Atoms and ashes

A Global History of Nuclear Disasters

Serhii Plokhy 2022 . . Beaverton Lib 363.1799 PLO

1954 Bikini Castle Bravo thermonuclear test

• 167 evacuated

1957 Kyshtym nuclear waste explosion

• 10,000 evacuated, 270,000 exposed

• wikipedia: 20 Mcuries of radioactivity

  • previous intentional dumping of 3 Mcuries into Techa river and 120 Mcuries into Lake Karachay

1957 Windscale fire

• wikipedia: 300 Kcuries xenon-133, 20 Kcuries iodine-131, 600 curies cesium-137

1979 Three Mile Island accident

• wikipedia: 14 μSv to 2M people, compared to 3100 μSv annual natural dose (8.5 μSv/day) 13 Mcuries noble gases, 15 Curies iodine-131, 1e10 curies remained in reactor

• TMI unit 1 returned online, and shut down permanently on September 20, 2019. The fuel assemblies were removed to a storage pool (onsite?). No idea about the current radiation levels in the spent fuel and the removed unit 2 reactor, or in the containment buildings.

1986 Chernobyl disaster

• RMBK reactor bol'shoi moshchnosti kanal'nyi, high-powered channel-type reactor 1GWe
• blueprints 1967, deployed December 1973 Leningrad Nuclear Reactor Station at Sosnovyi Bor
  • 41 mi west of Leningrad, 46 mi from Estonia, 57 mi from Finland, 140 miles from Helsinki, 150 miles from Tallinn
• 1980, close to 10 RMBK-1000 reactors in the USSR
• vulnerable to steam explosions AND graphite fires
• Ancient Chernobyl 15 km away, new city Prypiat 2 km away, construction began 1970
• 1st went critical 1977, 2nd 1978, 3rd 1981, 4th 1983, two more under construction, six planned across Prypiat river
• No emergency cooling system, no accident localization system, no sealed containment building for reactors 1 and 2.
  • reactors 3 and 4 had emergency cooling and accident localization but no containment because of vertical fuel rods and the overhead crane needed to service them
• graphite tips on scram rods caused activity spike
• positive void coefficient, loss of coolant increases activity
• Operators were not told about vulnerabilities, followed instructions for 13 years
• First RMBK accident at Leningrad station November 1975 because of positive scram, (up to) 1.5 Mcurie release, kept secret even to plant operators.
• Chernobyl director, chief engineer had only coal plant experience more later

2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster