8 ms·

After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant finally relieved

145 points by MilnerRoute 5y ago

kingkawn 5y ago
Most of the arguments in favor of the renewed development of nuclear power rely on faith in engineering culture to prevent catastrophic failures and avoid large-scale loss of habitability of areas around these plants. This faith does not account for conflict and significant social disruption. We are fortunate that so far the nuclear assets in Ukraine have not been critically disrupted. I hope this is not where and when we learn this lesson.
- jdkee 5y ago
  Western democracies, Japan and South Korea are politically stable so power plant disruptions due to armed conflict on their territories are likely a relatively low risk.
  - simulate-me 5y ago
  - pasquinelli 5y ago
    politically stable for now. how long is the average period of political stability?
  - danhor 5y ago
    If prosperous (as that's usually a match for a low chance of armed conflicht) nations mostly expand to non-fossil energy sources that aren't available/viable for developing/poorer nations, this is an issue since their power system won't profit from a large amount of research & investments on how to run a non-fossil fuel based system. With the energy usage of non-western countries exploding quickly this could be a major hinderance to stopping climate change if all prosperous nations go all-in on nuclear and discourage other countries from doing so because of the risk. A non realistic scenario tbh, it's very unlikely that e.g. germany will construct new nuclear power plants and a lot of not-very-stable countries already use nuclear power as we're seeing right now.
  - throwaway6532 5y ago
    What about Russia? What if famine strikes and the nuclear engineers at a given power plant starve to death?
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    Russia has been politically stable for the last 20 years also
    - himinlomax 5y ago
      Poisoning and harassing political opponents does not strike me as particularly stable.
    - KennyBlanken 5y ago
      Russia has had several significant nuclear material release incidents in the last twenty years, only detected because the waste/fallout plume reached monitoring sites outside the country. The most recent was the 2018 disaster involving a nuclear torpedo. Russia has used its reactors to produce materials to conduct political assassinations on foreign soil, which have ended up injuring and contaminating many innocent people.
  - kingkawn 5y ago
    That you cite Japan as an example of reliable nuclear safety after Fukushima…
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    The US and UK nuclear programs - commercial and military - are littered with incidents, many of them fatal or releasing significant quantities of radioactive waste. In one case, someone was likely murdered as part of a coverup (google Karen Silkwood.) The attitude during much of the US nuclear program was "you're either with us or you're for those commie bastards." In Japan, TEPCO demonstrated a long-running, stunning disregard for safety that led to the Fukashima disaster (and it was not Japan's first nuclear power plant disaster, either): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster#Prior_safety_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster#Pri... And as a reminder, Chernobyl happened because a bunch of engineers were basically engaged in a dick-measuring contest, likely to satisfy some apparatchik. I'd say the world's nuclear power programs have demonstrated extensively that humans as a whole can't handle the responsibilities, and now we have numerous, much safer alternatives. It's an absolute miracle we haven't had an accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon near a population center given bombs have even been released from planes, in some cases with multiple safety systems satisfied - and that the permissive action link system was almost completely bypassed by petulant air force commanders who had weapons set to (I wish I were making this up) codes of all zeros.
    - natmaka 5y ago
      Don't forget KEPCO: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Indictments_for_South_Korea_forgery_scandal-1010137.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Indictments_for_South_...
- AngryData 5y ago
  It isn't like you have to blow up the reactor itself to disable a foreign nuclear plant. I see no reason why anybody would ever target a reactor core. There is a HUGE amount of electrical substation infrastructure outside of these plants which would take like 1/1000 the effort to damage or blow up as the reactor core itself and would shut the whole thing down. The only reason you would target a reactor core itself is to spread nuclear debri on purpose, which is still probably more effort than it would take to just make a dirty bomb and far less effective than a dirty bomb. Also you destroy all value in taking that territory, piss off every other country in the world likely prompting them to join the war against you, and likely spread the poison back into your own territory.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Would destroying the support infrastructure for these plants be any safer? My understanding is that almost all (if not all) nuclear power stations presently in operation need active cooling even after the reactor is shutdown. If that cooling infrastructure is disrupted then that could be just as disastrous as if the reactor core itself was targeted.
    - lm28469 5y ago
      Hm yeah, just cut the cables carrying the electricity out
      - Doxin 5y ago
        Power cables aren't unidirectional. The cables carrying power in are the same as the cables carrying power out.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    Tac nuke ground burst + reactor core = extremely bad news. And of course you can wait until the wind is blowing in the right direction. Yes, there would be consequences. But there are also consequences for going on a random shooter spree, and they don't stop random shooters.
  - 5y ago
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  With the fossil and biofuel status quo powering more than 80% of the world causing climate change and air pollution on the scale of 8 million deaths per year [1], I don't find this argument particularly compelling. Sure there are hazards with nuclear, but even in wild hypothesized scenarios the damage from not doing nuclear is worse. For perspective, fossil + biofuel kill a full Chernobyl's worth of people (short term plus long term deaths) every 7 hours, and counting. And as for loss of habitability, the dose rates around Chernobyl are elevated but not incompatible with life. Around Fukushima, I'd join Elon Musk in eating any locally grown food. Better to avoid airplanes if you're concerned about those levels of radiation, below the threshold known to cause the smallest measurable increase in cancer (100 mSv acute, 300 mSv annual). Good read here: [2] [1] https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1 https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1 [2] https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive-wastelands-a-look-at-chernobyls-effects-on-nature/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive...
  - throwaway6532 5y ago
    I'm not as worried about global warming as I used to be after taking a look at world demographics and learning a bunch of stuff about global supply chains and agricultural practices as a result of this conflict breaking out. World population is likely to steeply decline, and globalization plus high living standards will most probably go away. We just won't consume as much energy or make and trade as much stuff in the future.
    - 14u2c 5y ago
      So basically you are hoping it all sorts itself out? Maybe it will, but that seems like an incredibility risky position for humanity to make without hedging our bets.
      - throwaway6532 5y ago
        We're long past the point of hedging our bets. Put it this way... when the world runs out of NPK fertilizers (or can't access them) and billions of people start to starve to death, climate change will no longer be seen as the big risk. After going down the rabbit hole that is modern agricultural practices, and more importantly the supply chains that underpin them, the writing is absolutely on the wall for humanity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
acidburnNSA 5y ago
Note that, despite the headlines, the final units at the Chernobyl nuclear plant stopped generating power in 2000. These aren't like the Zaporizhzhia units which are still providing power to the area. Once a nuclear chain reaction stops, the afterglow heat reduces exponentially. By now it is exceedingly low, and can be fully cooled passively. Best info on this whole situation comes from the UN's "nuclear watchdog" (the IAEA), who now has 27 individual updates from this overall event. https://www.iaea.org/nuclear-safety-and-security-in-ukraine https://www.iaea.org/nuclear-safety-and-security-in-ukraine Not to say people shouldn't be allowed to rotate shifts, of course. But don't let the word Chernobyl freak you out too much is all.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >But don't let the word Chernobyl freak you out too much After the TV show with its absolutely cartoonish depiction of the risks of nuclear energy I have no hope that's happening any time soon. It was genuinely baffling to me how a show, that was about as accurate on the threats of nuclear energy as Jaws was for sharks, got so much praise heaped on it.
  - mixedCase 5y ago
    How does the show portray modern nuclear energy in a bad light?
    - Barrin92 5y ago
      by inventing complete nonsensical dangers. From claiming that the meltdown would result in a "4 megaton explosion" (that's off by about a million as this is the yield of a thermonuclear weapon, a plant isn't a bomb), claiming that the plant would render Europe uninhabitable (no such thing is possible), to portrayals of radiation sickness in Pripyat (the residents received about 3 x-rays worth of radiation), portrayal of radiation sickness as weirdly contagious (which it is not), and so on.
      - DangitBobby 5y ago
ttul 5y ago
I can think of no good strategic reason to take over Chernobyl. I think Putin did it just to create terror. Knowing that the actual risk of a catastrophe is small, it’s a low risk way to make everyone else terrified of what Russia might do. Low cost, high yield - if you are a despot.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  Chernobyl is along one of the very few roads into Kyiv from the north west of the Dnieper. If you're trying to surround Kyiv, you'd be very hardpressed to avoid going by Chernobyl.
- adventured 5y ago
  > I can think of no good strategic reason to take over Chernobyl. If you're going to try to annex Ukraine, you're going to take Chernobyl. Of course there are very good strategic reasons (including the location issue, as mentioned by another comment) to take over all nuclear facilities and electricity production in the nation you're trying to annex. What kind of annexation is it if you don't take the electricity production facilities and all the nuclear plants? If you do, what, leave all the nuclear power plants under the control of the Ukrainian Government and its proxies? It would be wildly irrational in terms of strategy. One of the first things you'd want to accomplish, if you can, is to seize utilities and be able to control their function (for all manner of reasons), as well as controlling anything nuclear related.
- politician 5y ago
  It's a great prize. They can blackmail the West for funds to maintain it forever now, then use the funds for other things like yachts.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    That's not going to work at all. Russia would look weak asking, the West wouldn't be that stupid, and Russia has easier ways to do damage if they really want to start playing with nukes.
- shrubble 5y ago
adventured 5y ago
The problem is that many of those workers won't be willing to return. Chernobyl is facing a disaster unless Russia drafts its own people in to operate it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
eyelidlessness 5y ago
Link to the actual article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/20/chernobyl-workers-leave/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/20/chernobyl-wo... Besides being the original reporting, it won’t hijack your back button or come with bonus hate content just below the fold.

145 points by MilnerRoute 5y ago

Most of the arguments in favor of the renewed development of nuclear power rely on faith in engineering culture to prevent catastrophic failures and avoid large-scale loss of habitability of areas around these plants. This faith does not account for conflict and significant social disruption. We are fortunate that so far the nuclear assets in Ukraine have not been critically disrupted. I hope this is not where and when we learn this lesson.

jdkee 5y ago
Western democracies, Japan and South Korea are politically stable so power plant disruptions due to armed conflict on their territories are likely a relatively low risk.
- simulate-me 5y ago
- pasquinelli 5y ago
  politically stable for now. how long is the average period of political stability?
- danhor 5y ago
  If prosperous (as that's usually a match for a low chance of armed conflicht) nations mostly expand to non-fossil energy sources that aren't available/viable for developing/poorer nations, this is an issue since their power system won't profit from a large amount of research & investments on how to run a non-fossil fuel based system. With the energy usage of non-western countries exploding quickly this could be a major hinderance to stopping climate change if all prosperous nations go all-in on nuclear and discourage other countries from doing so because of the risk. A non realistic scenario tbh, it's very unlikely that e.g. germany will construct new nuclear power plants and a lot of not-very-stable countries already use nuclear power as we're seeing right now.
- throwaway6532 5y ago
  What about Russia? What if famine strikes and the nuclear engineers at a given power plant starve to death?
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Russia has been politically stable for the last 20 years also
  - himinlomax 5y ago
    Poisoning and harassing political opponents does not strike me as particularly stable.
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Russia has had several significant nuclear material release incidents in the last twenty years, only detected because the waste/fallout plume reached monitoring sites outside the country. The most recent was the 2018 disaster involving a nuclear torpedo. Russia has used its reactors to produce materials to conduct political assassinations on foreign soil, which have ended up injuring and contaminating many innocent people.
- kingkawn 5y ago
  That you cite Japan as an example of reliable nuclear safety after Fukushima…
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  The US and UK nuclear programs - commercial and military - are littered with incidents, many of them fatal or releasing significant quantities of radioactive waste. In one case, someone was likely murdered as part of a coverup (google Karen Silkwood.) The attitude during much of the US nuclear program was "you're either with us or you're for those commie bastards." In Japan, TEPCO demonstrated a long-running, stunning disregard for safety that led to the Fukashima disaster (and it was not Japan's first nuclear power plant disaster, either): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster#Prior_safety_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster#Pri... And as a reminder, Chernobyl happened because a bunch of engineers were basically engaged in a dick-measuring contest, likely to satisfy some apparatchik. I'd say the world's nuclear power programs have demonstrated extensively that humans as a whole can't handle the responsibilities, and now we have numerous, much safer alternatives. It's an absolute miracle we haven't had an accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon near a population center given bombs have even been released from planes, in some cases with multiple safety systems satisfied - and that the permissive action link system was almost completely bypassed by petulant air force commanders who had weapons set to (I wish I were making this up) codes of all zeros.
  - natmaka 5y ago
    Don't forget KEPCO: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Indictments_for_South_Korea_forgery_scandal-1010137.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Indictments_for_South_...
AngryData 5y ago
It isn't like you have to blow up the reactor itself to disable a foreign nuclear plant. I see no reason why anybody would ever target a reactor core. There is a HUGE amount of electrical substation infrastructure outside of these plants which would take like 1/1000 the effort to damage or blow up as the reactor core itself and would shut the whole thing down. The only reason you would target a reactor core itself is to spread nuclear debri on purpose, which is still probably more effort than it would take to just make a dirty bomb and far less effective than a dirty bomb. Also you destroy all value in taking that territory, piss off every other country in the world likely prompting them to join the war against you, and likely spread the poison back into your own territory.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Would destroying the support infrastructure for these plants be any safer? My understanding is that almost all (if not all) nuclear power stations presently in operation need active cooling even after the reactor is shutdown. If that cooling infrastructure is disrupted then that could be just as disastrous as if the reactor core itself was targeted.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    Hm yeah, just cut the cables carrying the electricity out
    - Doxin 5y ago
      Power cables aren't unidirectional. The cables carrying power in are the same as the cables carrying power out.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Tac nuke ground burst + reactor core = extremely bad news. And of course you can wait until the wind is blowing in the right direction. Yes, there would be consequences. But there are also consequences for going on a random shooter spree, and they don't stop random shooters.
- 5y ago
acidburnNSA 5y ago
With the fossil and biofuel status quo powering more than 80% of the world causing climate change and air pollution on the scale of 8 million deaths per year [1], I don't find this argument particularly compelling. Sure there are hazards with nuclear, but even in wild hypothesized scenarios the damage from not doing nuclear is worse. For perspective, fossil + biofuel kill a full Chernobyl's worth of people (short term plus long term deaths) every 7 hours, and counting. And as for loss of habitability, the dose rates around Chernobyl are elevated but not incompatible with life. Around Fukushima, I'd join Elon Musk in eating any locally grown food. Better to avoid airplanes if you're concerned about those levels of radiation, below the threshold known to cause the smallest measurable increase in cancer (100 mSv acute, 300 mSv annual). Good read here: [2] [1] https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1 https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1 [2] https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive-wastelands-a-look-at-chernobyls-effects-on-nature/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive...
- throwaway6532 5y ago
  I'm not as worried about global warming as I used to be after taking a look at world demographics and learning a bunch of stuff about global supply chains and agricultural practices as a result of this conflict breaking out. World population is likely to steeply decline, and globalization plus high living standards will most probably go away. We just won't consume as much energy or make and trade as much stuff in the future.
  - 14u2c 5y ago
    So basically you are hoping it all sorts itself out? Maybe it will, but that seems like an incredibility risky position for humanity to make without hedging our bets.
    - throwaway6532 5y ago
      We're long past the point of hedging our bets. Put it this way... when the world runs out of NPK fertilizers (or can't access them) and billions of people start to starve to death, climate change will no longer be seen as the big risk. After going down the rabbit hole that is modern agricultural practices, and more importantly the supply chains that underpin them, the writing is absolutely on the wall for humanity.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

acidburnNSA 5y ago

Note that, despite the headlines, the final units at the Chernobyl nuclear plant stopped generating power in 2000. These aren't like the Zaporizhzhia units which are still providing power to the area. Once a nuclear chain reaction stops, the afterglow heat reduces exponentially. By now it is exceedingly low, and can be fully cooled passively. Best info on this whole situation comes from the UN's "nuclear watchdog" (the IAEA), who now has 27 individual updates from this overall event. https://www.iaea.org/nuclear-safety-and-security-in-ukraine https://www.iaea.org/nuclear-safety-and-security-in-ukraine Not to say people shouldn't be allowed to rotate shifts, of course. But don't let the word Chernobyl freak you out too much is all.

Barrin92 5y ago
>But don't let the word Chernobyl freak you out too much After the TV show with its absolutely cartoonish depiction of the risks of nuclear energy I have no hope that's happening any time soon. It was genuinely baffling to me how a show, that was about as accurate on the threats of nuclear energy as Jaws was for sharks, got so much praise heaped on it.
- mixedCase 5y ago
  How does the show portray modern nuclear energy in a bad light?
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    by inventing complete nonsensical dangers. From claiming that the meltdown would result in a "4 megaton explosion" (that's off by about a million as this is the yield of a thermonuclear weapon, a plant isn't a bomb), claiming that the plant would render Europe uninhabitable (no such thing is possible), to portrayals of radiation sickness in Pripyat (the residents received about 3 x-rays worth of radiation), portrayal of radiation sickness as weirdly contagious (which it is not), and so on.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago

ttul 5y ago

I can think of no good strategic reason to take over Chernobyl. I think Putin did it just to create terror. Knowing that the actual risk of a catastrophe is small, it’s a low risk way to make everyone else terrified of what Russia might do. Low cost, high yield - if you are a despot.

jcranmer 5y ago
Chernobyl is along one of the very few roads into Kyiv from the north west of the Dnieper. If you're trying to surround Kyiv, you'd be very hardpressed to avoid going by Chernobyl.
adventured 5y ago
> I can think of no good strategic reason to take over Chernobyl. If you're going to try to annex Ukraine, you're going to take Chernobyl. Of course there are very good strategic reasons (including the location issue, as mentioned by another comment) to take over all nuclear facilities and electricity production in the nation you're trying to annex. What kind of annexation is it if you don't take the electricity production facilities and all the nuclear plants? If you do, what, leave all the nuclear power plants under the control of the Ukrainian Government and its proxies? It would be wildly irrational in terms of strategy. One of the first things you'd want to accomplish, if you can, is to seize utilities and be able to control their function (for all manner of reasons), as well as controlling anything nuclear related.
politician 5y ago
It's a great prize. They can blackmail the West for funds to maintain it forever now, then use the funds for other things like yachts.
- kadoban 5y ago
  That's not going to work at all. Russia would look weak asking, the West wouldn't be that stupid, and Russia has easier ways to do damage if they really want to start playing with nukes.
shrubble 5y ago

adventured 5y ago

The problem is that many of those workers won't be willing to return. Chernobyl is facing a disaster unless Russia drafts its own people in to operate it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

eyelidlessness 5y ago

Link to the actual article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/20/chernobyl-workers-leave/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/20/chernobyl-wo... Besides being the original reporting, it won’t hijack your back button or come with bonus hate content just below the fold.