What is Chernobyl?

• -Chernobyl is a city, but also the name for the nuclear power plant.
• -The power plant consisted of 4 reactors.
• -Reactor #5 and 6 were in the process of being constructed.
• -Construction the power plant started in 1978
• -Construction of reactor 4 finished in 1983

Where is Chernobyl?

• -Chernobyl is in northern Ukraine, 10 miles away from Belarus, and about 80 miles north of Kiev.
• -The actual reactor is located 11 miles north of the city of Chernobyl
When did this happen?

How and why did this happen?

• -The reactor #4 was undergoing a test on backup power as a drill in case of a real emergency power loss.
• -The power accidentally fell too low allowing concentraition of nuclear xenon-135 to rise.
• -Pockets of steam formed in the coolant pipes.
• -The control rods inserted melted under the pressure and heat.
• -The melted control rods caused the explosion which blew off the roof
• -This resulted in release of radiation into the surrounding atmosphere
Affect on Humans

• -203 people in the city of Chernobyl were hospitilized
• -The northwest wind from the Black Sea carried the radiation for hundreds of miles
• -The radiation level hot up to 1600, and the normal is between .1 and .4
• -To reduce emission the Chernobyl response team, which was on standby, sprayed the reactor with 5,000 metric tons of sheilding material
• -The sheilding material consisted of lead, boron, sand and clay
Aftermath

• -Within the next 48 hours, the city of Chernobyl and Pipryat were evacuated
• -Evacuation of Belarus and other areas were carried out in stages
• -About 400,000 people had to be evacuated
• -An estimated 100 people died within the following 3 months
• -The city of Chernobyl is now sealed off, and a wildlife reserve
Aftermath(cotd.)

• -Thyroid cancer increased by 4 times
• -Later born children had mutated, along with several species of animals
• -The Pipryat river was very affected, and the water was extremely contaminated with radioactiveness
• -The pine forests in the surrounding area turnred either red or brown and died
• -It is called the red forest
• -20% percent of the farmlands in Belerus were completely removed from producktion
Two Chernobyl plant workers died on the night of the accident, and a further 28 people died within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation poisoning.

Actually, 32 people died due to radiation ARS(acute radiation syndrome)

There are 41 people whose deaths are directly attributable to the Chernobyl disaster. Of these, two died at the scene, four died in a single helicopter accident, 32 died within a few months of Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) and three died later of medical complications probably caused by the accident.

That was a terrible tragedy, and it shook all of mankind. It also caused 235 $billion just in the immediate damage caused by the nuclear explosion. This is over and above the terrible loss of 41 lives and the pain and sufferings of the people due to the exposure to radiation.

The direct expenditure for Chernoby is as follows

Expenditures related to:

• · Actions to seal off the reactor and mitigate the consequences in the exclusion zone;
• · Resettlement of people and construction of new housing and infrastructure to accommodate them;
• · Social protection and health care provided to the affected population;
• · Research on environment, health and production of clean food;
• · Radiation monitoring of the environment; and
• · Radioecological improvement of settlements and disposal of radioactive waste.

Till date Ukraine spends about 6-7% of its GDP on Chernobyl related expenditures. The cost go towards orderly disposal of radioactive waste, to environmental cleanup and the biggest costs is for the health care for the affected people.

Reactor 4 New Shelter

The New Safe Confinement (NSC or New Shelter) is the structure intended to contain the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine, part of which was destroyed by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The primary goal of the NSC is to prevent the reactor complex from leaking radioactive material into the environment and the secondary goal is to allow a future partial deconstruction of the old structure.

After the explosion Reactor 4 continued to send radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

That explosion continued to leak for a long time and contaminates the atmosphere of th world. To prevent this the following is being done

• -A Metal structure covering the whole of the reactor -Pouring concrete over the reactor

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Prevention in the future

• -The reactor did not have a secondary containment steel vessel.
• -Chernobly reactors had graphite moderators which become more reactive at higher temperature.
• -The operators were not following all the rules
• -More safety mechanism to be used at the time of the building the ractor
• -More +

To prevent any interruptions to the power of the reactor, the safety systems were deliberately switched off. To conduct the test, the reactor had to be powered down to 25 percent of its capacity. This procedure did not go according to plan and the reactor power level fell to less than 1 percent. The power therefore had to be slowly increased. But 30 seconds after the start of the test, there was an unexpected power surge. The reactor's emergency shutdown (which should have halted a chain reaction) failed.

The reactor's fuel elements ruptured and there was a violent ex6 control rplosion. The 1000-tonne sealing cap on the reactor building was blown off. At temperatures of over 2000°C, the fuel rods melted. The graphite covering of the reactor then ignited. The graphite burned for nine days, churning huge quantities of radiation into the environment. The accident released more radiation than the deliberate dropping of a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945.

Another factor was that there were young, not very experienced workers in the night shift.The older, more experienced workers performed during the daytime, but if the testwas performed then, it would mean less or no power to parts of Ukraine. The operaters disregarded safety procedure by raising all but 6 control rods, when the minimum according to procedure was 26. Then they didnt communicate well, so the other person did not know about the 6 control rods, and the test was carried on. That wastheir most fatal mistake.

Environmental damage was widespread immediately following the accident, stretching from fauna and vegetation to rivers and {C}lakes and all the way down to the groundwater. The extent of the damage led scientists and government officials to the conclusion that the Chernobyl exclusion zone had been subjected to enough {C}radioactive fallout to severely alter the ecological balance of the region for decades. This initial assessment could not be farther from the truth as wildlife abounds in even the most affected areas of Chernobyl no more than 20 years after the disaster.

The radioactive waste flows through radioactive water, causing it to spread. The fish in that water live in radioactivity, causing muttations and even death, as it would, and still does to people. Also, the initial explosion caused several plants and animals to die.

http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/l-3/5-social-economic-impacts.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement

http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/152617/