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| Chernobyl, Ukraine’s first nuclear power plant, 1984 © RIA |
CHERNOBYL. THE NAME
The Chernobyl Power Plant included four nuclear reactors. Construction on the first one started in 1970, and it went online in September 1979. Construction of Unit 4, where the disaster took place, began in April 1979. It went into operation on December 1983. When the disaster occurred, building work had already commenced on Units 5 and 6.
The Chernobyl plant used the latest nuclear technology the Soviet Union had at its disposal. The RBMK-1000 (High Power Channel-type Reactor) was a pressurized water-cooled early Generation II reactor, which was able to generate vast amounts of electricity cheaply. The RBMK-1000s were present in Units 2, 3 and 4, while they were also planned to be installed in Units 5 and 6, which were under construction.
HOW THE REACTOR WORKS
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| Chernobyl Power Plant Reactor |
What makes the RBMK reactor special is the combination of a graphite moderator and water coolant, which allows un-enriched uranium to be used as nuclear fuel. The graphite moderators are interspaced with fuel rods in their pressure tubes, and a mixture of helium and nitrogen gas is introduced between the blocks to prevent the graphite combusting.
The water is pumped into the bottom of fuel channels and as it progresses up the pressure tubes, it boils and produces steam, which is used to drive turbines and produce electricity. The water not only produces steam, it is also used as a coolant, to ensure the core does not become overheated.
In most reactors, the nuclear reaction is slowed when the amount of steam in the system increases, because the neutrons are still traveling quickly. If the neutrons are traveling at a high speed, they are less likely to split uranium atoms, which means that the reactor produces less power.
However, in an RBMK reactor, the opposite occurs and the neutrons slow down even if steam bubbles start to appear, due to the use of graphite as a moderator. This means that the neutrons are able to split more uranium atoms, meaning the reactor’s power is increased.
THE ODDS OF DISASTER. 1 IN 10,000 YEARS
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| Chernobyl nuclear power plant control room, November 1985 © RIA |
Vitaly Sklyarov, the Minister for Power and Electrification in Ukraine was so confident about the safety of the Chernobyl plant that he made the claim that «the odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years.» He made the comment in Soviet Life, an English-language magazine published by the Soviet embassy in the US. Meanwhile, the magazine also quoted shift supervisor Pyotr Bondarenko, who considered Chernobyl to be safer than driving a car.
« Robots and computers have taken over a lot of operations. In order to hold a job here, you have to know industrial safety rules to perfection and pass an exam in them every year. » — Chernobyl Powerplant shift supervisor Pyotr Bondarenko
The magazine also stated that if an accident were to occur at the power plant, the fallout would be minimal.
« Even if the incredible should happen, the automatic control and safety systems would shut down the reactor in a matter of seconds. The plant has emergency core cooling systems and many other technological safety designs and systems,» the publication concluded.
THE ACTUAL CHERNOBYL
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| Entrance to the town of Chernobyl, June 1986 © RIA |
Chernobyl actually has its own history, which dates back hundreds of years and is not connected with the nuclear disaster. It is the name of a town near the plant, which is in the far north of Ukraine, near the borders with Belarus and Russia. It is about 130 kilometers due north of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, on the bank of the Pripyat River, a tributary of the Dnieper River.
Having once boasted a population of over 40,000, Chernobyl was turned into a ghost town by the nuclear disaster. It’s population is now measured in the hundreds. Most are essential exclusion zone staff, and none of them are permanent residents due to mandatory limits on radiation exposure.
PRIPYAT
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| Photo by RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky |
The 1986 disaster actually took place closer to the city of Pripyat than Chernobyl. Pripyat was specially built by the Soviet authorities to house those working at the power plant. The city had a population of over 50,000. People were attracted to live and work there because of the high wages on offer, as well as the chance to work at the cutting edge power plant.
The Soviet Life magazine, published by the Soviet Embassy, was gushing in its praise of Pripyat in an issue printed in February 1986, saying it is ’’made up mostly of young people’’ with an average age of 26 and that «people come to us willingly.»
Pripyat Mayor Vladimir Voloshko said the town’s streets are ’’abounding in flowers. The blocks of apartments stand in pine groves. Each residential area has a school, a library, shops, sports facilities and playgrounds close by."
NUCLEAR POWER AND THE SOVIET UNION
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| The world’s first grid-connected nuclear power plant reactor in Obninsk, Russia, 1974 © RIA |
Since the 1960s, the Soviet Union had looked to expand its nuclear power program, after the Beloyarsk nuclear power station, the country’s first large scale power plant of the kind, was brought online in 1964.
In 1980, RBMK-1000 reactors produced 64.5 percent of all electricity in the Soviet Union, according to a paper by Boris Semenov, a Soviet delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was published by the Agency. He added that nuclear power was favored by the authorities because it was less damaging to the environment.
Semenov mentioned that RBMK reactors were favored because they only required low-enriched uranium and the fabrication of the main components could be carried out at existing manufacturing plants, without the need for new industrial factories to be built.
NEXT CHAPTER
2. THE DISASTER
What went wrong
The test
April 26, 1986
Victims: first in a long list
