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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
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.
- 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
- If a scram, power lost to pumps, 15+45 seconds to diesel generator power
- more later
2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster