Science Vignette

Karen Regnitter

EDSEC 452/453

Wanted: Operators for nuclear power stations

in the Ukraine.  No experience necessary.

                Gregori Medvedev (1993) recounts a sighting of this employment advertisement in an Asian newspaper in the 1980s.  No experience necessary summarizes the state of nuclear power production in the Ukraine.  In 1986, the Ukraine was a republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).  Following its nuclear weapon programs in the 1960s, the USSR converted plutonium production plants into power stations.  As a civilian enterprise, the power stations became subject to economic pressures and the republic looked to other countries to find workers for their plants.  The republic would create communities surrounding the plants to provide convenient homes for employees.  One such community was Pripyat and it was situated 15 km from what would become the most notorious nuclear power plant in history – Chernobyl.  April 25, 1995, was a clear evening in the Ukraine.  It was at this time that the plant supervisor, a civilian engineer with no experience in nuclear power plants, began a safety test on the plant.  Two days later, a Swedish air monitoring station would detect high levels of radioactive dust in the atmosphere and alert the world to a nuclear disaster greater than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

                17% of the world’s electricity is generated from nuclear power.  Nuclear energy is created by fission –the splitting of an atom.  Scientists discovered that putting a free neutron in the presence of a certain type of uranium (U235) or plutonium would induce fission.  Energy from this process is released in the form of heat and gamma radiation.  The two resulting atoms weigh less than the original atom and the lost weight is converted to energy and heat.  The resulting atoms form radioactive waste.  The energy is used to heat water that creates steam.  This steam acts in the same was as traditional electrical generators by turning a turbine which provides energy to a generator and creates power.  Inside the nuclear reactor, uranium or plutonium pellets are made into rods that are bundled up and submerged in high-pressure water to create the reaction.  Control rods are rods that absorb neutrons readily.  When the control rods are also submerged into the core, the neutrons become less available to the uranium or plutonium and the reaction is slowed down or stopped.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was located 65 miles from Kiev and consisted of four reactors.  Each reactor produced nuclear power and was housed in a steel and concrete covering.  The purpose of the April 25, 1986, test was to see how well the plant would operate under limited power conditions.  The fourth reactor was shut down for the test and the emergency cooling system was shut off.  The reactor was taken down to 7% its normal power.  A sharp rise in temperature occurred suddenly and in 3 seconds the power rose to 50% of capacity.  The pressure in the reactor had built up to that of a bomb.  In the early morning of April 26, two explosions occurred at Chernobyl and a fireball ripped the top of the concrete and steel reactor.  Eight tons of radioactive material shot into the atmosphere over Europe.  Two people were killed in the initial explosion and approximately 31 employees died within months of severe radiation exposure.  All of this occurred while the people of Pripyat slept.  Some may have heard the explosion, but the town’s people were not evacuated until the next day, Sunday, April 27. 

The radioactive waste travelled with the atmosphere like a cloud.  On Sunday, April 28, a Swedish monitoring station would demand answers from the USSR about the source of the radioactive readings.  On Monday, April 29, the news hit the world and a media frenzy began.  The USSR was vague in their answers.  The Soviet news agency TASS would only report of the heroics of the fire fighters or cite similar accidents in the United States.  Heath statistics were classified and information was scarce.  It would be three weeks before the Soviet president would make a statement.  The world was slow to discover the magnitude of this catastrophe.  Even in Kiev, on their May Day celebration on May 1, people paraded under a cloud of radioactive material that was 100 times normal exposure levels.  The entire continent of Europe except some parts of Spain had been irradiated by the Chernobyl accident.

The reactor continued emitting radiation to the atmosphere into the beginning of May.  On November 26, 1986, the fourth reactor was sealed in a concrete sarcophagus.  This was close to the same time that reactors one and two were brought back into production mode.  It would be a year before the third reactor returns to service beside the concrete memorial of the fourth reactor.

While Chernobyl may seem a significant moment in history, its impact continues to be felt in the present.  It is estimated that 2000 people have died prematurely since the accident due to radiation poisoning either from exposure to the radiation or from ingesting irradiated foods.  Children are born with deformities and a high rate of thyroid cancer has been identified in the region.  Experts predict that Chernobyl will be responsible for another 7000 deaths due to cancer over then next 50 years. 

Text Box: Questions 1. On what date did the explosion at Chernobyl occur? 2. Name the process where atoms are split to create energy? 3. On April 29, 2001, The Edmonton Journal printed its first short article on the front page covering the explosion at Chernobyl. Read the article (attached). Do you feel that the article provided readers with enough information regarding the incident? Why or why not? Why do you think such a catastrophe was given such little coverage on that day? 4. What lessons did the nuclear industry have to learn? Do you feel that they have learned their lesson? 5. Make a list of sources of energy for humans today. Write down the pros and cons for all types of energy. As a politician, which source would you support? As a scientist, which source would you support? As an environmentalist, which source would you support?

Text Box: Chernobyl also leaves behind a legacy to safety in the nuclear power industry and fuels the debate over nuclear power production. If the potential consequences are so dire, why would we consider such an alternative for creating energy? It has been predicted that the world energy usage will increase by 50% in the next 30 years. One uranium pellet that is small than a baseball can produce a similar amount of energy to approximately a million gallons of gasoline. Traditional energy manufacturing requires the burning of non-renewable fossil fuels that discharge greenhouse gasses into the environment. While there have been no new plants built since 1978, the world is looking again to nuclear power. Initiated by the United States, and endorsed by nine countries including Canada, the Generation IV program for nuclear power was created in 1999. This program looks at the changes in nuclear power production and focuses not just on operations in the plant, but safety in the creation of plutonium or uranium pellets, production of power, and waste transportation and storage concerns. Nuclear power plants now use a secondary containment unit of concrete outside of the reactor that would contain radiation from a plant break down and would also resist the impact of incoming objects such as airplanes. Had such a containment method been used at Chernobyl, the disaster would have been significantly reduced. Recycling programs (such as PUREX – Plutonium URanium Extraction) also exist and are used in Europe where the uranium and plutonium waste is recycled to create new fuel. This doubles the energy value of fuel used and significantly reduces the amount of radioactive waste that requires storage. Science is working hard to create a viable and safe source of power for the world. Politics and economics will also play a factor. Recycling uranium is more expensive than using new uranium and is not actively practised in the 104 nuclear plants in the United States. The debate over nuclear power is only just beginning and the arguments on both sides are strong. Science must participate in creating viable sources of energy that are safe to the plant and to all that live there.


 


Text Box: Source: Edmonton Journal Monday, April 28, 1986 Resources

Ilyin, L. A.  1995.  Chernobyl: Myth & reality.  Megapolis, Moscow.

Lake, J. A., Bennet, R. G. and Kotek, J. F.  2002  “Next-Generation nuclear power.”  Scientific American, v 286 n 1, pages 73-81.

Medvedev, G.  1993.  No breathing room: The aftermath of Chernobyl.  Harper Collins Press, NY.

Youngson, R.  1998.  Scientific blunders: A brief history of how wrong scientists can sometimes be.  Robinson Publishing Ltd.,  UK.

www.howstuffworks.com  search nuclear power