Results 1 to 20 of 20

Thread: Chernobyl cooking again

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,812

    Default Chernobyl cooking again

    This is from some magazine called Science, so there is a much higher than average chance that it is just more agenda driven bullshit...


    ‘It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit.’ Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl
    By Richard StoneMay. 5, 2021 , 11:20 AM

    Thirty-five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident, fission reactions are smoldering again in uranium fuel masses buried deep inside a mangled reactor hall. “It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit,” says Neil Hyatt, a nuclear materials chemist at the University of Sheffield. Now, Ukrainian scientists are scrambling to determine whether the reactions will wink out on their own—or require extraordinary interventions to avert another accident.

    Sensors are tracking a rising number of neutrons, a signal of fission, streaming from one inaccessible room, Anatolii Doroshenko of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) in Kyiv, Ukraine, reported last week during discussions about dismantling the reactor. “There are many uncertainties,” says ISPNPP’s Maxim Saveliev. “But we can’t rule out the possibility of [an] accident.” The neutron counts are rising slowly, Saveliev says, suggesting managers still have a few years to figure out how to stifle the threat. 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, Hyatt notes. “It’s a similar magnitude of hazard.”

    The specter of self-sustaining fission, or criticality, in the nuclear ruins has long haunted Chernobyl. When part of the Unit Four reactor’s core melted down on 26 April 1986, uranium fuel rods, their zirconium cladding, graphite control rods, and sand dumped on the core to try to extinguish the fire melted together into a lava. It flowed into the reactor hall’s basement rooms and hardened into formations called fuel-containing materials (FCMs), which are laden with about 170 tons of irradiated uranium—95% of the original fuel.

    The concrete-and-steel sarcophagus called the Shelter, erected 1 year after the accident to house Unit Four’s remains, allowed rainwater to seep in. 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. After a downpour in June 1990, a “stalker”—a scientist at Chernobyl who risks radiation exposure to venture into the damaged reactor hall—dashed in and sprayed gadolinium nitrate solution, which absorbs neutrons, on an FCM that he and his colleagues feared might go critical. Several years later, the plant installed gadolinium nitrate sprinklers in the Shelter’s roof. But the spray can’t effectively penetrate some basement rooms.

    Chernobyl officials presumed any criticality risk would fade when the massive New Safe Confinement (NSC) was slid over the Shelter in November 2016. The €1.5 billion structure was meant to seal off the Shelter so it could be stabilized and eventually dismantled. The NSC also keeps out the rain, and ever since its emplacement, neutron counts in most areas in the Shelter have been stable or are declining.

    But they began to edge up in a few spots, nearly doubling over 4 years in room 305/2, which contains tons of FCMs buried under debris. ISPNPP modeling suggests the drying of the fuel is somehow making neutrons ricocheting through it more, rather than less, effective at splitting uranium nuclei. “It’s believable and plausible data,” Hyatt says. “It’s just not clear what the mechanism might be.”

    The threat can’t be ignored. As water continues to recede, the fear is that “the fission reaction accelerates exponentially,” Hyatt says, leading to “an uncontrolled release of nuclear energy.” There’s no chance of a repeat of 1986, when the explosion and fire sent a radioactive cloud over Europe. A runaway fission reaction in an FCM could sputter out after heat from fission boils off the remaining water. Still, Saveliev notes, although any explosive reaction would be contained, it could threaten to bring down unstable parts of the rickety Shelter, filling the NSC with radioactive dust.

    Addressing the newly unmasked threat is a daunting challenge. Radiation levels in 305/2 preclude getting close enough to install sensors. And spraying gadolinium nitrate on the nuclear debris there is not an option, as it’s entombed under concrete. One idea is to develop a robot that can withstand the intense radiation for long enough to drill holes in the FCMs and insert boron cylinders, which would function like control rods and sop up neutrons. In the meantime, ISPNPP intends to step up monitoring of two other areas where FCMs have the potential to go critical.

    The resurgent fission reactions are not the only challenge facing Chernobyl’s keepers. Besieged by intense radiation and high humidity, the FCMs are disintegrating—spawning even more radioactive dust that complicates plans to dismantle the Shelter. Early on, an FCM formation called the 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,” Saveliev says.

    Ukraine has long intended to remove the FCMs and store them in a geological repository. By September, with help from European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, it aims to have a comprehensive plan for doing so. But with life still flickering within the Shelter, it may be harder than ever to bury the reactor’s restless remains.

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021...rnobyl-reactor

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    St. Pete Beach & Charleston
    Posts
    5,784

    Default

    I watched that show "Chernobyl" on HBO. The soviets didn't care about shit.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,828

    Default

    Borated water is what they need.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Pawleys Island
    Posts
    35,934

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Geetch View Post
    I watched that show "Chernobyl" on HBO. The soviets didn't care about shit.
    They still don’t care.
    Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal? I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.


    You might take out a dozen before they drag you from your home and skull fuck you to death. Marsh Chicken 6/21/2013

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    3,399

    Default

    Nuclear bad.

    Buy Chinese solar panels and wind turbines made by weiger slaves.

    Save planet.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    3,399

    Default

    Based on that whole SCANA ordeal it seems the US doesn’t even have anyone qualified to build a damn reactor if we wanted one.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,828

    Default

    We have the NRC. NRC makes the NCAA look like a well oiled machine of competence.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Bowman
    Posts
    6,421

    Default

    I have a customer who is a nuclear physicist, it’s always interesting to ask him about shit like this til he gets a foot in and I remember that I am too dumb to comprehend it
    cut\'em

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Forest Acres
    Posts
    10,214

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Southernduck View Post
    I have a customer who is a nuclear physicist, it’s always interesting to ask him about shit like this til he gets a foot in and I remember that I am too dumb to comprehend it
    I have a client that makes equipment to monitor control rods. What they do will blur your mind. He has worldwide contracts. Pretty neat.
    It's not enough to simply tolerate the 2nd Amendment as an antiquated inconvenience. Caring for the 2nd Amendment means fighting to restore long lost rights.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,812

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Saltydog235 View Post
    They still don’t care.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,828

    Default Chernobyl cooking again

    @ southernduck

    Next time your in a vehicle with him make sure Jetro Tull’s Aqualung gets played and sing along using the word bremsstrahlung as a replacement. He will be impressed.
    Last edited by Tater; 05-06-2021 at 01:25 PM.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Fountain Out
    Posts
    28,445

    Default

    How you spell bremsstrahlung but not "you're"?!?
    I don't need my name in the marquee lights....

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,812

    Default


  14. #14
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,828

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by LoMein View Post
    How you spell bremsstrahlung but not "you're"?!?
    Call it separating wheat from chaff.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Spartanburg
    Posts
    49,653

    Default

    Lulz

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Wateree, South Carolina
    Posts
    48,812

    Default

    You can all sleep well knowing that any and all bremsstrahlung in these parts is being handled by this guy...


  17. #17
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Blythewood
    Posts
    16,975

    Default

    God, I miss the poker run.
    "Freedom Isn't Free"
    _Spc. Thomas Caughman
    1983-2004

    Quote Originally Posted by Dook View Post
    Go tigers!

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Edisto/Camdenshire
    Posts
    8,387

    Default

    Smartest redneck in SC JAB.
    Quote Originally Posted by walt4dun View Post
    Monsters... Be damned if I'd ever be taken alive by the likes of faggot musslims.
    Quote Originally Posted by 2thDoc View Post
    I am an equal opportunity hater.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Posts
    49,828

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by JABIII View Post
    You can all sleep well knowing that any and all bremsstrahlung in these parts is being handled by this guy...

    That’s why I sleep so well at night. An most of the morning.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Lexington County
    Posts
    5,230

    Default

    Gert!!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •