Chernorbyl 30 Years Later

Overmind One

GateFans Gatemaster
Staff member
I have been following that and also the Fukushima meltdowns for a few years now.


 

shavedape

Well Known GateFan
Crazy stuff.
 

Overmind One

GateFans Gatemaster
Staff member
Crazy stuff.

Very crazy. :(

....RAW DATA from a real world scenario. We have two similar meltdown events in completely different environments. These disasters are providing real world data regarding the long term effects of nuclear meltdown events. I swore off all seafood for three years after Fukushima. I may go back to that, but I will not eat any more scavengers. No more shellfish, no bottom feeding fish, and no scavengers.

Wildlife is thriving in Chernobyl.
 

shavedape

Well Known GateFan
I don't see a need for nuclear power plants to be honest. There are other methods of power generation that don't pose the same danger. After all, it's no longer a question of "if" something will go wrong at a nuclear power plant but rather a question of "when is it going to happen again?"
 

Overmind One

GateFans Gatemaster
Staff member
I don't see a need for nuclear power plants to be honest. There are other methods of power generation that don't pose the same danger. After all, it's no longer a question of "if" something will go wrong at a nuclear power plant but rather a question of "when is it going to happen again?"

I shudder to think how easy it is for these events to happen. And when they do happen, sometimes it goes unreported for some time because the powers that be do not want to face the consequences. There was a meltdown at the Santa Susana Labs in Simi Valley decades ago that was NEVER reported as a meltdown. But the area remained uninhabitable for a decade or so, and incidence of cancer is suspiciously high there


Excerpt:

The Sodium Reactor Experiment-SRE was an experimental nuclear reactor which operated from 1957 to 1964 and was the first commercial power plant in the world to experience a core meltdown. There was a decades-long cover-up by the US Department of Energy.[14] The operation predated environmental regulation, so early disposal techniques are not recorded in detail.[14] Thousands of pounds of sodium coolant from the time of the meltdown are not yet accounted for.[15]

The reactor and support systems were removed in 1981 and the building torn down in 1999.


Everything torn out...except the millions of tons of contaminated soil, which they merely covered up. Google Maps coordinates:

https://www.google.com/maps?espv=2&...ved=0ahUKEwjfoMbKha7MAhVM42MKHfBvD4sQ_AUIBigB
 

Tripler

Well Known GateFan
I ran into a guy here in Toronto a few years back promoting a new wind power design . The design was basically a tall tube of different diameters around with what looked almost like a washing machine wings and no propellers like you see with wind power now . It was silent , took up very little real estate and could be put in your back yard . For some strange reason it never took off , forgive the pun ... It was quite the invention . I was never able to find anything about it online or in flyers anywhere or newsprint ...

:( :( :(
 

Tripler

Well Known GateFan
The same principal but different design ... It basically looked like a thick phone pole with small fins installed in a rising manner like a washing machine . Very clean design . Not ugly like these ...

 

YJ02

Well Known GateFan
Wildlife is thriving in Chernobyl

and seemingly with very few "mutations"

ANIMAL PLANET had a couple of specials on concerning this; one was "RIVER MONSTERS" the fishing show. they had the guy right up next to the reactor fishing in the cooling pond for some huge ass catfish (wels catfish). seems a few of them have developed a mutation for a double lower jaw!

the next show was about life in the zone in general

the ancient horse -Przwalski's horse was intro'd to the area after the disaster are growing in number. only problem is they are dying young due to cumulative radiation intake

over all though, i think that chernobyl shows that the gloom and doom predictions of nuke melts or war were very over done. sure it is nasty, but if it was as bad as say what they depicted in THE DAY AFTER, then it would be truly a disaster

there are even ppl living in the zone--moved back to their old homes as many of them were seen as pariahs after they were resettled

 

YJ02

Well Known GateFan
a very freaky thing going on is the "red forest"

that is the forested area in the immediate downwind hot zone from the reactor

the fallout and direct rad killed the trees and vegetation; made the leaves drop and turned the plants and trees red.

the radiation was and is so strong that none of these trees or fallen leaves have decomposed; the rad levels are so high that the micro flora and bacteria needed to break down the wood and leaves was eliminated and still can not gain any footing

there is such a layer of bio mass on the ground that it is a huge fuel depot for any wild fire

which would create a whole new disaster

if there were to be a forest fire it would set aloft tons of radioactive material into the air creating an event that would be second to the original disaster itself
 

shavedape

Well Known GateFan
Yay Russia! :moody:
 

Overmind One

GateFans Gatemaster
Staff member
a very freaky thing going on is the "red forest"

that is the forested area in the immediate downwind hot zone from the reactor

the fallout and direct rad killed the trees and vegetation; made the leaves drop and turned the plants and trees red.

the radiation was and is so strong that none of these trees or fallen leaves have decomposed; the rad levels are so high that the micro flora and bacteria needed to break down the wood and leaves was eliminated and still can not gain any footing

there is such a layer of bio mass on the ground that it is a huge fuel depot for any wild fire

which would create a whole new disaster

if there were to be a forest fire it would set aloft tons of radioactive material into the air creating an event that would be second to the original disaster itself

Bolded. That is really one to watch, because the first organism which adapts to the radiation and can metabolize this waste will literally explode in population, AND will be naturally resistant to radiation. It will be a super bug unlike any evolved in nature. It could evolve into an organism adapted to consuming living tissue.
 

heisenberg

Earl Grey
This place will take a very, very, very long time for the radiation to completely go away. Both of these catastrophes is down to poor choice really and the lack of proper safeguards in place. No doubt that people will blame this technology because of how much waste it produces, and how "unsafe it is", but there are technology available that makes it quite safe to use but it's about implementing it.

The thing with Fission(the opposite of Fusion) i..e the splitting of the atom, it releases a lot of energy but so does fusion which is merging two smaller atoms together. Fusion is what our sun is doing.By fusing hydrogen atoms to create all the known elements in the periodic table. Of course, there are a lot of elements that are created which have an extremely short life(I mean, fraction of a second) because they have a very short half life(no not the game). However, they do exist.
 

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Chernobyl was down to extremely poor Soviet reactor design (which has shown up since the fall of the Soviet Union in the efforts of Western specialized firms to decommission and dismantle safely the Soviet era reactors both in power plants and in ships). Fukushima was a very old reactor plant where both the government and the operator ignored repeated warnings about vulnerability to Tsunami. Newer reactor designs both produce more power and use much less material in the process (and generate much less waste).
 

YJ02

Well Known GateFan
but there are technology available that makes it quite safe to use but it's about implementing it.

and just WHY don't we build nuke plants deep underground or in a mountain to start with? wouldn't that be safer?
 

YJ02

Well Known GateFan
just think how much more developed/safer the tech would be if we didn't have one side saying how safe it is and the other saying how deadly dangerous it is

it can be both of course but a more mid ground, level approach would have fostered a better way of developing the tech in a much better way

the after effects of chernobyl and the effect on nature as shown that both extreme sides and their opinions should be listened to, but it also shows that the components of nature-especially plant and animal life, is far more adaptable to the hazards then were once touted

remember in THE DAY AFTER, when the ag ext guy was telling everyone how they would have to remove the soil before planting? the ppl and animals who live in the chern exclusion zone (ppl are there illegally) have shown that soil removal is not necessary to grow edible plants. there is the very real problem of cumulative rad levels in the body, but short term/limited use is acceptable
 

Tripler

Well Known GateFan
Chernobyl was down to extremely poor Soviet reactor design (which has shown up since the fall of the Soviet Union in the efforts of Western specialized firms to decommission and dismantle safely the Soviet era reactors both in power plants and in ships). Fukushima was a very old reactor plant where both the government and the operator ignored repeated warnings about vulnerability to Tsunami. Newer reactor designs both produce more power and use much less material in the process (and generate much less waste).

Yes . They modded a standard power plant into a Nuclear Plant ...Morons ...

;) ;) ;)
 
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Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Alas all of the Soviet reactors were built to the highly unsafe RBMK design. Chernobyl Number 4 blew up largely due to the tendency at low power to be unstable and the improperly designed control rods actually caused the reaction to intensify before slowing down. Because of this Western firms assisted the former Soviet Union states in modifying the remainder to make them safer while they are over time decommissioned. Meanwhile a successor reactor is under development in cooperation with the West (MKER) which much more closely resembles Western plants.
 

Rac80

The Belle of the Ball
I don't know if you are commenting on the "documentary" we TRIED to watch on one of the supposedly science channels- but what a load of shit. The people were not dressed in appropriate hazmat stuff for radiation (they were dressed in what is known as medical hazmat- to keep dust and liquids off your skin) and half the people had their suits on only partially - the guy with the baseball hat and no head-covering was a real giveaway. :daniel01: I saw a better discussion of the results of Chernobyl on Life After People (yep one of my fave series. ;) ) That show did NOT attempt to make it look all scary and "dangerous"...the scientists were walking around in street clothes and not messing with ultra sensitive "geiger-counters" but had appropriate ones that were not going nutso like the "fakumentary" had! (mr rac thought they were the type of counters con men used to measure background radiation to scare people about "Radon" in the 90's! ):shep_lol:

The Life after People episode covered the return of wildlife and even people to the area. the "fear-mongering" about a nuclear winter was terribly overdone in the past. ;)
 

YJ02

Well Known GateFan
Yes . The modded a standard power plant into a Nuclear Plant ...Morons ...

;) ;) ;)
Alas all of the Soviet reactors were built to the highly unsafe RBMK design. Chernobyl Number 4 blew up largely due to the tendency at low power to be unstable and the improperly designed control rods actually caused the reaction to intensify before slowing down. Because of this Western firms assisted the former Soviet Union states in modifying the remainder to make them safer while they are over time decommissioned. Meanwhile a successor reactor is under development in cooperation with the West (MKER) which much more closely resembles Western plants.

so i still want to know why they are not built underground? is it just too expensive? is there some other issue with doing that?
 
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