MarzMartini

www.angelfire.com/extreme...page2.html

As posted on /.

Kanyli

Very very cool, thanks for posting.

velvetsilence

Yes very cool, it's amazing how little info there was at the time this happened. and how it's something so many people have forgotten about.

Jensae1

Pretty interesting to see the pictures of the outlying areas many years after.

On the bottom picture of page 11, you can actually see the building that housed the reactor that melted down. You can see the reinforced looking wall that was erected around it to contain the building at the bottom center of the image (the wall of course extends around the building).

Actually, that picture is a bit outdated, there now exists a dome structure covering that reactor vessel (I think.. they were supposedly in the process of building it last I heard). It was erected because the original 'sarcophogus' (what they called the reinforced walls they built up around it after it melted down) was inadequate, and there was a possibility that the roof would collapse and end up spraying the very fine radioactive dust inside the building over a very large area.

Also, the pictures may give a misleading appearance. They look fallen over and wrecked in many ways. This wasnt due directly to the 'explosion' of the reactor, but simply due to weather and decay. The only thing the 'explosion' directly destroyed was the reactor vessel and it's building.

Chernobyl was a reactor that overheated and caused it's coolant water to boil. Eventually this steam exerted enough pressure to separate and lift the Reactor Vessel Closure Head (think of it as a cap on a bottle - which weighed 3000tons.. quite a lot of force). This exposed the reactor core to the air. The steam 'exploded' (actually just expanded rapidly) out of the reactor vessel and shot against the roof, collapsing the roof.

With no coolant, the temperature quickly rose to the point that the metal melted. It subsequently melted through the floor and into the basement, where it finally began to cool, and resolidified. It is still there, and looks like a glittery cloudy glass - it's actually very pretty. Dont get too close though, you'd die within 20 minutes of exposure.

In any case, the steam that rose out of the reactor vessel carried with it pieces of the radioactive core. It rose high into the air, and with the wind distributed this 'radioactive cloud' over a very large expanse. This is where the major problem of Chernobyl came in. If it wasnt for that, the meltdown would have been a local problem for just the site itself.

Just some interesting trivia, and a quick and dirty 'what happened' for those that might be interested.

And again, an interesting photo journey.

Oh, one final thing - there's still 3 other reactors that are currently operational at Chernobyl... The reactor that 'exploded' was merely one of 4 operational ones at that site (in different buildings). How's that make ya feel? :evil

Tierfin

damn, that was crazy =/

jensae russian?

giena

Bah, the link is broken now. But good post Jensae, I had forgotten some of those details.

Holejumper

Any meltdowns that didn't make the news that you learned about in nuke school Jensae? That would be interesting... Of course don't tell me anything you'd have to kill me for.

Jensae1

Well.. there was the time the army and the air force were allowed to play with nuclear power, ages ago.

All that can be said there is: 'dont let kids play with dangerous toys. Leave the tough stuff to the professionals'

But no, no big meltdowns that you probably havent heard of already. There was the russian sub a long time back (with the funny-as-hell-inaccurate movie, K-19 or whatever), and 3-Mile Island of course (which was WAY overblown - a VERY minor incident at a slow news time that got entirely too much air time from ignorant press people looking for a story). But that's about it.

The Chernobyl reactor that melted down was a bad design - it had aspects of positive feedback which any design/engineering person knows is bad juju. Basically the way they had it designed, when the temperature of the cooling water went up, the power of the reactor went up, which raised the temperature, which raised the power, and so on. Why would they use a design like that? No idea.. ask a russian.

Nuclear power got a bad rap in the US. Ask the French what they think about nuclear power and how 'unsafe and unclean' it is...

Korlis

Not very good using chemicals that explode on contact with moisture either to help control Chernobyl only separated by metal to water.

moglor34

Here's a good report on it too.

Good Video