Reactor Meltdowns:
At a nuclear power plant, an isotope of uranium or plutonium undergoes fission to produce energy; it also produces radioactive products and the concern with reactor meltdowns is that the poisonous materials would escape. This can happen via the failure of the core cooling system when the core melts and the elevated temperatures cause explosions. Regarding the text of the play, this probably happened after the grid went off as the electricity and back-up generators would fail eventually. Interestingly, the explosions in this situation are different than those of nuclear weapons, since the weapons require enriched isotopes that aren’t used in plants. |
Case Study: Chernobyl
In the evening of April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, USSR suffered a major, major meltdown when a power surge during a systems test triggered uncontrollable reaction conditions. When an emergency shutdown was attempted, a larger power spike occurred which led to a reactor vessel rupture and steam explosions which exposed the graphite of the reactor to ignite (ruins pictured). This ignition triggered a week of fires to send radioactive materials into the atmosphere which fell as fallout over the western USSR and Europe. The original explanation blamed the workers, but declassified KGB documents revealed structural damages caused by negligence during construction of the plant and reactor. So while human error did contribute, it wasn’t the sole reason.
While at first unadvisable for citizens of Pripyat to leave their homes due to the hotspots of fallout on the main road – despite reports only hours later of illness, vomiting, and headaches –, a 10-km exclusion zone forced the evacuation of nearly 50,000 people thirty-six hours after the meltdown and subsequently another 68,000 from Chernobyl itself. Interestingly, air pollution of large city-centers, like Kiev, may have a worse effect than slightly radioactive areas in more rural areas. With that being said, a 2008 UNSCEAR report found a global collective dose of radiation exposure as equivalent to an extra 21 days of world exposure to natural radiation while the recovery workers received a dose equivalent to an extra fifty years each. The Chernobyl Forum, a group of UN agencies founded in 2003 at the International Atomic Energy Agency to examine the effects of Chernobyl, predicted a death toll of 4,000 due to radiation sickness and cancer from those most exposed (200,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000 residents of the most contaminated areas). Furthermore, it has been determined that the radioactive material released from the meltdown was 400 times more than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but only 1/100 to 1/1000 of the amount released during Cold War weapons tests. Environmental aftermath includes things like high levels of radiation in fish above a safe consumption level and – despite governmental indications that the Pripyat River was not affected – Kiev’s source of drinking water changed. Furthermore, a four square-mile area of the nearby forest absorbed so much pollution that the trees died and the area, known as the Red Forest (pictured bottom left), is one of the most contaminated areas today; there are concerns that as the trees decay they will affect ground water.
In the evening of April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, USSR suffered a major, major meltdown when a power surge during a systems test triggered uncontrollable reaction conditions. When an emergency shutdown was attempted, a larger power spike occurred which led to a reactor vessel rupture and steam explosions which exposed the graphite of the reactor to ignite (ruins pictured). This ignition triggered a week of fires to send radioactive materials into the atmosphere which fell as fallout over the western USSR and Europe. The original explanation blamed the workers, but declassified KGB documents revealed structural damages caused by negligence during construction of the plant and reactor. So while human error did contribute, it wasn’t the sole reason.
While at first unadvisable for citizens of Pripyat to leave their homes due to the hotspots of fallout on the main road – despite reports only hours later of illness, vomiting, and headaches –, a 10-km exclusion zone forced the evacuation of nearly 50,000 people thirty-six hours after the meltdown and subsequently another 68,000 from Chernobyl itself. Interestingly, air pollution of large city-centers, like Kiev, may have a worse effect than slightly radioactive areas in more rural areas. With that being said, a 2008 UNSCEAR report found a global collective dose of radiation exposure as equivalent to an extra 21 days of world exposure to natural radiation while the recovery workers received a dose equivalent to an extra fifty years each. The Chernobyl Forum, a group of UN agencies founded in 2003 at the International Atomic Energy Agency to examine the effects of Chernobyl, predicted a death toll of 4,000 due to radiation sickness and cancer from those most exposed (200,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000 residents of the most contaminated areas). Furthermore, it has been determined that the radioactive material released from the meltdown was 400 times more than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but only 1/100 to 1/1000 of the amount released during Cold War weapons tests. Environmental aftermath includes things like high levels of radiation in fish above a safe consumption level and – despite governmental indications that the Pripyat River was not affected – Kiev’s source of drinking water changed. Furthermore, a four square-mile area of the nearby forest absorbed so much pollution that the trees died and the area, known as the Red Forest (pictured bottom left), is one of the most contaminated areas today; there are concerns that as the trees decay they will affect ground water.
The "elephant's foot" is a hugely radioactive piece of nuclear waste that is expected to reamin toxic for 100,000 years. Being in the same room for it as an hour will lead to death.
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Three Mile Island:
The cause of the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown was the result of operator attempts to fix a blockage in a condensate polisher, which clean loop water. However, the usual method of breaking through did not work and subsequently a bit of water passed into an air line, which caused some pumps to turn off and cause a turbine trip to perform an emergency shutdown in which the control rods were inserted into the core to halt the chain reaction. However, the reactor kept generating heat and, since the turbine was off, it was unable to be removed. Also, due to the valve issues, the core did not have enough water to cover it. Furthermore, a control panel gave a false reading of the valve being open, thus operators were unaware of the issue. Thus, boiling inside the reactor and the build-up of pressure caused the meltdown of the core, but the containment chamber was undamaged. Despite claims made by government and nuclear entities that nothing was really affected, residents and anti-nuclear activists have countered these claims with their own experiences: it remains a very controversial situation. There's a nice animated graphic here on what happened. |