A- Plan of Investigation-
For my Historical Investigation, I wanted to research the catastrophic nuclear meltdown that occurred on April 26th, 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. My research question is: Could the Chernobyl disaster have been avoided, if so, which moments in the chain of events leading to the accident needed to occur differently? To carry out my investigation, I plan on utilizing the Internet, encyclopedias and finding books that explain how accidental Chernobyl really was, the variety of mistakes made by the Ukrainians, as well as the Soviets, and how these problems could be fixed in accordance to the time period. I will use Chernobyl, global environmental injustice and mutagenic threats by Nicholas
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The main reason for the mishap is by now well recognized (Petryna 1). However, initially the Chernobyl catastrophe baffled the minds of people in the 20th century and definitely left the people of Ukraine disordered while living in anxiety. Now, without question, the public knows that the accident at Chernobyl was the result of a disastrous combination of ignorance from the Ukrainians and complacency from the Soviets in control of Ukraine at the time. As according to American physicist and Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, “…the Chernobyl disaster tells us about the deficiencies of the Soviet political and administrative system rather than about problems with nuclear power." The immediate basis of the Chernobyl accident was a mismanaged electrical-engineering experiment (Rhodes "Chernobyl", PBS). While, the indirect source of the calamity was an industrial malfunction of a Soviet made nuclear-based machine. Ironically, the Chernobyl accident occurred during a test run, which was conducted to improve plant safety. This accident proved once more what experienced control engineers have all learned: that a process must be understood before it can be controlled. (Liptak “Control Global”). Engineers with no familiarity of reactor physics were interested to see if they could draw electricity from the turbine generator of the Number 4 reactor unit to run water pumps during an emergency, when the turbine was no longer being driven by the reactor but was
First, as mentioned above, failure to mention reactors design flaws led to distrust in the infrastructure of the Soviet Union. While many scientists and researchers such as Valeri Legasov had noticed that there were issues with the reactors design prior to the disaster, and mentioned so in personal journals, the discovery of their failure to speak up lead to the questioning of Soviet leadership [5]. Additionally, these issues became worse upon the discovery of KGB classified documents that discussed various issues with the construction of the Chernobyl plant between 1971 and 1988 [7]. These compounding issues identified flaws
The disaster had more of an effect on eastern Europe’s nuclear experimentation and use but “While no-one in the West was under any illusion about the safety of early Soviet reactor designs, some lessons learned have also been applicable to Western plants” (World Nuclear Association). Since the Chernobyl disaster was majorly caused by human error and under qualified scientists, to work with nuclear reactors today you need to be insanely qualified. Since the accident, Soviet-designed reactors’ safety has improved greatly, even in smaller ways. Automatic shutdown mechanisms now work faster, and other safety mechanisms have been sped up. Even new equipment has been installed such as automated inspection equipment. Several scientist and reporters have even said an accident like Chernobyl is virtually impossible with today’s technology (World Nuclear Association).
People and animals were affected badly some died from the chernobyl explosion. Many died from it because it was so bad,
The town part of Chernobyl had become a sanctuary The trees from around the disaster turned into a ginger color calling the area Red forest but they got cut down later (Lallanilla Marc). In the end the accident resulted in 70,000 people disabled 25,000 deaths in which 20% committed suicide from how bad the chemicals hurt them. Contamination won't be for over 100 years and Chernobyl won't be habitable for 20,000 years this overall caused a lot of
(MP1) What Chernobyl plant represented in 1980s and who is responsible for such a massive disaster
There have been lots of nuclear accident around the world. One of the accident that had a major impact on the world was the Chernobyl disaster. The disaster took place on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The disaster was caused by a reaction explosion induced by design faults and staff application errors. The accident took place in the course of scheduled tests to check the power supply mode in the event of external sources loss. Even after 10 days, explosions and ejections of radioactive substances continued. The release of radiation and radioactive substance polluted the places within 30 km of Chernobyl, and those areas have been closed for a long period of
Stemming from new technologies such as the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, atomic power was a new, clean source of power. This technology was ultimately executed poorly by the USSR and help lead to its decline. In 1986, the reactor at Chernobyl exploded, which was the worst nuclear meltdown that had happened up until that point (and is still considered the worst in history, rivalled only by the Fukushima disaster in 2011). The fallout was blown into other nations, eventually affecting millions of people. This disaster reflected poorly on the Soviet government, leading many to question its legitimacy. According to Mikhail Gorbachev (the leader of the USSR at that time), “[t]he country will never recover. [Chernobyl] cost us 18 billion rubles.
When I was informed we were doing a multi-genre project I chose Chernobyl because it was interesting what the radiation could do when it wasn’t being contained correctly. What sparked my interest for this topic was when I was watching the show River Monsters, where Jeremy Wade went to Chernobyl to fish near the incident when he caught a fish that was common there, he commented “Wow! This fish is huge. This fish looks to have mutated from the incident that happened a few years ago.” (Wade) This also caught my interest the most because there is also a game called Fallout, this game took place in the aftermath of a world nuclear bombing, and the “fallout” was still in effect worldwide. Since I could go on forever about this
The cause of chernobyl make me serious because of how the plant blew up and how many people died
On the afternoon of April 26th, the staffs of the Chernobyl nuclear plant were about to do testing on the fourth unit of the nuclear facility, and ultimately the unit that caused the destruction of the plant. They were testing safety features of certain hardware to see if the system could run for a minute in the catastrophic event of total power failure. (Leatherbarrow) The purpose of the pumps and steam turbine system that was being tested was to keep the reactor having cool water flow to the core continuously. Without a constant water flow to cool the core, the reactor itself would ultimately melt down.
Chernobyl made more people all around the world aware about the idea of nuclear safety. For example, many green political movements protested against the nuclear and industrial industries, claiming that they were evil. Due to these protests, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) realized that they needed to make a change. The disaster helped the NRC learn important information that they should know when dealing with other nuclear reactor issues such as: decontamination, ingestion pathway, and the relocation of people. They also created new nuclear reactor design features. To do this, they worked with other people in the nuclear industry around the world. The international cooperation was great because it let experts from different countries and backgrounds share their thoughts about the issue. Without Chernobyl, the world would not have most of the safety regulations and procedures used
n April 26 1986, one of the most destructive man made accident happened. Chernobyl, a Ukrainian city flourished with people and energy. Not just any kind of energy, but the most lethal energy source… Nuclear Energy. On this day, the most lethal energy turned rouge against Chernobyl. The city was never the same again.
The Chernobyl accident was an accident that affected a lot of people. On April 25, 1986, there was a big accident called the Chernobyl accident that affected a lot of people and places. It happened beause a crew was doing a test and hot fuel had combined with cold water and that created rapid steam, which started the explosion. Belarus had received 60% of the contamination that had fallen. There was over 200,000 km of caesium that had cover Europe. The 3 places that were affected
Nuclear power plants being so defenseless and having such a high rate for accident. The words accident and contamination flashed, in her head, like a weather bulletin. It was a regular day the kids had left for school and Shina was just straightening up around the house. She heard a loud weird siren coming from the nuclear power plant. One of the nuclear cores had over heated and the town was being evacuated. Chernobyl “suffered the worst accident, “on April 26, 1986, the reactor blew like a ton of dynamite sending the “top of the reactor” in to the air, and containments “buried” in the “biosphere for days” (Lewis 25). The containments buried in the air, which was harmful to people’s health. The contamination in the air would spread to other places, and cause damage
Moreover, The first mistake made at the Chernobyl nuclear plant was not following the regulations. In the nuclear plant, the power input was supposed to be set from seven hundred to one thousand megawatts. However, the deputy chief engineer that was in charge wanted to save the amount of water to cool down the nuclear reactor after a test was completed, and not allow the reactor to overheat. He insisted that the input should be no more than two hundred megawatts. The