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Essay on The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

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The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
*Works Cited Not Included Chernobyl is a popular nuclear disaster it was a terrible technological disaster. Chernobyl is a small town in the Ukraine. The closest major city is Kiev. Kiev is the capital of the Ukraine. It is made up of 2.4 million people. In 1986 April 26 Chernobyl experienced an unforgettable nuclear disaster. At the time, the USSR was responsible for roughly 10% of the world's nuclear power. The year of the accident Chernobyl nuclear power plant was using four of the most modern soviet reactors, the RBMK-type.

The cause of this tragedy was due to operator error. The nuclear operators were running a test to observe how the …show more content…

The Soviets put only the bottom pipes in containment because this was easier. The main weakness was in shutting the reactor down. As a result of inadequacy the shutdown rods are part of the normal plant control system rather than being a separate emergency system. Again a fault in the control system also makes the emergency shutdown unable to function. Another weakness was that Chernobyl had only partial containment. Because of the partial containment the radiation went out the top of the reactor where there were no leak tight boxes. The hot fuel and graphite were exposed to air when they went out the top of the reactor. If there had been a completed containment, then the water and steam from the broken pipes would have dissolved almost all of the cesium and radioactive iodine that escaped. Even if the containment leaked the cesium and the iodine would not get out. Because the hot fuel and graphite were exposed to air this chemical reaction did occur. The operators had removed all of the control rods except for six. This action is against procedures. It is not safe for any reactor to operate with so many control rods removed. Besides the RBMK reactor was not designed to operate at such low power. The power generators of this reactor were run by steam forced through turbines. By the time the reactor exploded none of the turbines were turning and all of the steam was building.

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