Chernobyl cover-up: Giant shield rolled over nuclear reactor remains

Regarding the wildlife

There are reports that thriving is not quite correct, it seems that biodiversity is not as great, population levels are lower and some species seem to still have problems now due to radiation.

Re: dosage, scientists regularly go inside the reactor building itself, even the most radioactive part which is all the crap that leaked out the bottom of the reactor is relatively safe to work around for a short period now.

As I pointed out elsewhere to people being stupid about this - even huge radiation doses are reasonably treatable with intensive care, it won't implicitly kill you like people imagine. It's very not nice but can be treated, one of the biggest threats is actually infection because it will destroy your immune system. In fact it's intentionally used for that when doing things like marrow transplants. Radiation cancers tend to be from things like getting particles stuck in places you don't want them like the throat or lungs.

Just don't ask Putin how much Russia paid towards the new containment building.

"Did everybody on that path die? Not even close."

Never forget that 100% of people exposed to radiation die! More seriously though:

"Radiation is scary not because it's instant death (yes, it can be, if you're quite literally in front of the reactor) but because of the cumulative effect. So long as you don't let it build too high in your body, too often, it's fine."

That's not really accurate. Radiation doesn't build up in your body in the way that things like heavy metals tend to. In fact, there's decent evidence that constant low exposure to radiation is actually beneficial, since it stimulates the protective and repair systems that fix damage to cells and DNA. The real problem with radiation is that the effects are simply too variable. A low dose might be beneficial, but what exactly counts as low? Is continuous exposure at some level more or less damaging than a single higher exposure? How exactly do short and long-term effects vary with different doses and exposure patterns? And of course, this is all before you start looking at different types and energies of the radiation involved - equivalent doses of alpha, beta and gamma radiation won't all have the same effect.

Of course people have tried to study all this, but given all the variables involved you'd need to deliberately expose tens of millions of people to all kinds of radiation and then follow them around for the next 70 years or so. Even if there weren't any ethical problems with doing that, the logistics make any comprehensive study impossible. We occasionally get lucky (maybe not the best word) and find a useful group to study, such as the well known watch painters, and there's the occasional unethical study, such as the military exposing people to nuclear tests, but this only covers a tiny portion of the question in a completely uncontrolled way. And no matter how well me manage to study the actual effects, that still does nothing for people who aren't radiation workers and so have no idea what dose they might have received anyway.

Radiation is scary to people mainly because it's unknown. You usually can't tell if you've been exposed, even if you somehow know that you usually don't know how much you've been exposed to, and even if you somehow know that it's almost impossible to know what the effects might be. It's not a particularly rational fear given how low the risk of any significant exposure actually is, but fear of the unknown is not exactly uncommon.

Its been 30 years

There's a direct correlation between radioactivity and half life - the worst stuff that's the most radioactive also has the shortest half life. So a lot of that really bad stuff is mostly gone now. There is still plenty of danger from the stuff that will stick around for hundreds of years if you tried to live there full time, but as the wildlife shows you can do that still be OK.

Some wildlife isn't doing as well because the food chain has a way of concentrating radioactivity in certain food sources. i.e. if certain plants are good at taking radioactive substances out of the soil, then anything that eats those plants will get a higher dose than those that eat other plants. And of course carnivores that eat the ones who ate the higher dose plants get a higher dose as well. So some animals are able to continue on and think it is great because there are no people around to bother them, others have a tough time because they're getting particularly concentrated amounts of radiation due to their diet.

" Hell, the wildlife are thriving since all the humans moved out."

But how many heads do the cats have!

The Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement structure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement is some work of engineering! I hope someone makes a program about it. I take my hat off to the designers and builders.

Radiation is not instant death.

"Come on in; the fallout is lovely!"

A Dustbin of Milligan by the magnificent Spike.

Goon, but not forgotten.

I have to agree, I have been to the zone 3 times now over a few years for photographic trips and it's not that bad. We have been stood on the 'safe' side of the concrete door into reactor 4 for a few minutes and no danger has come.

It is all about exposure and time, short hit is not that bad and your body will repair the DNA faster.

We observed higher radiation from the flight from the UK to Ukraine than the week spent free roaming Pripyat.

It would appear that exposure to humans is more dangerous than exposure to low-level radiation.

Re: If I had lived in Russia in that time..

Marie Curie.

She studied the stuff for years, playing with uranium ore in a shed, and carrying vials of radium in her shirt pocket, not to mention taking X-ray images unprotected, and went on to live for another 30 years before she eventually died

Sure, it wasn't healthy for her, but it's not instantaneous death.

And her lab / papers are STILL radioactive 100 years later.

Radiation, really, is much safer than most people make out. Unless you deliberately make it into a weapon, it's probably safer than TNT.

Re: Good luck to building the same for Fukushima.

"The Chernobyl reactor was destroyed to such a degree (and so radioactive) that the only option was to "bury" it and wait a few dozen years for things to cool off."

It already has done to a significant extent.

People forget that "highly radioactive" also means "won't be radioactive for very long"

Re: Good luck to building the same for Fukushima.

NSC isn't for stabilising the upper bio shield, I don't think anybody dare touch that, they are going to be stripping the roof off the old shield though because it's a mess. IMO the best thing to do would be to fill it with a mix of sand and boron and leave it for a few decades - sand would help protect it if the bio shield did fall.

"In the meantime the cleanup of the reactor will finally start, so there is a good chance the containment won't be needed anymore when this structure hits end of life."

Indoor basejumping park? Waterpark? Snowpark? There must be something fun to do with an enclosed structure of that size once it's all cleaned up :-)

It was a genuine question, although I'm quite pleased I managed to make funny out of something serious!

From what I had read, the dome is meant to last 100 years. Which is a long time, but not longer than the danger posed by what's left of the reactor. In 1988 engineers had said that the current sarcophagus would need replacing in 20/30 years time. It's taken nearly 30 years to get the dome in place so with that track record it'd be prudent to start to do something about it now at least.

That said, 100 years is 100 years and I won't be around to see what they do. And I feel a lot of the people involved are looking to their children and thinking "Meh, I'll let them sort it out". But I've grown up in Birmingham and we have the Spaghetti Junction and that, too, is meant to last 100 years. But it's not even 50 years old and that's falling apart, and it doesn't have the excuse of stupidly high levels of radiation to contend with.

Re: RE: Chernobyl wildlife

The thing about the wildlife is it mostly just dies. It doesnt wander into a clinic complaining of unusual symptoms.

What is good for the wildlife is there aren't many humans wandering around giving it lead poisoning so even if it is irradiated it gets a good chance of reproducing before dropping dead next to the tree that no-one hears fall.

Re: RE: Chernobyl wildlife

"The metal Nickel is supposed to have got its name from Old Nick, the Devil, because of the incidence of birth defects and other illnesses in the Harz Mountains, where leaching from nickel deposits contaminated water. "

Radioactive spots can be detected and cleaned up from a safe distance - and radioactivity dissipates over time.

Chemical poisons and mutagens are forever and tend to be difficult to detect.

@Destroy All Monsters,

Probably not much difference from what happened now. MOX fuel when new contains up to 7% Pu, but usually around 5%. A used standard fuel bundle contains about 1% Pu. In terms of radioactivity Uranium and Plutonium are comparable. It is true MOX fuel would result in more highly radioactive particles on the Corium, but this activity would drop of very quickly as the half-lives of these isotopes are very short.

"it only failed because they weren't prepared for a tsunami."

It was worse than that. Tepco management were told NOT to put the generators where they did, because of the flooding risk, but smiled, said yes - and promptly put them there anyway as soon as the site advisors left. When the disaster struck, it was Tepco management trying to cover up and pretend all was well (sound familiar?) that compounded things. Thankfully the chief engineer onsite grew a pair of gonads and in a most characteristically UNjapanese way told them to go fuck themselves - that point is where everything started to go better.

Fuckupshima really is an example of how badly you have to screw things up to have a nuclear disaster with a modern plant - even a 50 year old one that was over a decade past its planned shutdown date. There were over 20 other nuclear plants along that coastline and none of the others had any problems at all.

Bear in mind that conventional (water moderated) designs have become a whole lot safer since TMI - Fukushima predates that cockup. The improvements include passive safety systems like having control rods able to drop into place when the power goes off instead of being lifted into place, and water circulation systems which will operate using the passive thermosyphon effect in the worst case scenario of pumps failing.

"It's possible that more people died/had shortened lifespans from the stress of worrying about Fukushima, than due to radiation exposure."

I went to a lecture once about Chernobyl where it was stated that far more people died or had shortened life spans as a result of the relocation of population, than from the disaster itself.

I believe in this country (UK) as a result of Chernobyl and other things we are rather better prepared. At least, my GP tells me we are, and he is interested in that kind of stuff.

"Even operating normally, coal power plants kill far more people that nuclear power ever has due to accident."

You could factor in everyone who's ever died of anything remotely related to nuclear research, plus all the deaths related to handling weapons nuclear material, populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and STILL not even make a noticeable dent in the ratio of deaths per terawatt-hour vs coal.

Re: Obligitory XKCD refference

Uranium babies exist for a reason, and it's just due to heavy metal dusting

Coincidentally, "Uranium Babies" would be an excellent name for a heavy metal band

Re: Obligitory XKCD refference

Unfortunately having particles rattling around inside your body is bound to cause more problems than that chart suggests.

The chart captures the radioactive particles currently rattling around your body with the examples of "eating one banana," "yearly dose from natural potassium in your body," and "normal yearly background dose."

Off the top of my head, the average human has carbon-14, potassium-40, uranium-235 and -238, and thorium-232 rattling around in them contributing to the average annual dose. Depending on location, there'll also be inhalation exposure to radon.

Re: Obligitory XKCD refference

"Uranium babies exist for a reason, and it's just due to heavy metal dusting."

The epidemiological effects of uranium are because it's a chemically toxic heavy metal, not because it's radioactive.

Which is a very good reason NOT to use DU bullets to kill tanks.

The uranium vapourises and burns inside the tank, killing the occupants and covering everything with a fine dust, which usually spreads around as the ammunition explodes. When you visit old warzones and see kids playing around dead tanks, you realise this is a VERY BAD THING, when Tungsten would be equally effective and has no long-term health effects. (The reason the US military uses DU is because it's cheap - 75%+ of mined uranium is thrown away as depleted uranium after the enrichment process is done. Moving to Thorium fuel would eliminate the need to mine uranium and thorium reactors can burn DU/Plutonium and most other "high level waste" components of current conventional reactors.)

With a half-life of 30 years, wouldn't Cs137

be around 1024 time less irradiative after 300 years. But 1000 of something that will kill you in a week means is will take 20 years to kill you. And you are assuming that it decays into something harmless - most things tend to keep decaying for many iterations. Caesium decays to radioactive barium 137 - which has gone in a few seconds but Pu238 goes to u234 which is around for 234,000 years and then to Thorium 234 for a month then off to Proactinuim.....

Keep in mind just how much Cesium and Strontium was spread out in the area (Plus some other nasty stuff with longer half-lifes). Even 1/1,000,000th dilutions still leave measurable amounts of radiation. On top of that it seems natural processes tend to concentrate the materials, making some spots safe and others highly dangerous.

Hot and fast or cold and slow

Effects on biological tissue from radioactive materials are not simple to evaluate for a lot of reasons. The rules and guidelines on exposure and intake currently in place are the result of a lot of empirical data and lab testing plus a fudge factor on top i.e. the maximum exposure permitted might be 10% or less of a dosage that produces any noticeable effect at all in trials. There's also the As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) limits which presuppose people shouldn't be exposed to any amounts of man-made radioactive materials at all. Radiation from natural (organic, free-range, cruelty-free, vegan-friendly) isotopes such as potassium-40, carbon-14 and others are tacitly ignored in these limit settings since there's nothing anyone can do to avoid them.

Radioactive isotopes with a short half-life are very "hot" so a small amount will do a lot of damage but it stops being a problem after a few hours, days or weeks. I-131 is one example of a problematic isotope in an accident, with a half-life of 8.5 days so it's "hot" plus it concentrates in the human thyroid gland like regular iodine. That fast decay rate means that a few weeks after any release it stops being a problem.

Very-long lived radioactive materials like U-235 (half-life 700 million years) and U-238 (4 billion years) aren't particularly dangerous in terms of the radiation they produce. They'll be around for a long time but they're not "hot" even in large quantities. It's the medium-life isotopes that escape an accident site that are really a problem -- Cs-137 and Sr-90 are the usual suspects here with half-lives of about 30 years.

"You'd need severe contamination by Pu-239 (24,100 years half-life) for the soil to be dangerous over 500,000 years."

Even with a 24k year halflife, Pu239 is far more dangerous as a toxic heavy metal than as a radiological agent.

Re: Sellafield

I know it is not the done thing to reply to your own posting, but this is such a good read on Cockcroft's Folly/Follies and the Windscale fire, I thought it worthwhile.

https://www.damninteresting.com/the-windscale-disaster/

Re: Sellafield

That's just the problem with 'dual use', innit?