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Inside Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
- franky47 6y agoOriginal article by the photographer (including a sample photo tainted by radiation, which is missing in the petapixel version): https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/the-sarcophaguss-labyrinth/ https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/the-sarcophaguss-labyrint...
- tenkabuto 6y agoWhich photo(s) is tainted?
- franky47 6y agoThere's a link to an unprocessed part of a photograph in the Post Scriptum: https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/wp-content/uploads/slice1.jpg https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/wp-content/uploads/slice1...
- neom 6y agoI was very curious about the "tainted" photo as my education is in imaging technology. I couldn't tell if he meant the radiation was changing the light, or was changing the camera (tbh I kinda didn't believe him), from the picture, looks like the image sensor did indeed arc a lot and even more weird is the amount and colour of them in relational to the other standard ISO issues in the image. In years of studying digital images and image sensors, I've never seen one act like that, at all.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ninjin 6y agoNot only that, do not miss out on his other photo essays: https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/?lg=en https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/?lg=en
- sharken 6y agoOr buy the Half-life album from the author to show support. https://sklep.podniesinski.pl/en/16-half-life-album https://sklep.podniesinski.pl/en/16-half-life-album
- tda 6y agoWhat a great series! Especially impressive to see all the installations and facilities required to process the spent fuel from one temporary facility to the other. And the huge amount of steel and concrete required to do so, for now and decades to come, for a facility that produced it's last usable power how many years ago? Note that this is not related to the disaster, but "happy path" as far as I understand. From wikipedia: The three other reactors remained operational after the accident but were eventually shut down by 2000, although the plant remains in the process of decommissioning as of 2021. Nuclear waste clean-up is scheduled for completion in 2065 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant Before the first few dozen nuclear reactors have been properly decommissioned, within a reasonable timeframe and for a reasonable budget, I think we have absolutely no business building more of them and burdening future generations with them.
- asd4232 6y agoNuclear power has its issues, but I think burdening future generations with old nuclear plants is better than burdening them with a catastrophic climate change. I would much rather see developing countries building nuclear than building coal. Reducing emissions of energy production as fast as possible should be the first priority now, and nuclear can be helpful there. After this problem has been dealt with, then we have plenty of time to switch completely to better alternatives, like renewables. Even a worst-case scenario like Chernobyl is still way, way less bad for nature than the consequences of climate change. Thanks to lack of humans, the area around Chernobyl is actually doing better biodiversity-wise than before the disaster.
- decasteve 6y agoI don't think it's an either-or scenario. There are other options and other factors at play. The assumption of global peace for thousands of years in a world dotted with world-ending bomb material is a big gamble. The current politics of energy production and consumption, the state-by-state compartmentalization and lack of wider cooperation hampers cleaner options (spoiled-views NIMBYism and regional politics). Wind, solar, and hydro coupled with transcontinental UHV power transmission could solve it with much simpler technologies.
- open-source-ux 6y agoThe pictures from the author's website are amazing. Here, for example is the DUGA over-the-horizon radar located in Chernobyl. The author says the radar stopped working as a result of the radiation from the Chernobyl plant and was closed soon after. The way the structure rises above the clouds is an amazing sight: https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/over-the-horizon/ https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/over-the-horizon/
- ddingus 6y agoThanks! I will spend some non trivial time reading, looking and thinking. The externalities involved with nuclear energy are off the charts huge! And the containment efforts! Stones and chisels, for the most part. Thankfully, we are able to automate enough to allow work to proceed. He showed efforts to execute on a 100 year plan. Enough to contain the grief, leaving it for others, and ideally we do not exclude ourselves from more of our world or pollute it beyond our ability to cope with the hazard. Very thought provoking work.
- m3nu 6y agoWindows XP on the screen near the end. :-)
- jerome-jh 6y agoNoticed that too. No very reassuring. Hope it is not connected to the Internet.
- martin8412 6y agoCertain versions were supported until 2019, so might not be as bad as you think
- kevingadd 6y agoA little sobering to see the note at the end and then go back and gaze closer at the last few photographs they took inside the sarcophagus. Those dosimeters weren't wrong! You can basically "see" the radiation since so many pixels in the final image are oversaturated, presumably even more looked like that before they were cleaned up in photo processing.
- edem 6y agoWhat does that Xerox paper doing in that office room?
- pndy 6y agoChernobyl was still operating despite of what happened in 1986 (bloc no 1 was shut down in 2000), so perhaps this workshop was also in use and Xerox paper pack is new.
- sharken 6y agoGreat article of an area that continues to intrigue. So much so, that I think it worth to mention at least the HBO Chernobyl tv series. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/ Also noteworthy are the games centered around Chernobyl. https://screenrant.com/chernobly-hbo-games-to-play/ https://screenrant.com/chernobly-hbo-games-to-play/ There is also a DLC for the Spintires game where you get to drive around Chernobyl. https://www.iskmogul.com/spintires-newest-expansion-heads-to-chernobyl/amp/ https://www.iskmogul.com/spintires-newest-expansion-heads-to...
- gambiting 6y agoOooh, I have innumerable hours in Snowrunner and I had no idea Spintires had this expansion. Wish they re-released it for the newer game now ;-)
- jakub_g 6y agoSee also a photostory of same author from Fukushima: https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/ https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/
- mnw21cam 6y agoBen Fogle recently went on a tour around Chernobyl with a TV crew, including the fateful control room. https://www.channel5.com/show/inside-chernobyl-with-ben-fogle/ https://www.channel5.com/show/inside-chernobyl-with-ben-fogl...
- HeckFeck 6y agoThe interiors are reminiscent of the Black Mesa Research Facility. Undoubtedly a resonance cascade is less preferable to a meltdown, though neither are good for human lifespans.
- unnouinceput 6y agoQuote: "Storage room in BK-2" (shows picture of old electronics and cables on different shelves. I drooled at that picture, I want those. I need those. Can you imagine how many breadboard tests I can achieve with them old resistors and non-electrolytic capacitors that stood the test of time from 80's? And the cables! I. must. have. them. all!!
- candiddevmike 6y agoSeeing an advertisement halfway for the X-energy nuclear reactor represents everything wrong with online advertising.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoThat PC with Windows XP... Lol! Edit: Oops it was already mentioned. https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/04/POD2672.jpg https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2021/04/POD2672.jpg
- blondie9x 6y agoFukushima and Chernobyl pics remind me so much why we need to move past the old style nuclear reactors. Those reactors and future plans to build more of them need to be abandoned. The future of nuclear should be small modular reactors with alternatives besides light water reactors. Thorium cycle or Molten salt reactors. That’s the future.
- sesuximo 6y agoFukushima was built in 1968 and Chernobyl was built in 1972. We learned a lot from these incidents, and I think those lessons are valuable for building reactors of all sizes 50 years later. I do think we should be quicker to decommission and maintain existing reactors. Fukushima was painfully predictable, but the people who should have fixed several issues and/or closed the plant were also in charge of making it profitable. That seems bad.
- ddingus 6y agoWe do not have good answers for the waste yet.
- sesuximo 6y agoThe amount of waste is so small it’s not worth recycling. But we easily could (France does this or at least used to). If you mean debris after a disaster, then yeah, I agree, we aren’t great at cleaning that up e.g. in Fukushima. Edit: I was reading this page while writing this; maybe the actual source is better than my comment https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
- ddingus 6y agoWhat does recycle actually mean? Transport risks, storage risks are a big deal. Fuck up, and it gets into our system or excludes us from part of the world. As for storage, I was hired to help with data systems support for 100 to 1000 year engineering. Rooms get made, people never go into them again. Machine rooms get made to hold the machines, that service the machines... storage rooms get made to hold stuff, and on and on it goes. Once things get hot, they stay hot basically permanently. Space requirements continue to grow as the waste from handling waste grows. The costs are high. The risks are high. The space requirements are high, so much more than that nice football field package mentioned in the fluff piece. Human requirements are high. Generations of people will service that waste, and reserve space requirements are high, because nobody has been able to think the problem all the way through and insure success. It is a big scale problem. Any error makes it bigger. It will outlive generations of people. From that perspective, nuclear energy is like a high interest loan. The money is good, but servicing it is brutal as is the timeline relentless. And this is a closed system we live in. Containment is temporary no matter what gets said. And the service is ongoing, no matter what gets said. On a cost / return basis, investing in green energy is a much better deal. And servicing that means more energy, not so much paying for energy already developed and long gone. Recycling green energy gear is meaningful today and will improve. Most importantly, mere mortals can work the problem and not make 100k year toxic problems along the way. We can do that work now, should have been doing it two decades if not more ago. And as we do it, we improve just like we did for fossil fuels.
- js2 6y agoI guess I haven't been following along very closely because I was only vaguely aware of the New Safe Confinement. It's quite the project: > The New Safe Confinement was constructed 180 metres (590 ft) west of reactor 4, and slid into place. Sliding of the structure along foundation rails was a difficult process. It was pushed on Teflon pads by hydraulic pistons, and guided by lasers. As of 2018, the New Safe Confinement is the world's largest movable land-based structure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement Lots of photos and links to drone footage here: http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/new-safe-confinement/ http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/new-safe-...