Will Russian nuclear incompetence bone Europe again?

You would think they'd do whatever it took after Chernobyl.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2640425.ece

 

I love the fact that we are sitting back and tut tutting as if it is Russia's problem. We've known about this and a plethora of other incredibly dangerous Russian nuclear facilities that were seriously failing before the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of Communist Russia.

There is a single lack of urgency when it comes to nuclear material that is almost akin to suicide. The nuclear reactors of Chernobyl are still tic ticking away and nobody has done enough about the concrete casement protecting us from the contents, but it is leaking, cracking and threatening to collapse in on the old station below. They've stated that if the roof does collapse, the dust and material spewed out into the atmosphere could easily be carried around Europe and far beyond causing massive health issues. This has been evident for years as the work conducted originally on the shoring up of the site was piss poor. Frankly, the concrete was never up to the job.

There is a massive stock pile of nuclear reactors sitting inside leaking, sinking and already sunk submarines and other sea-going vessels in the North of Russia that have been literally rotting into the sea for as long as I can recall. The massive ice breaking Russian ships that proudly crushed their way through frozen waters required large nuclear turbines on-board and they are no longer required. They were decommissioned and Russia lacked the funds & technical expertise to deal with the problem. So, they stuck them all into a stupid port in Northern Russia (Siberia I think) and just turned their backs. Something akin to "if I don't see it, perhaps it's not really there".

On the verge of collapse, old communist Russia was actually bankrupt and had nothing left to provide the necessary funding to salvage the reactors safely. They are a proud nation who felt crushed by their state collapsing and Communism coming to such an abrupt end. I often wonder just how many Russians look back on those days with affection as their Russia disappeared down a plug hole. Although it is fast becoming a rich nation in terms of oil wealth, it is a tiny, tiny percentage of the population. I remember hearing that less than 10 Russians owned up to 60% of Russia's wealth. I'm no expert, but I can well believe it. These same people are generally not putting wealth back into the country, but funding lavish life styles elsewhere.

A Russian submarine actually sank, taking it's deadly cargo to the bottom of the waters relatively close to Norway. It's still there, anyone want to bet on how long it takes for a submarine to fall apart? People have pondered over how to safely raise a nuclear reactor from the bottom of an ocean.

Those nuclear rods sitting in a stock pile are the tip of a rusting, degrading, ticking time bomb and Russia is ill equipped to deal with it. They may have a new economic wealth, but the regime appears to be as arrogant and ignorant as ever. It's actually everyones problem. Perhaps in time we'll see another Chernobyl, yet considering the size and scale of Chernobyl and it's reactors I think it's more likely that we'd be wishing it was just another Chernobyl. The truth is there are many similar situations scattered across Russia all waiting to become place names we recognise for all the wrong reasons.

Nevermind it's all going to kick off in someone elses back yard and if we are lucky it'll take decades to go nuclear.

 

Welcome to Europe. Its been like that since 1945 and it will untill we wont do something against it..It surely isnt a nice time for us in that way...but anyway, we'll make through it :lol:

 

Atomic reactors aren't just a problem in Russia. Thing is, every place that has nuclear power plants has to deal with these questions, i.e. where to put the waste, how long to keep them running vs. how safe it is vs. how much it costs, etc. Russia seems to illustrate the worst case scenario in many ways - nuclear materials out in the open where anyone could get thier hands on them, poisoning the environment, etc.

Well, what can you do? Short of rasing the money to actually pay to have these reactors and sites cleaned up, I don't know. In fact, that's probably the best solution right there - since the Russians don't have any money, how about throwing a few funrasiers for them, or if you don't trust the oligarchs to do their jobs, rasing the money and convincing the Russian government to contract it to a trustworthy 3rd party (the IAEA for instance.) Hell, I'll donate to that.

 

Denmark has no Nuclear plants, but we have been neighbour to quite a few nuclear plants over the years. One of them was Barsebäck in Sweden , and Chernobyl, and some German plants too. Anyway, now Chernobyl is gone, and Barsebäck is closed, but the danger of some bad accident is always evident.

 

Russia in my view operates a "don't ask, we won't tell, I ain't even looking myself" policy. We have let them get away with it for far too long. Look at the incident in London recently.

Typically, Russia comes out blaming everyone else and refusing to allow the main alleged culprit to stand trial in the UK. A murder of such political significance, with such widespread implications to public health and national security. It was like something from a Bond movie on our doorstep. That kind of shit was happening back in the 50's and 60's, probably even into the late 70's, but not in modern Europe?

Counter intelligence they cried! MI5 were trying to recruit the suspect and use him to get information on the Kremlin and Putin's activities. Damning if true, absolutely brilliant strategy if not. All the guns point towards one another like something from a Tarantino film written by John Le Carre!

Are these the people we are discussing the possibility of coming to any agreement over the closure of reactors and the safe deactivation of highly toxic substances?

It depends on how you feel about nuclear energy I guess. Three Mile Island (1979) changed opinion in the USA, whereas Windscale (1957) was UK's worst nuclear disaster. Has the intervening time made us complacent and do we really think it is a problem "over there"? The issue as you pointed out is that any nuclear issue is a major and generally not a remote or localised problem. Any accident where radioactive material is involved means full-scale disaster.

The East-West German border used to be a common cross over point for stolen radioactive material. I've heard a few stories about those poor souls attempting to smuggle material, often badly stored through to the West. One story I heard first hand and can probably be verified easily online (if I could be bothered). The German post offices in Berlin had Geiger counters installed after suspect packages turned up coming through general post. What alerted them was the weight of the small packs. I mean, lead is heavy!

So, these geiger counters would tic, tic away and prove that people were willing to toast your Postie from Eastern Europe, the then failing Russian states and post it directly through unsecure postal services bringing fear, health issues and potentially death to anyone caught in the middle.

I mean, if you had wanted this material and expected a UPS delivery of Plutonium, how are you going to answer your door without arousing suspicion?

"Yeah.... could you just leave the package in the lead box at the end of my garden... back off and I'll get it in a minute. What this? Oh, a fancy dress outfit. I am an astronaut..."

You can look at a pile of rotting rods and you can look at the burgeoning terrorist states just dying (literally) to get their hands on some of the material lying around. It is a commodity, it is also probably a more accurate means of establishing a threat. Dirty bombs need no reaction, they only need conventional means of detonation and that conveys the radioactive material into the surrounding atmosphere. That is a great immediate threat, but in time those rotting rods will eventually do something. All radioactive material by definition is a health threat to us either in it's raw form, processed form, spent form or waste stage.

What puzzles me greatly is that in the UK today we are considering building more nuclear reactor sites in order to establish cleaner energy sources at the same time as the debate plods on as to what to do with the waste material? Every study into that side fails to reach a workable conclusion.

That to me is insane!

 

But Chernobyl is not really gone... It's under a pile of crumbling concrete. It's like trying to contain radioactive material under a pile of cookies and slowly the rain is eating away. That concrete is substandard stuff. They had to encase that nuclear sucker incredibly quickly, under unbelievable time pressures with the biggest health risk anyone could imagine baring down on them. Those workers in my opinion did the best they could given the experience they had, the tools at hand, the resources available and at their own risk. Hats off to them. What have we done since? Not a great deal.

 

I read in a recent issue of National Geographic about a recent expedition inside chernobyl, it was erie stuff...besides that, apparently they (Russians, someone!) are building an incasement off site from chernobyl that they'll roll into place over the crumbling sector to seal it off...Not sure if thats what there planning to do, or are actually doing it.....

 

Ive been in radioactive contamined zones in Belarus
five times (mostly Cs137 & Sr90 areas).
Belarus got 72% of the Chernobyl fallout. Because pilots shot
the cloud down, 21 years ago.
The RBMK 1000 reactor of Chernobyl has had 32 - 33
(mostly) architecture bugs. This was
known in 1983, three years before block IV exploded. But the
russian leadership never really explained them to the workers.
Chernobyl had no steel cage, only a top (2000 tons).
If the same situation would happen in a western reactor the
explosion would become more aggressive because of the
"steel cage" around the reactor (Chernobyl was 0,2 - 0,3 Kt),
which is unofficiall data I got from independent belarussian
scientists.

There are many apps which are still similiar in design, nearly
all are time-bombs:

# Ignalina - Lithanuia (northwest)
# Sosnowij Bor - St. Petersburg
# Smolensk - western border of Russia
# high-risk RBMK - 40 km southeast of Kursk / Russia
# Medzamor - Armenia
# Kosloduj - Bulgaria
can't remember all of them, have to search the list.

many of them supported by european money.

1) If an american or european reactor would explode and cause damage
like Chernobyl it'll be a damage of 2 - 5 trillion dollars(or more, in USA).
2) That means export stop for all goods (goodby ebay).
And who is gonna clean it up?
3) Atomic energy is not renewable.
4) Atomic energy and atomic weapons are siamese twins.
5) Uranium will end in 60 years (if new apps are build, it will last shorter)
6) If you want to displace 10 % of fossile fuels by the year 2050 you have to build 1000 new apps.
6b Fusion technology (ITER / France) will be ready in 2050 - too late
for climate change.
7) In Germany we had 114 notifiable failures in our apps, in 2005.
8) The IAEA denies any connection between blood cancer and
radiation. Experts say: "People in Belarus get ill because they
are poor and they are afraid of radiation - this causes illnes
(Chernoby-Phobia)." Ive heard this a lot. This is crazy, but this what
they are saying.
8b) ICRP turned around the ALARA principle.
9) IAEA has a contract with the WHO (since the 80ies)
which does not allow the WHO to post results about Chernobyl
death toll, unless the IAEA has verifyied it.
So both are saying: "32 died" - up to "5000 will die".
10) Former general secretary of the IAEA Hans Blix said in
1986, the world could handle a yearly Chernobyl.

After my four years of "research" I think
up to 800.000 people died because of Chernobyl.
You can't prove it, because former USSR split in pieces a long time ago.
Its not possible to track all the liquidators down.
(remember: many have died)

Does someone know the Tscheljabinsk Accident?

http://archive.greenpeace.org/mayak/index.html
map (by german university): http://www.physik.uni-oldenburg.de/epol/public_html/risiko/mapcaesium.gif


In April 2006 (the 20th Chernobyl year) Ive been in the "German
Bundestag" (Governement) together with many other belarussian /
german NGOs.
http://www.life-upgrade.com/bundestag01.jpg
http://www.life-upgrade.com/bundestag02.jpg
We told them, that in Belarus poor, old, illegal
immigrants and other people are living in contamined areas. After that
some german (speaking) people came to me and said: "How old are you?"
I said: "24"
They answered: "We would never have said such things if we were in your
age. Where did you get your information?"
It told them: "From independent belarussian scientists and people who are
living in contamined areas."
They said: "We don't believe you."

I cant post the names of those people from whom I got all the information, because they are belarussian people.
Belarus does not allow
unofficiall information about Chernobyl (if youre a belarussian doctor
you can loose your job). If you critisize the government as a belarussian
citizen in public, you'll get 6 months in jail - one of the latest laws.

I don't want to be misunderstood, Belarus is a beautiful country,
I have many friends there, but atomic power is a thing of the past
(too expensive, too dangerous) and the IAEA is neither ethic nor
scientific in my opinion.
The UNDP created a Chernobyl program for the people: CORE
CORE tells the people: "Come back into contamined areas and
live there, we can descale the radioactive areas..."
Would you like to live in 40 Curie / km² village with your children?
They have no choice.

Ive made a website about my trips to Belarus (also with information about Chernobyl)
- sorry, it's in german language: http://www.life-upgrade.com

selfmade movies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hf-QVovd5I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXt0yyc4izc
hopefully this is not against guidlines, thanks for reading, make your own opinion

 

Parris you are forgetting the part, that in reality the story about all the radioactive material is there, is a giant lie. In reality the cloud that went up after the explosion contained most of the radioactive stuff, and well Scandinavia (Denmark included) had their share of Radioactivity. Even though the politicians says something else, and proclaims "that Denmark was lucky not getting any radioactivity". It is bogus. But anyway , where I have my information about the radioactive matter was from some English documentary , where they went into the old power plant. So, again you have to find sources of information. And my source was that documentary I can´t remember the name off.

 

God, I hope so. We're talking about broken down plants, we haven't even gotten into nuclear waste, tons and tons of the stuff, all of which has a half life of 3.5 billion years.

In the 1960s the British Governmnet just dumped tons and tons of it into the ocean, over the Atlantic deep sea trenches, just inside of normal oil drums. Thankfully the stuff is thicker than water and won't mix, but now there's like a river of toxic sludge flowing back and forth along the Mid Atlantic ridge, doing God knows what to the marine life down there.

Here in this country many of the Nuclear plants have "missing" material, as in they cannot account in where it is (which usually means they dumped it somewhere illegally.) Then we have this Yucca Mountain fiasco, where they were going to build a permanment storage facility, that becasue it would have to last for thousands of years was going to be made to look all evil like something out of the Lord of the Rings (not kidding, do a google for the concept art, it looks like Mount. Doom or something.) Then they find out the facility isn't as "safe" as they thought it would be, and to actually store any waste there would poison the ground water for miles around.

Just seems like the whole nuclear industry has been a joke from day one.

 

I can't really understand what you mean by this post, sorry! If you are suggesting that radioactive material on the site of the failed reactor does not exist, then regrettably that isn't correct. If however you are saying the amount of material thrown into the atmosphere was over-estimated and in reality Chernobyl has had less impact on Europe then I'd again have to disagree.

The post just placed here by Qirex-rd looks incredibly detailed and initially very impressive. However not being that closely linked to any scientific research and clearly not having visited the area I couldn't give an opinion on many of the comments made, but the truth remains that radioactive clouds passed over Europe and the impact would be incredibly difficult to assess. It did happen and is not some conspiracy theory. If nothing else it does tend to suggest that the scientific community may harbor differing opinions. Who's to know whether in fact data & speculation is being provided by the people allied to the pro-Nuclear lobby?

Wow! This thread could indeed become an incredibly complex beast with all sorts of opinions thrown in!

Love them or loath them, these guys tend to just say it how it is: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/nuclear/a-bad-month-for-blair

 

Parris: no I am not saying, there isn´t radioactive material there, but the Geiger counter isn´t beeping that much, like they say it does. But alot of the radiactive material went up in the cloud from when the plant went boom. But maybe I am too tired to think straight, but there are some lies too, about Chernobyl.

 

I'm sure there are, as with any such disaster there are people willing to twist events and situations to their own advantage or use bogus science to apparently expose the truth or deny rumors. However you pan it out, I am not about to go stepping inside that concrete bunker and licking the paint work to prove either your theory or disprove mine.

It's also a vastly complex discussion topic.... thanks for posting it up there first poster! Got me thinking about it, and it never hurts to be reminded!

 

Kraftwerk-Radioactivity .-. .- -.. .. --- .- -.-. - .. ...- .. - -..-- R A D I O A C T I V I T YTschernobyl, Harrisburgh, Sellafield, Hiroshima Tschernobyl, Harrisburgh, Sellafield, Hiroshima Stop radioactivity Is in the air for you and me Stop radioactivity Discovered by Madame Curie Chain reaction and mutation, contaminated population Stop radioactivity Is in the air for you and me Morse: Radioactivity is in the air for you and me Radioactivity discovered by madame Curie Radioactivity is in Stop radioactivity ... --- ... ... --- ... ... --- ... ... --- ... ... --- ... ... --- ... ... --- ... ... --- ... R A D I O A C T I V I T Y R A D I O A C T I V I T Y Tschernobyl, Harrisburgh, Sellafield, Hiroshima Tschernobyl, Harrisburgh, Sellafield, Hiroshima Stop radioactivity Is in the air for you and me Stop radioactivity Discovered by Madame Curie Chain reaction and mutation, contaminated population Stop radioactivity Is in the air for you and me ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- The live version is even more atmospheric.

 

If it interests you to count the clicks WDK (and anyone else)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101OEaksU0s&mode=related&search=

 

Hmmm very interesting. And scary. I had no idea, it was still that radiated.

 

I had no idea so many people were Anti-Nuclear in here.

Personally, I'm Pro-Nuclear. I must say, I am enjoying your debate on the topic though.

 

I'm not pro or anti nuclear as such. My ex father-in-law was an amazingly intelligent engineer working for BNFL (he has now retired) and he was so skilled with his sharp engineering practice & hands. He could literally make anything from whatever substance you gave him. In many ways he is precisely the type of person you'd want to be working in such an environment.

Such precision engineering is ultimately what drives things forward and ensures the highest degree of accuracy and safety. With him at the helm I was always assured that the best of British engineering was in place to overcome whatever obstacles were placed in front of them.

There are a number of issues however. I personally have always felt, and this is something I tried to discuss with him and failed to get anywhere with, was that it is all very well processing the raw material and creating electricity, but it is another squaring the books & safeguarding the waste material sufficiently.

The length of time required, lax attitudes to safety, human error, mechanical failure, terrorism, political will or natural disaster cannot be sufficiently estimated and factored into any nuclear facility to ensure that the spent fuel rods, waste or contaminated materials involved are 100% safe.

The cost of constructing such sites, operating them, safely decommissioning them and then guarding them for generations to come seems uneconomical and had been proven to be.

Why on earth is anyone considering even introducing further nuclear sites without pondering on the risk it places on health, national safety and safe, long term storage?

There have been several studies looking into that last point and thus far nobody has found anywhere suitable or remotely appropriate. It's akin to us deciding today to continue to use our toilets, but take out the infrastructure such as sewage systems and treatment plants. I can still go to the bathroom, but where is all the waste product going and can it be safely disposed of, treated and dealt with?

Some of the Greenpeace material I just read through was actually quite stark and of course it is their remit to consider the worst case scenarios and report on every little incident. They are very much anti-nuclear and they are not going to give you both sides of the debate. The shock tactics of seeing their video is hard hitting.

However, even factoring out the threat posed by terrorism or sufficient disposal facilities, there is always human and / or mechanical failure.

It's like that old question "Where would you rather be in an accident? A) 30,000feet up in a plane or B) on the ground in a train". Frankly, I know where I'd rather be regardless of how nice & shiny the plane is, the billions of $ put into safety mechanisms and the hundreds of man hours clocked up by the pilot & co-pilot. The simple laws of physics always win! People die in both, but you stand more of a chance when things aren't esculated.

One last point. I also think that going Nuclear makes us sloppy and inefficient. We should all be investing in renewable & enviromentally acceptable generation methods. The fact is that currently the shortfall cannot be met by conventional methods and Tony Blair's arguement has always been that Nuclear energy offered us the opportunity to literally circumvent the need to invest time in new energies as time is something we don't have. Why not? Perhaps it is the lack of political will and investment placed in areas such as renewable energies in years gone by when people started to discuss globally warming (for example) that has led to this issue? TB had 10 years to pull his finger out and didn't, now he is suggesting we take his advice. The same advice he never took, which is precisely why he is giving it. He can walk away without having to actually make any decision on it.

Did you know it was actually Margaret Thatcher, with her science background that initially kick started Britains interest in global warming? What happened in that intervening time frame?

I think this thread is interesting too - it could so easily become a bloated fat heffer from hell however, with me causing most of the side issues. I just don't think you can mention nuclear without discussing political gesturing and double standards. Can nuclear nations really expect other non-nuclear states to remain so? It's becoming a hot topic and being allowed to get bogged down because the very nations saying "no, you cannot have it" are the same nations saying "we need to increase our dependency on it". Dumb, dumb, dumb!

There wasn't a single capital investor willing to consider putting their money into nuclear energy in the UK when Tony Blair started discussing the plans to increase investement. What does that tell you?

 

So its time to say "shit" i think...
Shit.

qirex-rd, how about radioactive garbage reuse? I thought Rubbia did some research on that and he got something out of it, like a reactor which uses actually the radioactive garbage..or at least up to a percentage of it as its fuel..