAll current US subs. The last diesel class was the 3x 1950s Barbels, decommissioned by 1990: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbel-class_submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbel-class_submarine
- tjoff 6y agoThey do? Doesn't seem to exist many civil nuclear powered ships at all. And barely any non-US/Russian ships, at least still in service. From my quick searches at least. Large nuclear military ships likely have some port restrictions anyway.
- Alupis 6y ago> Large nuclear military ships likely have some port restrictions anyway. The restrictions are more to do with the size of the ship, not it's propulsion mechanism. Routinely, US Submarines and Aircraft Carriers (all powered by nuclear reactors) sail into normal civilian ports around the world for various reasons.
- mnw21cam 6y agoNew Zealand is one country that refuses to allow nuclear-powered anything near.
- Alupis 6y agoSeems this is no longer true[1]. [1] https://news.usni.org/2016/09/27/n-z-chief-navy-u-s-nuclear-ship-issue-behind-us-hopes-regular-usn-port-visits https://news.usni.org/2016/09/27/n-z-chief-navy-u-s-nuclear-...
- manfredo 6y agoNuclear powered warships. As far as I know there was only one nuclear freighter, and it was more of a PR stunt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
- p_l 6y agoPart of the problem was that NS Savannah was obsolete about the time it was introduced, combined with essentially requiring military crew to operate due to US law. So you introduce a very expensive to run freighter that requires complex cargo handling just as containers are starting to take the world. Not a good idea.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoAnd they sent a whole load of liquid metal reactors into orbit too. One crashed on Canada and the others are in disposal orbits and will come down in a very long time... All for a few months worth of radar.
- namibj 6y agoMaybe SpaceX sends a Starship to catch them and brings them to the moon or somewhere else where they won't be a problem.
- nabla9 6y agoRussia still operates multiple nuclear icebreakers. Some of them are brand new. As far as I know two Arktika-class ships are still in operation. Both Taymyr-class icebreakers still operate Then there are five new project 22220 vessels under construction or under order. Each of them has two reactors that produce. 175 MW total. Russia is planning to start building Project 10510 nuclear-powered icebreakers within 10 years.
- gambiting 6y agoNot to mention the floating nuclear power plant "Akademik Lomonosov" just got commissioned as well.
- dheera 6y agoBy "nuclear", my understanding is that these used thermoelectric radioactive batteries, not nuclear fission reactors. Big difference. Much lower maintainence. (Basically you get a hunk of radioactive material that heats up from its own radiation and harvest that heat for electricity.)
- dhuk_2018 6y agoRTGs are also used on a lot of US and Russian deep space missions...
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoThe Saturn mission Cassini had 72 pounds of plutonium on it. The Pluto mission New Horizons has 24 pounds of plutonium to power itself.
- hairytrog 6y agoThe most convenient decay source is Plutonium-238 because it does not produce any gammas during the decay which would require lots and lots of shielding to protect people. It has long half life of 87 years so a reduction in power of roughly 1% per year. However, it's weapons material - not okay for wide use. This cannot be overstated. Making nuclear weapons today is very easy when you have the requisite materials (Ted Taylor of Los Alamos used to say it would take 3 guys a few months starting from scratch). With today's off the shelf timing systems, explosives, and manufacturing, it could be even faster. Next up is Strontium, but that is quite dangerous due to human uptake in the bones. And there's polonium - very poisonous and too short a half life to be used. I have heard from a friend in the business of a new concept that generates desirable isotopes specifically for decay heat sources in a reactor in an encapsulated form which gets rid of any weapons material or processing of radioactive material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#238Pu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
- tiku 6y agoSo why can't we have this tech with radioactive waste in our home or cars? With a proper lead shield would it be dangerous or not?
- Jun8 6y agoFascinating! Wikipedia entry of the technology used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge... The location is beautiful (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aniva,+Russia,+694005/@46.0229079,142.863915,182164m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x5f173b0c57e1eb75:0xde9f3775ad05ef72!8m2!3d46.0178418!4d143.4153771 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Aniva,+Russia,+694005/@46....)
- toomuchtodo 6y ago> Most have no protection, not even fences or warning signs, and the locations of some of these facilities are no longer known due to poor record keeping. In one instance, the radioactive compartments were opened by a thief. There are approximately 1,000 such RTGs in Russia, all of which have long since exceeded their designed operational lives of ten years. Most of these RTGs likely no longer function, and may need to be dismantled. Some of their metal casings have been stripped by metal hunters, despite the risk of radioactive contamination. Yikes.
- etimberg 6y agoLots of these have been abandoned in the wild. One caused an incident in Lia, Georgia in 2001. https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81061875.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...
- gambiting 6y agoI was going to post this exact link but you beat me to it by 14 minutes :-D All I say is - if you're not good with gore, skip the section about the decay process of the affected people, it's not pretty.
- Medox 6y agoAt least the lighthouse generators were decommissioned and "all RTGs are now gone" (mentioned at the end of the video).
- GartzenDeHaes 6y agoThese are the same types of batteries used on space probes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y agoThis is kinda what I envisioned when people talked about backyard small solar reactors. I wish someone was building a commercial venture out of it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hairytrog 6y agoThe materials listed on the Wikipedia page and used by the Russians are not practical for large scale use. It's simply too dangerous to have that much weapons grade material or bone seeking material out in the wild. Some isotopes are better than others, and I expect there will be strides using specifically generated isotopes that are not weapons grade, are not bone-seekers, and have much short half lives (decade not 80+ years), and have beta decay.
- kbar13 6y agocan you clarify what you mean by bone seeking? i have a very rudimentary understanding of radioactive materials
- GartzenDeHaes 6y agoHe probably means beta emitters, which concentrate in the thyroid and bone marrow.
- arianvanp 6y agoStrontium has similar properties as calcium and thus ends up in your bones when ingested where it will cause prolonged damage. Hence bone seeking
- koolk3ychain 6y agoI assume they're not worried about the fissile material being used in a dirty bomb?
- Daniel_sk 6y agoThe real damage of these dirty weapons is very limited, it's mostly physchological/fear. This stuff itself is not easy to spread with an explosion and it's not a deadly exposure either. You can't make a real nuclear reaction from this.
- koolk3ychain 6y agoInteresting, thanks for your comment. I just did some further digging and it looks like the fuel is essentially a puck of metal alloy and radioactive material. Nuclear chemistry is so cool!
- drran 6y agoThere are ways to make dirty bombs orders of magnitude more dangerous. The problem is that radiation will spread and contaminate a large area for long time, so the bomb cannot be thrown over border then.
- leoh 6y agoIt's a legitimate concern. Although the fuels in RTGs (PU 238) will not engage in a chain reaction, like a traditional nuclear reactor, they could be used to fashion dirty bombs. No such uses are known, but the material has caused serious radiation burns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
- anonu 6y agoGreat video. I am glad that we are still making serious strides in nuclear energy research. Nuclear is the way to reduce carbon emissions in a substantially significant to turn back adverse climate change.
- forgotmysn 6y agoi agree that nuclear can help reduce carbon emissions, but that doesn't mean that nuclear waste is less harmful to the planet than carbon emissions are. nuclear isn't any more sustainable than coal or fossil fuels.
- biolurker1 6y agoThere is the off chance we will discover a way to deactivate them before they pollute
- dmos62 6y agoAnd it's even more likely that we'll end up reusing them, increasing economic efficiency of nuclear fuel.
- m4rtink 6y agoExactly this - today's nuclear waste is tomorrow's nuclear fuel (+ some other useful and expensive materials mixed in). Actually in some countries nuclear waste is already (part of) today's fuel using existing reprocessing technology.
- OnACoffeeBreak 6y agoCould you explain how properly sequestered nuclear waste is not less harmful to the planet as carbon in the atmosphere? I'm my current view, nuclear waste can be sequestered and stored effecting only a tiny fraction of the planet while greenhouse gases effect the whole planet.
- 6y ago
- cozzyd 6y agoHonestly it's difficult to find another energy source for small remote deployments in Polar regions, where solar + battery can't be used for much of the year. Propane TEG's and methanol fuel cells are probably the best suited thing, but they have consumables that create logistical problems. Wind can work in some places, but a lot of places in Antarctica and Greenland are not very windy, and ice loading etc. present problems.
- Retric 6y agoRTG’s are extremely expensive, the USSR made expensive use of them for politics not economics. Remote applications would have lower costs but those should give you some idea of the reasons. https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sites/sti/sti/7267852.pdf https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sites/sti/sti/7267852.pdf
- cozzyd 6y agoThe space ones are expensive partially because weight is an important consideration. For a terrestrial RTG, you can use Strontium or something else that's much cheaper (but much less weight-efficient). See e.g. https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:9398623 https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:9398623
- generalizations 6y agoI wonder if there's any version of that which is legal (and feasible?) for a civilian to build and use.
- notJim 6y agoI found some speculation that you might be able to build one out of thorium from smoke detectors and lanterns, as in the David Hahn case, but not much. No way this would be legal though.
- InspiredIdiot 6y ago
- sigrlami 6y agoWith proper maintenance it is best possible source of energy in that regions. It's shame "green deal" gained too much hype, proper/safe nuclear energy most sustainable way with good ROI.
- pstuart 6y agoComments below show that while theoretically true, the real world maintenance failures do not help to promote more of this. Disclaimer: I'm pro-renewables and pro-nuclear if it can be done "right".
- ssully 6y agoWhile I agree it's a shame nuclear energy has such a stigma, I think its stigma developed and solidified long before "green deal" was a thing.
- slowhand09 6y agoThe worlds first nuclear-powered lighthouse in south of Baltimore. Nuke-battery removed many years ago. Some friends purchased it and made it into a retreat/bed&breakfast. https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=423 https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=423
- hinkley 6y agoWhy would you turn an RTG device into a bed and break... Oh.
- discordance 6y agoIn the village of Lia, Georgia, on December 2, 2001, Three lumberjacks discovered two 90Sr cores from Soviet radioisotope thermoelectric generators. These were of the Beta-M type, built in the 80s, with an activity of 1295 TBq each. The lumberjacks were scavenging the forest for firewood, when they came across two metal cylinders melting snow within a one meter radius laying in the road. They picked up these objects to use as personal heaters, sleeping with their backs to them. All lumberjacks sought medical attention individually, and were treated for radiation injuries. One patient, DN-1, was seriously injured and required multiple skin grafts. After 893 days in the hospital, he was declared dead after a fever caused by complications and infections of a radiation ulcer on the subject's back. The disposal team consisted of 25 men who were restricted to a maximum of 2 minutes worth of exposure (max. 20mSv) each while transferring the canisters to lead-lined drums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_radiation_acc...
- hinkley 6y ago> The disposal team consisted of 25 men who were restricted to a maximum of 2 minutes worth of exposure I'm trying to figure out how that works. One team moves the crane and the geiger counters near the device, the next team brings in the lead boxes, the next team attaches the device to the crane, the next team puts it in the box and closes the box, the next team checks that the box is working, and then someone else puts the boxes on a truck?
- azernik 6y agoProbably something like that. By comparison, for certain areas on the Chernobyl reactor roof where the time limit was 30 seconds, each person would be given a shovel, go out on the roof, throw a piece of graphite off the roof, then go back inside and hand the shovel off to the next person.
- dmos62 6y agoThe process was described here in detail: https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81061875.pdf https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81...
- lstodd 6y agoOf depicting the RTGs I think the best is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Ended_This_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Ended_This_Summer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6rk1BK5eOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6rk1BK5eOU
- Animats 6y agoMartin made some of those in the 1960s.[1] [1] https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5PQAAOSw53dc2vtp/s-l1600.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5PQAAOSw53dc2vtp/s-l1600.jpg
- qwerty456127 6y agoHow do I download this video (with the subtitles if possible)? Youtube-DL doesn't help.
- xfer 6y agoYou can find the mpd stream and the subtitle in network tab. For me: youtube-dl.exe -f bestvideo+bestaudio "https://vod-dash-ww-live.akamaized.net/usp/auth/vod/piff_abr_full_hd/e35e56-p0931jtm/vf_p0931jtm_037406a1-04de-446c-8f39-8b0f119c4fed.ism/pc_hd_abr_v2_dash_master.mpd?__gda__=1610096862_763b890e463ac0b53a3a24bdd237f578 https://vod-dash-ww-live.akamaized.net/usp/auth/vod/piff_abr..." And the subtitle(EBU-TT-D format): https://vod-sub-ww-live.bbcfmt.s.llnwi.net/iplayer/subtitles/ng/galileo/p0/93/1j/p0931jtm-596f0f2a-f1a9-4543-b9a9-9a92877f257e.xml?s=1610053662&e=1610096862&h=0dad4a4b00173050d9f5cbc9564b906e https://vod-sub-ww-live.bbcfmt.s.llnwi.net/iplayer/subtitles... Vlc can play it with the sub.
- nojvek 6y agoSomeone who is a nuclear expert, could you answer some of my nuclear questions please. 1) the sun is a giant nuclear reactor and we indirectly derive most of our energy from it. Radioactive elements in general are the most energy dense and I agree with the idea of “nuclear energy in every home and office”. Sounds amazing. What makes nuclear so dangerous? 2) are there nuclear materials with short half life. Such that if you turn it off, it’s safe by default. It doesn’t require constant cooking and isolation. 3) is if there is a super intelligent alien species out there, most likely they’ve figured out how to harness nuclear power and make it portable. Is there a way we, as human species can do the same? If voyager and the Mars rovers are operating on nuclear power, can we have nuclear powered planes, cars and robots that are safe and ubiquitous? (Safe nuclear batteries)
- garmaine 6y agoPhysics major with an interest in nuclear science. Does that count? > the sun is a giant nuclear reactor and we indirectly derive most of our energy from it. Radioactive elements in general are the most energy dense Worth noting that this is conflating two different phenomenon: fission, and fusion. Despite the similarity in spelling, these have very little to do with each other. Neither of these have much to do with the "nuclear generator" in the article, which is based on natural fission, but not a chain reaction. It's actually more akin to refined, bottled geothermal power. > What makes nuclear so dangerous? First of all, it's not. Nuclear is one of, if not THE safest and cleanest form of power. But there are risks worth worrying about, even though with modern designs and regulatory procedures the risk to life and the environment is less than with other sources. Those risks basically boil down the fact that radioactivity causes cancers, thyroid disease, and in high doses various lethal forms of radioactivity sickness. And like all heavy metals, radioactive materials can easily get absorbed by our biology and deliver that harmful radioactivity slowly over time. When there is a leak of radioactive material (like Chernobyl, Fukushima, or almost happened with Three Mile Island), the result can be pretty damn scary. But what nuclear nevertheless safer than other energy sources is (1) these events are rare, and nuclear is otherwise perfectly clean and safe; and (2) modern designs cannot fail in the way these older reactors did. For example, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island failed in pretty much the same way, but Three Mile Island's design kept the radiation entirely contained. When deciding about new power plants, we should be evaluating the risks of new designs. You might wonder what makes other power sources more dangerous. Coal and natural gas have obvious health and pollution concerns. But wind and solar both involve A LOT of materials processing, construction, and maintenance, all of which have dangers that add up. Geothermal and hydro power are probably the two power sources that are better than nuclear, but aren't available everywhere. TL;DR Nuclear is scary. It's not necessarily dangerous (compared with other sources of power). > are there nuclear materials with short half life. Such that if you turn it off, it’s safe by default. It doesn’t require constant cooking and isolation. I think you are confusing controlled fission reactors vs. radioisotope generators. Fission reactors are the big nuclear power plants, which you can turn on and off. There are ways of making this safer and having less lethal byproducts. Mostly we need to start using breeder reactors, which reprocess spent fuel, instead of just putting it in waste pools and forgetting about it. Radioisotope generators are what TFA are about. Purified chunks of radioactive material (like plutonium) are naturally hot from their radioactivity, which is basically the same reason the Earth is hot--that's why I called it bottled geothermal power above. You then just attach some thermal couples to the outside of the plutonium, to generate electricity from the difference in temperature. You cannot turn off a radioisotope generator. It just goes on being hot for decades, until the main radioactive elements have decayed away. > If voyager and the Mars rovers are operating on nuclear power, can we have nuclear powered planes, cars and robots that are safe and ubiquitous? (Safe nuclear batteries) Unlikely. We know how to make small nuclear power plants, as we use them in submarines. But it's not easy to do this in a safe way, for reasons that are too complicated for a HN post. But basically it is the safety equipment that makes nuclear power big and bulky.
- woutgaze 6y agoFor a very good writeup by the organization Bellona, which is also in the video see https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/radioactive-waste-and-spent-nuclear-fuel/2005-04-radioisotope-thermoelectric-generators-2 https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/radioactive-waste-an...
- pelasaco 6y agoBeautiful short documentary. In my paranoid mind i was expecting the lighthouse actually being an Intercontinental ballistic missile with atomic warhead. Stupid me!
- bullen 6y agoIn Sweden between 1930-1970 we produced building elements from concrete where oilshale was used to burn the chalk and the ashes of the fuel was mixed into the concrete! That shale ash was so rich in uranium that the concrete turned blue! Since then thousands have died by passively breathing the radon evaporation from the walls in some Swedish houses. On the subject RTG elements are also used in space probes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o