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The Events Leading Up To The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

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April 26, 1986 was devastating for the Chernobyl nuclear plant. The explosion of their newest reactor is by far the worst nuclear accident to occur in history. The reactor used at the time was not as safe as it was credited to be; moreover, the operators of the systems were seemingly oblivious to their procedures, not sticking to regulations or guidelines. This led to a disaster of large proportions. To know the events leading up to the explosion, however, you must understand the basics of how a nuclear reactor works. A nuclear reactor consists of a core. The core contains fuel that powers nuclear reactions. It is comprised of three parts: the fuel, the moderator, and the fuel rods. A chain reaction of nuclear fission generates heat …show more content…

Because of this, the water is not moving fast enough and it begins boiling. The bubbles of steam reduce the coolants ability to absorb neutrons. Steam is beginning to build up as well as power. Power sustains for the moment due to xenon buildup in the reactor’s core. Control rods are being pulled out further than regulations allow, creating instability in the reactor, and the core fills with water. The boiling of water in the core increases, boosting power. 1:23 in the morning, the emergency shutdown signals and the control rods are drop into the core, creating the opposite effect of what the rods are meant to do. The control rods seize at two meters, the full depth the rods must travel to stop the core from reacting is seven meters. The operator disconnects the control rods from their servos, hoping they fall into place by their weight, but the rods do not move. The coolant pumps had fail and water is no longer flowing through the …show more content…

The radioactive fuel inside the reactor disintegrates and the buildup of pressurized steam leads to the first explosion, lifting the thousand ton lid to which the reactor was fastened. The spread of radiation starts, four hundred times worse than the radiation exposure released from the Hiroshima bombing. Air seeps into the reactor where a graphite fire starts, adding to the spread of radioactivity. The metal from the fuel tubes reacts with the radioactive water, creating a chemical reaction. This chemical reaction produces hydrogen, which creates the second large

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But not everybody in this story can be blamed, Leonld Telyatnikov was the head of the fire department on scene. Without hesitation he and his twenty eight men went into the reactor with no respirators or any other safety equipment. In 2004 he died from cancer due to the accident. Alexander Akimov, the shift leader on this dreadful night, was not comfortable with doing tests on the unstable reactor. Fearful of losing his job, he reluctantly proceeded and died two weeks later from radiation sickness at the age of thirty three.

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Conversely, fission occurs when a neutron collides with an isotope like uranium-235 (U-235). Which, creates heat, breaks U-235 down into smaller isotopes, and allows another neutron to collides with another U-235 molecule to start the chain reaction (Duke Energy, 2013). Therefore, fission is what currently fuels nuclear energy, with U-235 being the most common isotope (Duke Energy, 2013). Subsequently, there is a misconception on how nuclear fuel is used to generate electricity.

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The accident happened because the reactors had many defects and failed many test. They decided to run it anyways, the power was way too much for the bad reactors to handle so they eventually cracked and exploded causing radiation to leak everywhere (Stephanie Kelsey). The town near chernobyl called “Pripyat” was soon evacuated due to the overflow of radiation in a 10km area surrounding the power plant. It took a total of 36 hours to evacuate the areas. To this day people believe that this is still one of the most disastrous nuclear accidents having effects that last to this day with people still getting cancer from radiation.

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Chernobyl, Ukraine. April 26, 1986. A nuclear reactor had exploded due to poorly trained workers and a badly executed monitoring procedure. It took over 600,000 emergency workers and firefighters to end the madness. By the end, 63,000 square miles of land were impacted and could not be used for crops.

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These bombs caused mass destruction, and disintegrated people who were close enough to the blast. Many people suffered from the nuclear radiation, and were never the same. Others got cancer, and for those who could not escape the blast died instantly. As of today, approximately 265,000 people died in the tragic event, and the numbers are continuing to rise due to the cancers that many people contracted. In the movie, a nuclear power plant which stores nuclear radiation collapses and is destroyed.

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This in turn gives a false reading to the operators because of past issues of the same pumps turning on for no reason to shut them down in fear of flooding the pressurizer, the very thing the operators were trained to prevent. When the operators in the control shut down the pumps several things happen almost simultaneously, the reactor continues to generate heat, the “fail safe” safety mechanism of the control rods being inserted is activated, and fission left over from months of running the reactor still generates enough heat which continues to boil away the remaining coolant in the reactor. The coolant boiling away is in turn then turned into a vapor and released out through the stuck PORV valve at the top of the reactor. So, what is actually occurring in the reactor is the opposite of what the operators think is going on.

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It was the most exceedingly terrible mischance in U.S. business atomic force plant history. The episode was evaluated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences. For the third phase, Chernobyl subsequent studies for U.S. reactors were accounted for in June 1992 in NUREG-1422, "Synopsis of Chernobyl Follow-up Research Activities." That report finished off the Chernobyl subsequent examination program, however certain issues will keep on accepting consideration in the ordinary course of NRC work.

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The water-graphite designs used at the Chernobyl nuclear plant made small accidents inevitable. (Geist 107) The USSR considered safety concerns a distraction from expanding the reactor fleet. And so, the natural response was to cover up any minor accidents that had occurred so as not to set back their plans for expansion. Thirty-

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By the time the operator noticed, and try to shutdown the reactor, it was already under an extremely unstable condition. A wrong and weird design of the control rod caused a sudden increase of power when they were inserted into the reactor. The interaction between hot fuel and cold water caused the fuel to break down and with the steam and increase of pressure. It results to the reactor’s destruction. The image is took back when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded.

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There’s not much we can do. At least we had fresh water until now. The pumps must have shut down. The radiation has put Christy into a Coma, we are using some of the spare reactor parts to create a temporary heart rate monitor. She is still alive.

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