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Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl
- domano 6y agoLet us see how long it takes for HN to start praising nuclear power and shrug of any risks in this thread! :)
- yosito 6y agoSince you brought it up, no, Chernobyl is not a good example of the risks of modern nuclear technology.
- bombcar 6y agoChernobyl is a good "line in the sand" to develop the safety precautions around (for example, assume Chernobyl happens, what things prevent long-lasting harm).
- hedora 6y agoThat’s like assuming the manager of your grocery store will kill everyone with an automatic rifle, then designing the building for easy cleanup. We know how to build safe nuclear plants. We should do that, and also make sure there’s enough independent oversight to make sure they’re not being managed by people actively trying to melt them down.
- beached_whale 6y agoBecause one person purposely drives off a cliff, following orders, we ban biking. Despite its usefulness and that the situation was contrived. Right There are a lot of ways governments can harm the environment on purpose using tools that are generally helpful.
- IntelMiner 6y agoNuclear power is so unsafe, ugh! I mean if it weren't for... - Designing and building reactor that is demonstrably and knowingly unsafe by its own creators and other scientists - Building it in the cash starved near collapse Soviet Union in a satellite state - Having technicians carry out tests that are known to be unsafe for the sake of it - Lying and attempt to cover up the issue because your entire power structure is all about saving face What am I saying? Of course Chernobyl would've still happened! I'm not particularly invested in if nuclear power is good or bad but holding up Chernobyl as a snarky "watch as the nerds ignore THIS!" is a herring so unimaginably red that it beggars belief
- rriepe 6y agoWhat's changed about bureaucracy and decision-making in government that makes it safe now? Should only collapse-proof nations build nuclear plants? If it looks like a collapse is coming, should they decommission them early? I get the better tech arguments-- those are solid. But this idea that they were dumb and we're smart is, I guarantee you, the same exact idea they had at Chernobyl. The whole reason they wanted to save face so much is because the whole thing was built on that idea.
- hedora 6y agoBy all accounts, the person running Chernobyl was a complete idiot. They disabled multiple safeties (including ones that would have averted the meltdown), then tried to make it output more than it was rated for (directly leading to the meltdown). The same could be said for Boeing, etc., but that doesn’t mean we need to abandon air travel. We just need better leadership in safety critical organizations.
- shawnz 6y agoIs it better if those corrupt bureaucracies use coal instead, thus necessitating the consumption and handling of around 1000000x as much fuel?
- Chris2048 6y ago> this idea that they were dumb and we're smart The cold war suggests Russia is anything but dumb. And as those bullets demonstrate, they where smart enough to know better - but the problem with the Soviet Union was not that it collapsed (or was unstable), but that it wasn't transparent - it cared more about the image of functionality than actual functionality.
- lm28469 6y agoIt's safer than most of the alternatives yes, and it works better than the safer alternatives https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- 0xdba 6y agoIf we're going to judge nuclear by its few accidents and not overall safety for the past 70 years compared to, say, mining coal, sure.
- nottorp 6y agoCoal miners tend to die later when they're retired (at least in more modern times), it's not so visible as to create fear. And people directly affected by coal smoke pollution aren't even counted. Again, this doesn't create enough fear. Same for airplane accidents vs car accidents.
- GuB-42 6y agoIt would be like saying that hydro is bad because of the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, an accident way worse than Chernobyl by most metrics. Like all energy sources, there are risks and there are solutions to mitigate these risks. And I don't know any sane proponent of nuclear energy that think that we should ignore the lessons learned.
- belinder 6y agoThat scientist brave enough to be a so-called 'stalker' at least deserves name recognition, shouldn't they?
- mothsonasloth 6y agoI wouldn't be surprised if they took it as part of their "day job". Vadim - "Oy Aleksei, we are getting Neutron spikes in Sub basement 4A" Aleksei - "Ah noi, eh cheeki breeki, iv damke"
- mattowen_uk 6y agoReading the article I now suddenly understand why this game is called what it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Cher...
- tantalor 6y agoDon't forget about the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)
- nottorp 6y ago... and the game combines Chernobyl and https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic ... or both, depending on how you look at it.
- Rendello 6y agoThe Metro books and games also use "Stalker" in a similar sense
- nottorp 6y agoYeah except Roadside Picnic was published in 1972 and basically invented the term. From wikipedia: The term "stalker" became a part of the Russian language and according to the authors, became the most popular of their neologisms. In the book, a stalker is a person who breaks the prohibition, enters the Zone and takes out artifacts from it, which they sell as a living. In Russian, after Tarkovsky's film, the term acquired the meaning of a guide who navigates forbidden and uncharted territories; later on, fans of industrial tourism, especially those visiting abandoned sites and ghost towns, were also called stalkers.
- philliphaydon 6y agoJust a random thought. What would happen if you dumped nuclear waste in a volcano? Would that burn it off or cause an explosion?
- crowbahr 6y agoYou have the problem of potential eruptions sending it off everywhere. Nuclear Waste has heavy elements that are dangerous specifically because they're radioactive. The heat might accelerate their half-life decay rate but it doesn't "burn" the atoms.
- philliphaydon 6y agoSo tossing it in wouldn’t cause an eruption or burn off the radiation. But if the volcano erupted then it could send radiation everywhere. Interesting. Is research being done to try figure out safer disposal of nuclear waste?
- thesuitonym 6y agoReally the safest means of disposal is to bury it, but that is fraught with its own problems.
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoI did wonder if dumping waste in subduction zones has been looked at.
- bityard 6y agoSafest or cheapest? And on what time scale? Because the safest long-term means of disposal is to launch it into the sun, but that's prohibitively expensive and is short-term extremely dangerous (e.g. the rocket exploding or crashing shortly after lift-off).
- mynameisash 6y agoIf the spent fuel were contained, you could first run it through a breeder reactor[0] to reduce volume by an order of magnitude or two. The remains are still highly radioactive, but now you have much less volume to deal with. I assume that the waste in Chernobyl is largely/entirely distributed and contaminated with sand, dirt, other various debris, and thus probably couldn't benefit from that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Waste_reduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Waste_reductio...
- maxqin1 6y ago> Elephant’s Foot was so hard scientists had to use a Kalashnikov rifle to shear off a chunk for analysis. “Now it more or less has the consistency of sand,” Interesting how that changed.
- duxup 6y agoSand is usually at the bottom of these containment vessels right? I wonder if that has something to do with it.
- ygra 6y agoI guess once Corium melts through that it becomes more glass than sand.
- klodolph 6y agoI think it's more likely that this is the result of radioactive decay. As elements decay, what was once a tiny piece of crystal or glass would develop defects. Among other reasons, the decay products will have different chemical properties from the original elements--so one atom may fit neatly into the structure 35 years ago, but today it's a completely different element, with a different number of valence electrons and a different size. The structure is fixed from 35 years ago when the core melted and cooled. Imagine what would happen to your Lego buildings if some of the bricks got smaller or larger, changed the number of bumps, or split into two bricks. Note that we're not just talking about metals here. For example, an element in a nuclear reactor might be a transition metal, an alkali metal, a halogen, or a noble gas at different points in the last 35 years--with radically different chemical properties. I am definitely not an expert, but I did take inorganic chemistry and nuclear chemistry in college. (Note that some of these changes in naturally occurring minerals, and the presence of compounds like noble gases trapped in minerals, are used to date minerals... you can estimate how long ago the mineral melted and cooled.)
- iSnow 6y agoIt's called "radioactive spallation" I think. The high radioactivity plays fast and loose with all kinds of molecular bonds, even in inorganic materials.
- wongarsu 6y agoThe Chernobyl disaster is simply unimaginably expensive. The total costs so far are estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The new containment structure that was finished in 2019 was $2,000,000,000 alone, and dismantling the reactors and cleanup is scheduled to take another 45 years.
- faitswulff 6y agoIt’s the most expensive wildlife refuge in the world.
- ryanmarsh 6y ago$2B is table stakes for anything in heavy industry. I haven't heard of a new oil refinery for anything less than $10B in a while. I'm not saying Chernobyl wasn't a disaster. I'm just saying, as far as heavy industry goes $2B isn't much. I know that's hard to fathom but it's true.
- philistine 6y agoYeah but that refinery starts making money at some point. With Chernobyl, the $2B is completely gone.
- barkingcat 6y agoNot to mention the site will need to continually rebuild the sarcophagus around it until half-lifing makes the sarcophagus unneeded. The current one is only designed to last 100 years.
- KptMarchewa 6y ago"only"
- barkingcat 6y agoYes "only", meaning it's insufficient for the long run. It's estimated that the ruins will remain highly radiactive for 20,000 years, meaning that a scarcophagus-like containment is needed at least for that long. If human technology remains as is (ok I am really hoping for tech advancements in this area), we will need to build 200 of such structures if the design specifications work as planned. The area is only "safe" because we keep the site contained. Without renewal of the containment structure, the radiation will spread. https://www.power-technology.com/features/making-chernobyl-safe-a-timeline/ https://www.power-technology.com/features/making-chernobyl-s... "Meanwhile, Reactor No. 4, now covered by the New Safe Confinement, is estimated to remain highly radioactive for up to 20,000 years. "
- PaulHoule 6y agoIt sounds like they are afraid of a criticality accident https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1220/ML12205A469.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1220/ML12205A469.pdf For the most part a critical mass that produces enough heat to expand will have the reaction stop because the expansion causes the surface area per reactive nucleus to increase and the neutrons leak out. It's unlikely that a situation like that will produce enough energy to be dangerous far from the reactor (an explosion or "meltdown") but it sure is dangerous for workers in the vicinity.
- samus 6y agoYour description sounds like it would spread lots of radioactive dust though. Which is bad for both the people on site and everybody downwind from the blasted thing.
- PaulHoule 6y agoIt will make some more fission products, not much compared what it did in its life. I can't believe it will make enough heat to damage the structure or disperse radioactivity directly. If the neutron flux means that people can't go near the structure to maintain it then in the very long term you have more risk that the roof leaks, water leaks out, other paths of leakage don't get closed. Really they should scrape up the corium (like they did at TMI) and put it through reprocessing like any other nuclear waste. The risk of a criticality accident doesn't make that any easier.
- nottorp 6y agoKinda off topic, there were like 3 submissions from sciencemag.org making the front page in the last 48 hours? While I don't remember seeing the site that often in the past. Someone's back reading the entire site and posting the interesting bits? :)
- motohagiography 6y agoGiven advanced applications in both unmanned remote control and boring machine technology and better economics, I wonder if we could get Elon Musk's view on tunneling down as far as possible below the reactor, and then tunneling up under it, to drop the remaining material deep into the deepest shaft ever dug into the earth.
- jvanderbot 6y agoWe need a Godwin's law for Elon vs. all of society's problems. "As the technical discussion gets more popular, the likelihood of Elon having a purported solution approaches one"
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y agoI don't understand how anyone could look at what Boring Company built in Vegas and conclude "these people are the best in the world to manage the Chernobyl cleanup."
- motohagiography 6y agoThat's actually really funny and point awarded. But the substance of boring beneath Chernobyl would still seem to bear some consideration, no?
- jvanderbot 6y agoOf course, why not? I'd be surprised if it wasn't considered. I just probably wouldn't bother The Musk with it.
- necovek 6y agoI can't imagine many countries having an Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants. It's too bad their job is a long-standing one.
- perardi 6y agoLargely off-topic, but still interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus I still find it fascinating that there is a fungus that lives inside the remains on Chernobyl and thrives in the radiation.
- TchoBeer 6y agoDamn nature will really use any source of free energy it can huh
- fuzzythinker 6y agoThanks, learned it is useful in spacesuit to reflect radiation.
- foobarian 6y ago> Any remedy he and his colleagues come up with will be of keen interest to Japan, which is coping with the aftermath of its own nuclear disaster 10 years ago at Fukushima I can't believe Fukushima was 10 years ago already. It feels like it was just last year.
- iso1631 6y agoI can't believe that an earthquake and tsunami that killed 20,000 people is called a "nuclear disaster"
- aero-glide2 6y agoAnd there is only one confirmed death from the nuclear incident.
- lamontcg 6y agoOne $200,000,000,000 death.
- pengaru 6y ago> And there is only one confirmed death from the nuclear incident. There's plenty of evidence of increased cancer rates in the affected areas. That's never a statement made in good faith in the context of nuclear disasters, because radiation effects on the environment, including the people, have a very long tail. You're basically saying nothing, while ostensibly implying there's nearly zero risk of fatalities.
- iso1631 6y agoCould you point to a peer reviewed paper that attributes QALYS lost of fukishima vs QALYS lost from the tsunami as a whole. Ideally one which also looks at QALYS from fossil fuel power plants too.
- jetrink 6y agoThe Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. They are separate, but related disasters. Despite the low fatality rate, there is no doubt that it was a disaster. Radioactive material was released and 150,000 people were evacuated.
- marsven_422 6y agoThere are rumbling about nuclear power as a solution to climate change...now we can't have that! Last time the UN made such notices we got the Chernobyl TV series...
- theptip 6y agoDoes anyone know what radiation levels a commercial robot like Spot can handle, and what would be involved in shielding one to do jobs inside the sarcophagus? Is it as involved as replacing all the electronics with hardened components, or could you just make a lead suit to cover it sufficiently? Not sure how the sensors etc. function in that environment.
- dylan604 6y agoI wonder how big of a spike in streaming HBO's mini-series will see after posts like this. I know I'm suddenly intersted in re-watching it. The court room scene at the end was so good.
- penguin_booze 6y ago> Because water slows, or moderates, neutrons and thus enhances their odds of striking and splitting uranium nuclei, heavy rains would sometimes send neutron counts soaring How do slow neutrons have higher odds of splitting a nuclei? I'd have thought the exact opposite: faster neutrons--therefore, having more energy--would increase the odds.
- LaMarseillaise 6y agoA fast neutron is more likely to cause fission, but much, much less likely to interact with a fissile nucleus in the first place.
- penguin_booze 6y agoMeaning, they will pass-through, as if the nucleus didn't exist?
- cdumler 6y agoThe term splitting an atom seems like hitting a bunch of billiard balls to cause the atom to fly apart. What really happens is you want the atom to absorb the neutron and its kinetic energy so as to make the atom's energy higher than the strong force's ability to hold the it together. If the neutron's kinetic energy is too low, the atom will just absorb it. It may become radioactive and decay over time, but not necessarily in a speedy chain reaction way; however, going too fast isn't good either. Atoms become inelastic the higher the neutron's energy. If it's too high, the atom is effectively transparent to the neutrons and won't capture them. So, a "neutron moderator" slows the neutrons to an energy that is low enough to allow capture and fission, but not capture and no fission.