Fukushima is nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl, and here's why. - General

I've noticed lately a lot of people talking about this crisis over in Japan. We've seen the news reports, and their spin on it his highly negative. I don't blame them for this in the least, nuclear crises are not something to laugh at. However, when people start comparing it to the 1986 explosion of a reactor in the Chernobyl area, that's when things get misinformed. Fukushima is nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl, and chances are it won't be. The reactor in question has various safety measures that where not incorporated into Chernobyl's plant. As a matter of fact, the Soviet built reactor had at least two major design flaws, along with poorly trained and managed operators. The main flaw is that the RBMK-1000 reactor at Chernobyl was moderated by blocks of Graphite. For those of you who don't know nuclear physics, the Moderator is the materiel that slows the neutrons in a reaction down enough to be caught by the fuel rods, causing them to give off more neutrons, and so on. Uranium can't do much without it. You can't even fry an egg with it. Chernobyl's moderator was in a solid form. Nowadays, reactors use water as both the moderator and the coolant; when the coolant is lost, so is the moderator, and that shuts the reactor down. Also, if the reactor overheats, the water will start to boil. The bubbles formed by this impedes moderation, causing the reactor to give off less energy, causing it to cool, causing it to give off less energy, and so on. It's as close to a self-regulating system as you can get. This is called a Negative Temperature Coefficient. By law, modern reactors [b]must[/b] be designed with a negative coefficient. Chernobyl did not have this. As I said before, it used graphite, a solid, for moderation, and water for cooling only. When the coolant is lost, the moderator is still there. Not only is the reactor still going, it's giving off even more power at an exponentially increasing rate. This causes the heat to go up, which leads to an increase in power, which causes the heat to go up, and onward to destruction. This is called a Positive Tempurature Coefficient. It is not safe at all. The Fukushima reactor, as required by law, was built a negative coefficient. And even if by some freak chance it did explode, the reactor has a heavily reinforced concrete and steel Containment Structure over it. This prevents an explosion from ejecting tons of fuel into the atmosphere. Chernobyl on the other hand had your basic corrugated-steel Factory roof over its reactor. When the pressure inside the reactor vessel reached critical levels, it sent the 1,200 ton Reactor Cap skyward. The roof might as well have not been there. You'd think that knowledge would make the operators do things carefully and safely, right? [b]WRONG.[/b] The flaws, while numerous, were not a huge problem on their own. But on the day of the disaster, one of the plant managers decided to try an experiment: he wanted to see how long they could keep the core cooled with the main pumps shut off, and the emergency pumps being run on residual steam from the reactor. This alone was risky for several reasons: 1. To carry out the experiment, several safety measures had to be bypassed. 2. This was essentially a test to see how long it took for the core to reach dangerous levels. 3. One of the flaws that helped cause the disaster lay in the control rods. Control rods are made of a materiel that absorbs large amounts of neutrons and shuts down the reaction. In this case, Boron. Unfortunately, the tips of the rods were made of Graphite, a moderator. Inserting the control rods for an emergency shutdown would, and did, cause an momentary energy spike. As if this wasn't bad enough, a sudden demand in grid power delayed the experiment for an entire day. The safety measures were left disabled, and things started to get nasty inside the reactor. An unusual quirk of nuclear energy is that the decay of Uranium-235 creates Iodine-131. This isn't a huge problem. However, when Iodine-131 decays, it creates Xenon-135, an isotope that has proved a constant headache for Nuclear Physicists, and one of the straws on the camel's back for Chernobyl. In Nuclear science, there are various materiels that absorb radiation so well that they are refered to as Reactor Poisons. Boron, which was used in Chernobyl's control rods, was such a materiel. Xenon-135 is also a Poison. Unfortunately, it occures naturally in reactors, upsetting an otherwise stable equilibrium. Operators have to dispose of it. One way of doing this is to simply let it decay. Another is to help it decay by increasing the reaction's rate, which also compensates for it at the same time. While the Chernobyl reactor was sitting there, providing energy for the people and waiting for the experiment, Xenon-135 started to build up in the reactor. Normally, this would be fine. However, they were pumping increased amounts of water through to keep the reactor cool. This was lowering the power, and letting Xenon-135 build at excelerated rates. To compensate, they raised the control rods several times untill they were in the Full Open position. The Xenon, while it's accumulation had leveled off, still remained at high levels by the time of the experiment. Here's the picture so far: we have water pumping through the reactor at high rates, keeping the reactor tempurature and power low. We have the Reactor Poison Xenon-135 present in high levels. To compensate, the control rods have been completely withdrawn. All in all, it's a tenuous position. The came the time for the experiment. The order was given for the main pumps, which had been running at full capacity, to shut down. As water circulation inside the reactor slowed, the temperature began to rise. Pressure began to build. Then things started to spiral out of control. The power began to rise to levels the operators had never seen before, and it was accelerating. The beginnings of panic started to grow. Someone pressed the big red "Emergency Shutdown" button. This snapped the control rods into the reactor, which should have shut the reactor down and ended the experiment. Instead, thanks to the graphite tips, the power began to increase exponentially. Operators started panicking. Then, moments after the button had been pushed, the building was shaken by a large explosion. The reactor cap had been blown off, radioactive material was raining down over a large area, and the core was now exposed, releasing ridiculously high amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The next few months should be famililiar to everyone. Deaths, cleanup efforts, the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, and suffering on an international scale. All in all, a pleasant time for everyone. Compare that to Fukushima. Yes, the radiation is there. But it is not on the scale of Chernobyl. Fukushima will not have the same results as Chernobyl. It may cause serious damage, but I highly doubt we'll see anything on the scale of the 1986 disaster. People are [b]still[/b] feeling the effects of that one.

Phew, it's a good thing Facepunch has so many nuclear reactor experts to help us cut through all the bullshit.

[QUOTE=haybo;29122552]Phew, it's a good thing Facepunch has so many nuclear reactor experts to help us cut through all the bullshit.[/QUOTE] I know right, they must be so good that they don't do any research whatsoever! Clearly none of this can be fact-checked or anything! :fuckoff:

Its a 7 now, its just as bad.

This thread needs this. Warning, huge image. [media]http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png[/media]

If anything the news reports have been underplaying the entire thing, I believe it is far worse than they are telling us and its only a matter of time before we start seeing the massive levels of radiation at Fukushima in the USA. It's already been detected in the milk and it takes some time for the radiation to travel accross the ocean. Also the thing about Chernobyl was that it was only a single reactor, here we have 5 or 6 reactors some of which use Plutonium and Uranium making them far worse than the ones at Chernobyl. Many of the saftey measures you refferd too also completly failed once the power was shut off to the Fukushima reactors and the radiation is escaping the power plant and all you really do in the OP is state why Chernobyl went so wrong not really say why Fukushima isn't so bad.

Thanks, I've read through the synopsis of Chernobyl quite a few times but some of it was unclear.

That's an incredible amount of work you put into telling us something we already know.

Good read OP, I really enjoyed it.

Let me tell YOU, the reader, my personal thoughts on the fukushima incident and how it's worse than chernobyl *adjusts Big Boy Bib and clears throat*

I think the "its the next Chernobyl!" thing is misleading, I believe the radiation levels might reach similar heights, but the environmental and health impacts won't be anywhere NEAR Chernobyl, which is what people automatically assume when you compare the two.

This is a video to all my haters out there, its upsetting seeing some of the comments I get, heres a video to show you how I feel, Made it about 2 hours ago wasnt ganna psot it because its how I really think and feel towards my fans/haters but the way I look at it is, every popular youtuber has haters.. So i definately understand [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfqHo5HiEZM&feature=channel_video_title[/media]

[QUOTE=junior blake;29123220]This is a video to all my haters out there, its upsetting seeing some of the comments I get, heres a video to show you how I feel, Made it about 2 hours ago wasnt ganna psot it because its how I really think and feel towards my fans/haters but the way I look at it is, every popular youtuber has haters.. So i definately understand [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfqHo5HiEZM&feature=channel_video_title[/media][/QUOTE] And this relates to the disaster in Japan how?

[QUOTE=The Riddler;29123246]And this relates to the disaster in Japan how?[/QUOTE] The reactors in Fukushima are powered by "youtubers" with haters as moderating agents.

[QUOTE=The Riddler;29123246]And this relates to the disaster in Japan how?[/QUOTE] He knows that hijacking radiation in Japan is the only way for youtube views.

[QUOTE=Rombishead;29122615]If anything the news reports have been underplaying the entire thing, I believe it is far worse than they are telling us and its only a matter of time before we start seeing the massive levels of radiation at Fukushima in the USA. It's already been detected in the milk and it takes some time for the radiation to travel accross the ocean. Also the thing about Chernobyl was that it was only a single reactor, here we have 5 or 6 reactors some of which use Plutonium and Uranium making them far worse than the ones at Chernobyl. Many of the saftey measures you refferd too also completly failed once the power was shut off to the Fukushima reactors and the radiation is escaping the power plant and all you really do in the OP is state why Chernobyl went so wrong not really say why Fukushima isn't so bad.[/QUOTE] Except they tested it on milk that was near a reactor in the first plce, and the levels were barely a banana or two.

Except Japan got it as a "gift" from a goddamn earthquake that was high as a kite on the scale and after a tsunami.

People in the US are freaking out to see radiation in their towns. meanwhile, it is less radiation than eating a banana. :v:

[QUOTE=nikomo;29122602]This thread needs this. Warning, huge image. [media]http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radiation.png[/media][/QUOTE] Could be, but I still can't imagine how you absorb more radioactivity by eating a banana, rather than living near a nuclear plant. Or a energy plant that runs on coal.

Reading this reminded me of one of my friends who keeps blabbering about how he thinks he is able to make nuclear weapons and shit "because he once read about it."