Heroism in a nuclear threat

micro_dot · 15-03-2011 12:23AM #1

Here's a tribute to the people trying to avert nuclear explosions in Japan:

"Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev
Deputy head of the executive committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association

There was a moment when there was the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn't get into it - with the water, they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe.
So here was the task: who would dive in there and open the bolt on the safety valve? They promised them a car, an apartment, a dacha, aid for their families until the end of time. They searched for volunteers. And they found them! The boys dived, many times, and they opened that bolt, and the unit was given 7,000 roubles. They forgot about the cars and apartments they promised - that's not why they dived. These are people who came from a certain culture, the culture of the great achievement. They were a sacrifice.
And what about the soldiers who worked on the roof of the reactor? Two hundred and ten military units were thrown at the liquidation of the fallout of the catastrophe, which equals about 340,000 military personnel. The ones cleaning the roof got it the worst. They had lead vests, but the radiation was coming from below, and they weren't protected there. They were wearing ordinary, cheap imitation-leather boots. They spent about a minute and a half, two minutes on the roof each day, and then they were discharged, given a certificate and an award - 100 roubles. And then they disappeared to the vast peripheries of our motherland. On the roof they gathered fuel and graphite from the reactor, shards of concrete and metal.
It took about 20-30 seconds to fill a wheelbarrow, and then another 30 seconds to throw the "garbage" off the roof. These special wheelbarrows weighed 40 kilos just by themselves. So you can picture it: a lead vest, masks, the wheelbarrows, and insane speed.
In the museum in Kiev they have a mould of graphite the size of a soldier's cap; they say that if it were real it would weigh 16 kilos, that's how dense and heavy graphite is. The radio-controlled machines they used often failed to carry out commands or did the opposite of what they were supposed to do, because their electronics were disrupted by the high radiation. The most reliable "robots" were the soldiers. They were christened the "green robots" [from the colour of their uniforms]. Some 3,600 soldiers worked on the roof of the ruined reactor. They slept on the ground in tents. They were young guys.
These people don't exist any more, just the documents in our museum, with their names."

from a book by Svetlana Alexievich called Voices from Chernobyl, and quoted in the Guardian in 2005.
Some people's lives take them across incredible paths.

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 12:27AM

what happened in Chernobyl is exactly the reason there is no risk of any nuclear explosion in Japan. it's not going to happen and anyone who knows more than your average sun journalist about how a nuclear power station works knows that.

Stinicker · 15-03-2011 12:36AM

vibe666 wrote: »

what happened in Chernobyl is exactly the reason there is no risk of any nuclear explosion in Japan. it's not going to happen and anyone who knows more than your average sun journalist about how a nuclear power station works knows that.

Nuclear power can be as safe as it wants, yet however add in enough variables and it will go wrong and thus is not safe. When an Oil or Coal plant blows up at least it will not spew Radiation everywhere.

The world really needs to wake up to the reality that Nuclear Fission is not and will never be safe in its current form. Irradiating the land is not worth it for a small Co2 saving.

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 12:45AM

Stinicker wrote: »

Nuclear power can be as safe as it wants, yet however add in enough variables and it will go wrong and thus is not safe. When an Oil or Coal plant blows up at least it will not spew Radiation everywhere.

The world really needs to wake up to the reality that Nuclear Fission is not and will never be safe in its current form. Irradiating the land is not worth it for a small Co2 saving.

and yet again, someone who knows nothing about nuclear power or how modern nuclear reactors work is spreading FUD. :rolleyes:

the absolute worst effects anyone in Fukushima (or anywhere else with a modern nuclear reactor for that matter) can expect, even in the event of a reactor meltdown is similar to what they'd get from an x-ray procedure, or a transatlantic flight.

nobody in Fukushima is dying of radiation sickness (nor will they) and no countryside is going to get irradiated, now or at any time in the foreseeable future.

dannydiamond · 15-03-2011 12:46AM

Stinicker wrote: »

Nuclear power can be as safe as it wants, yet however add in enough variables and it will go wrong and thus is not safe. When an Oil or Coal plant blows up at least it will not spew Radiation everywhere.

The world really needs to wake up to the reality that Nuclear Fission is not and will never be safe in its current form. Irradiating the land is not worth it for a small Co2 saving.

You obviously know little of which you speak.

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 12:49AM

dannydiamond wrote: »

You obviously know little of which you speak.

i'd have aimed for closer to nothing than very little.

but as usual, the sheeple follow the popularised version of what passes for news these days instead of finding the truth out for themselves, which is a crying shame in the internet age, given all the wealth of knowledge is at their fingertips.

dannydiamond · 15-03-2011 12:51AM

vibe666 wrote: »

i'd have aimed for closer to nothing than very little.

but as usual, the sheeple follow the popularised version of what passes for news these days instead of finding the truth out for themselves, which is a crying shame in the internet age, given all the wealth of knowledge is at their fingertips.

You should avail of it then, rather than firing random inaccurate comments on said internet.

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 12:55AM

dannydiamond wrote: »

You should avail of it then, rather than firing random inaccurate comments on said internet.

saywhatnow?

mikemac · 15-03-2011 12:56AM

dannydiamond wrote: »

You should avail of it then, rather than firing random inaccurate comments on said internet.

Crossed wires here I think

vibe666 was agreeing with you
Did you mean to quote someone else?

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 12:59AM

i hope so, i've spent a lot of time reading up on the whole thing and educating myself on exactly what's happening from the people who actually know about it, rather than the press who appear to either know nothing or only know what sells stories and just don't care about the truth.

Solnskaya · 15-03-2011 01:10AM

Vibe, are we discussing Fukushima here, or the nuclear industry in general? If we are discussing Fukushima 1 and 2, we are not discussing state of the art plants with exemplerary safety features. We are discussing an antiquated plant with a history of safety breaches and an already criticised cooling system with documented flaws-that is without the addition of unknown damage from the quake and tsunami. The critical failure of an ill advised diesel back up generation system as the only fail safe for level 1 cooling requirement does not fill anybody with any technical knowledge with confidence. Hopefully, meltdown will be averted, but the situation is not as cut and dried as you picture it. Fukushima is not a rolls royce, it is a Rover Metro.

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 01:42AM

for now, we're specifically talking about Fukushima and i know it's an old reactor and it doesn't have a great safety record, but lets not forget that a poor safety record by japanese standards is still a hell of a lot better than most places.

yes, there is a (very slight) possibility of a meltdown, but it's hardly the end of the world that the press is depicting is it?

as far as i can see, the worst thing that's happened so far is some overheating due to a power shortage and controlled venting of radioactive steam which has a half-life shorter than the time it's taken me to write this post.

anyway, its time for bed and i really don't care enough to be losing sleep over this.

yammycat · 15-03-2011 02:14AM

vibe666 wrote: »

yes, there is a (very slight) possibility of a meltdown, but it's hardly the end of the world that the press is depicting is it?

no one bar yourself has spoken of the end of the world. And comparing the effects of a complete meltdown to an x-ray is the daftest thing I have heard in my life.

starbelgrade · 15-03-2011 02:21AM

vibe666 wrote: »

i hope so, i've spent a lot of time reading up on the whole thing and educating myself on exactly what's happening from the people who actually know about it,

For what purpose - to better yourself, or just to display an apparent superiority of knowledge over others?

If it's the latter, then I would suggest that it was a waste of time because there's always someone who will know more than you, waiting in the wings to lord it over you.

Senna · 15-03-2011 02:27AM

Ignoring the other posts on here, the OP post is a nice tribute to what was done in Chernobyl. I'd like to think if there was a disaster in Ireland, there would be men and woman willing to sacrifice their life's for the country.
Hell, i'd like to think i would, maybe i would, just hope i never have to find out.

nyarlothothep · 15-03-2011 02:28AM

Thanks for that OP, that has restored a small bit of faith in humanity, after reading about the fixation with Japan's economy over, you know, the actual people who are suffering. That selflessness was pretty ace.

JonnyMacM · 15-03-2011 02:49AM

We are certainly full of knowledge! The plant manager has just released a statement saying that a melt down is possible at the moment since the last explosion. Now ignoring the danger from the plant for a minute what about the High level nuclear waste? England has been running nuclear power since the 50s and they still have not figured out what to do with the High Level waste, thats close to 60 years

Don't Drink the Cool Aid!!!

Run_to_da_hills · 15-03-2011 03:06AM

vibe666 wrote: »

and yet again, someone who knows nothing about nuclear power or how modern nuclear reactors work is spreading FUD. :rolleyes:

the absolute worst effects anyone in Fukushima (or anywhere else with a modern nuclear reactor for that matter) can expect, even in the event of a reactor meltdown is similar to what they'd get from an x-ray procedure, or a transatlantic flight.

nobody in Fukushima is dying of radiation sickness (nor will they) and no countryside is going to get irradiated, now or at any time in the foreseeable future.

Is your name by any chance Montgomery Burns?

MASTER...of the bra · 15-03-2011 05:02AM

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Is your name by any chance Montgomery Burns?

LOL

Ceefax on BBC1 pg 125/128 has a good piece on Nuclear power.

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 07:16AM

yammycat wrote: »

no one bar yourself has spoken of the end of the world. And comparing the effects of a complete meltdown to an x-ray is the daftest thing I have heard in my life.

hardly, i was responding to another post in the thread. :rolleyes:

starbelgrade wrote: »

For what purpose - to better yourself, or just to display an apparent superiority of knowledge over others?

for no other reason than to try and counter some of the sensationalist FUD spread by the press that people on here (and everywhere else) love to spread around the minute anything potentially dangerous happens.

JonnyMacM wrote: »

We are certainly full of knowledge! The plant manager has just released a statement saying that a melt down is possible at the moment since the last explosion. Now ignoring the danger from the plant for a minute what about the High level nuclear waste? England has been running nuclear power since the 50s and they still have not figured out what to do with the High Level waste, thats close to 60 years

strangely enough, i was reading an article about repurposing nuclear waste in a new type of power plant. things are moving forward all the time.

MASTER...of the bra wrote: »

Ceefax on BBC1 pg 125/128 has a good piece on Nuclear power.

that's great, but does anyone still use ceefax?

maybe you could fax it over to the rest of us.

there's also a great article here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/ specifically about Fukushima for anyone interested in reading something other than the sun.

gosuckonalemon · 15-03-2011 07:31AM

Stinicker wrote: »

Nuclear power can be as safe as it wants, yet however add in enough variables and it will go wrong and thus is not safe. When an Oil or Coal plant blows up at least it will not spew Radiation everywhere.

The world really needs to wake up to the reality that Nuclear Fission is not and will never be safe in its current form. Irradiating the land is not worth it for a small Co2 saving.

Nuclear Power is safe. No major harm will come of this. The burning of fossil fuels is destroying our environment and a finite source of energy. Thousands of people die in China every year in coal mines. Look at the disaster in NZ.
Apart from Chernobyl (which would never happen again due to technlogical advances) what harm has nuclear energy caused to date?

The world urgently needs more nuclear energy to satisfy man's appetite for energy consumption.

You have no idea what you are on about, do you?

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 09:04AM

there's also a lot of good, honest (and accurate) information HERE for anyone actually interested in the truth rather than the poorly written hollywood disaster movie script you'll see in the news.

jackiebaron · 15-03-2011 10:13AM

vibe666 wrote: »

and yet again, someone who knows nothing about nuclear power or how modern nuclear reactors work is spreading FUD. :rolleyes:

the absolute worst effects anyone in Fukushima (or anywhere else with a modern nuclear reactor for that matter) can expect, even in the event of a reactor meltdown is similar to what they'd get from an x-ray procedure, or a transatlantic flight.

nobody in Fukushima is dying of radiation sickness (nor will they) and no countryside is going to get irradiated, now or at any time in the foreseeable future.

Well can you explain the high doses of radiation that some plant workers have sustained at Fukushima? Apparently one worker is now suffering from full-on radiation sickness and a 17 man US Navy crew who flew their choppers over the area have shown elevated contamination when back on the USS Ronald Reagan and had to undergo radiation scrubs. That to me sounds a little bit more than you would get from an X-ray and there hasn't BEEN a meltdown.
Stop trivializing! A reactor meltdown and all you can expect is radiation along what you would receive from an x-ray or a flight!!!! Get real!

jackiebaron · 15-03-2011 10:15AM

gosuckonalemon wrote: »

Nuclear Power is safe. No major harm will come of this. The burning of fossil fuels is destroying our environment and a finite source of energy. Thousands of people die in China every year in coal mines. Look at the disaster in NZ.
Apart from Chernobyl (which would never happen again due to technlogical advances) what harm has nuclear energy caused to date?

The world urgently needs more nuclear energy to satisfy man's appetite for energy consumption.

You have no idea what you are on about, do you?

Nuclear power is probably safe but it's disposal of the spent fuel that concerns me.

seamus · 15-03-2011 10:28AM

There was a great drama on BBC (or possibly channel 4) a couple of years back about the Chernobyl disaster. Starring Adrian Edmondson of all people.

I feel sorry for many of the soldiers. Although they were given protective gear and told to work as quickly as possible, they weren't actually told about the dangers or the dangers were played down.

Near the start of the disaster there were heli flyovers dropping sand (I think) down onto the reactor to extinguish the fires. Personnel involved recalled looking down and seeing the exposed reactor core, unknown to them spewing out radiation in doses which ended their lives.

There were some serious balls-out heroes in it though. People who stayed behind to try and keep containment and open/close safety valves, despite knowing about the inherent fatal dangers. Those close to the reactor worked while their bodies literally melted from the level of radiation being output.

It's actually an interesting read. I was only 4 when it happened, so I remember nothing of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

dolphin city · 15-03-2011 10:47AM

vibe666 wrote: »

for now, we're specifically talking about Fukushima and i know it's an old reactor and it doesn't have a great safety record, but lets not forget that a poor safety record by japanese standards is still a hell of a lot better than most places.

yes, there is a (very slight) possibility of a meltdown, but it's hardly the end of the world that the press is depicting is it?

as far as i can see, the worst thing that's happened so far is some overheating due to a power shortage and controlled venting of radioactive steam which has a half-life shorter than the time it's taken me to write this post.

anyway, its time for bed and i really don't care enough to be losing sleep over this.

for someone at the start of this thread that was so "knowledgable" about what was going on, and telling the people who had the opposite opinion that they were nothing but "sheeple", I find in this post you are now losing your own arguement and backing down rapidly.

dolphin city · 15-03-2011 10:50AM

gosuckonalemon wrote: »

Nuclear Power is safe. No major harm will come of this. The burning of fossil fuels is destroying our environment and a finite source of energy. Thousands of people die in China every year in coal mines. Look at the disaster in NZ.
Apart from Chernobyl (which would never happen again due to technlogical advances) what harm has nuclear energy caused to date?

The world urgently needs more nuclear energy to satisfy man's appetite for energy consumption.

You have no idea what you are on about, do you?

so you obviously haven't heard about the fishlife in the Irish Sea then. have you. or is that just a coincidink

ChocolateSauce · 15-03-2011 11:18AM

I lost interest at "Nuclear Explosion". It is impossible for a nuclear plant to generate a nuclear explosion, even in a meltdown.

vibe666 · 15-03-2011 11:49AM

jackiebaron wrote: »

Well can you explain the high doses of radiation that some plant workers have sustained at Fukushima? Apparently one worker is now suffering from full-on radiation sickness and a 17 man US Navy crew who flew their choppers over the area have shown elevated contamination when back on the USS Ronald Reagan and had to undergo radiation scrubs. That to me sounds a little bit more than you would get from an X-ray and there hasn't BEEN a meltdown.
Stop trivializing! A reactor meltdown and all you can expect is radiation along what you would receive from an x-ray or a flight!!!! Get real!

yes, quite easily. more FUD from the mainstream press, which is exactly my point. :rolleyes:

the reason it sounds like a bit more than you would get from an x-ray is because that's the impression they are trying to give, just to sell stories, rather than reporting on the facts.

did anyone reporting on these 'stories' actually say how much exposure constitutes 'high' or 'elevated' in their opinion or what they consider to be 'full-on radiation sickness'? having a full CT scan would be considered a 'high' dose compared to an arm x-ray, but that doesn't make it particularly unsafe to have one.

there was a brief localised radiation spike for a few minutes this morning and there is a minor leak that they are still trying to plug, in addition to the controlled venting but it was just that, 'minor'. the only real danger to the people of Fukushima from the power station will be due to the lack of power due to it's absence, not from a meltdown.

even if it did meltdown, the biggest issue is going to be the cost of the cleanup, not from radiation exposure.

dolphin city wrote: »

for someone at the start of this thread that was so "knowledgable" about what was going on, and telling the people who had the opposite opinion that they were nothing but "sheeple", I find in this post you are now losing your own arguement and backing down rapidly.

how so exactly? I'm not backing down at all and i don't see any reason why i should so far, as there isn't anyone here offering anything except misinformed opinion based solely on unsubstantiated scaremongering from the mainstream media that i am trying to steer the 'sheeple' away from, rather than any fact based contributions.

put down your copy of The Sun and try reading a few factual science based news sites and forums and then come back with a proper argument if you're going to try and argue a particular point, rather than just point and laugh without contributing anything.

you're more than welcome to think that i'm wrong, but if you want to contribute then show me why you think i'm wrong instead of just pointing the finger and that way if i am wrong then I'll be happy to back down and accept your superior googling skills and we'll all be better off as a whole for it.

prinz · 15-03-2011 11:51AM

To carry on from the OP, some of you will know the film K-19 The Widowmaker, what you may not know is that it is based on a real incident, when a Soviet nuclear sub was in danger off the U.S./Canada/Greenland Atlantic Coast..

On 4 July 1961, under the command of Captain First Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, K-19 was conducting exercises in the North Atlantic close to Southern Greenland when it developed a major leak in its reactor coolant system, causing the water pressure in the aft reactor to drop to zero and causing failure of the coolant pumps. A separate accident had disabled the long-range radio system, so they could not contact Moscow. The reactor temperature rose uncontrollably, reaching 800 °C (1,470 °F) — almost the melting point of the fuel rods — and the chain reactions continued despite the control rods being inserted via a SCRAM mechanism. The reactor continued to heat up as coolant is still required during shutdown until the reactions decrease. Despite Zateyev's and others' earlier requests, no backup cooling system had been installed.
As a cooling back-up system had not been installed, Zateyev made a drastic decision; a team of seven engineering officers and crew worked for extended periods in high-radiation areas to implement a new coolant system by cutting off an air vent valve and welding a water-supplying pipe into it. Since the ship carried chemical suits, instead of radiation suits, they were certain to be lethally contaminated,I][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"][COLOR=#0645ad]citation needed[/COLOR][/URL][/I but the repair team was unaware of the degree of risk, believing the suits they wore would protect them from contamination. The released radioactive steam, containing fission products, was drawn into the ventilation system and spread to other sections of the ship. The cooling water pumped from the reactor section worked well.
The incident contaminated the crew, parts of the ship, and some of the ballistic missiles carried on board; the entire crew received substantial doses of radiation, and all seven men in the repair crew died of radiation exposure within a week, and twenty more within the next few years. The captain decided to head south to meet diesel submarines expected to be there, instead of continuing on the mission's planned route. Worries about a potential crew mutiny prompted Zateyev to have all small arms thrown overboard except for five pistols distributed to his most trusted officers. A diesel submarine, S-270, picked up K-19's low-power distress transmissions and joined up with it.
American warships nearby had also heard the transmission and offered to help, but Zateyev, afraid of giving away Soviet military secrets to the West, refused and sailed to meet the S-270. Its crew was evacuated, and the boat was towed to the home base; after landing, the vessel contaminated a zone within 700 m (2,300 ft). The damaged reactors were removed and replaced, a process which took two years. During this time, there was further radiation poisoning of the environment and the workers involved.
The official explanation of the disaster is that during the repair process, it was discovered that the catastrophe had been caused by a drop from a welding electrode that had fallen into the first cooling circuit of the aft reactor during the initial construction. However, this is disputed. According to retired Rear-Admiral Nikolai Mormul, when the reactor was first started ashore, no pressure gauge had been connected to the first cooling circuit. By the time somebody realized what was happening, the pipes had been subjected to a pressure of 400 atmospheres; double the acceptable limit. Checking the pipes would have been costly and reporting the negligence would have hurt the career of Captain Zateyev, who preferred to hide the fact. K-19 returned to the fleet, now having acquired the additional nickname "Hiroshima".
On 1 February 2006, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev proposed in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee that the crew of K-19 be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for their actions on 4 July 1961.[3] In late March 2006, Nikolai Zateyev was formally nominated for the award.

On July 4, 1961, while K-19 was operating near southern Greenland, water pressure in the starboard nuclear reactor plummeted due a coolant leak in an area of the reactor very difficult to access. The loss of coolant caused the reactor to begin to overheat, endangering the integrity of the control rods and, as Zateyev mistakenly believed, risking a nuclear explosion.[5] The captain believed that such an explosion would damage a nearby NATO base and could cause a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States. Mikhail Gorbachov later wrote that "An explosion on board the K-19 could have been taken for a military provocation or even an attempt to launch a nuclear strike on the North American coast. An immediate response by the United States and NATO could have triggered off a Third World War."[5] Eight crewmen died in the days that followed July 4, after working in the reactor core,[1] however a jury-rigged coolant system successfully averted any catastrophe. The K-19 was later towed back to harbor and its reactors were replaced over a period of two years.
Following the incident, Zateyev and the crew were instructed to keep silent about the accident, and neither the replacement crew for the K-19 nor the families of those who had died were notified. The victims of radiation poisoning were buried in lead coffins at sea, according to the letter written by Mikhail Gorbachev to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in 2006. Only in 1990 were the survivors, 56 by February 1, 2006, permitted to speak.[5]

grrrrrrrrrr · 15-03-2011 12:16PM

How can there be such difference in scientific opinion on this. Surely theres an instrument they can use some equipment to measure this. Heard a woman on Morning Ireland this morning saying that the background radiation in Ireland that we have to put up with is 4 ("fairy") units a year but its 400 per hour in Japan now. It seems to. Be the blind leading the blind on this one. Where are the facts and figures. Opinion is useless because its bias. Its very easy for both broadsheet and tabloid to warn of a MELTDOWN or WIPEOUT but where are the facts. Surely even a reporter could use a gieger counter or equilivant?
please only constructively critise my post and my ignorance

Heroism in a nuclear threat

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