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On April 26, 1986, a nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The accident was caused by a flawed reactor design which allowed control rods to be removed during a test, triggering a power surge and two explosions. Large amounts of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere, exposing over 8 million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia to radiation and forcing the evacuation of over 400,000 people. The accident had widespread environmental and health impacts across Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.

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113 views4 pages

Final Blog

On April 26, 1986, a nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The accident was caused by a flawed reactor design which allowed control rods to be removed during a test, triggering a power surge and two explosions. Large amounts of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere, exposing over 8 million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia to radiation and forcing the evacuation of over 400,000 people. The accident had widespread environmental and health impacts across Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.

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Chernobyl disaster

On April 26, 1986, this nuclear accident occurred at Reactor No. 4 at the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in the north of the
Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union.

The Chernobyl power plant was located in the settlement of Pryp'yat, 10 miles
(16 km) northwest of the city of Chernobyl (Ukrainian:Chernobyl) and 65 miles
(104 km) north of Kyiv, Ukraine. The station consisted of four reactors, each
capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electrical power; it came online in
1977-83.

Nearly 8.4 million people in the three countries were exposed to radiation.
Two workers at the Chernobyl power plant died as a result of the explosion on
the night of the accident, and another 28 people died within weeks of acute
radiation syndrome.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISASTER


The force of the explosion spread contamination over large parts of the Soviet
Union, now Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
At this nuclear power plant, the routine 20-second system shutdown appeared
to be another test of electrical equipment. Seven seconds later, however, the
surge triggered a chemical explosion that released nearly 520 dangerous
radionuclides into the atmosphere.
Due to a design flaw, this action resulted in a localized increase in reactivity in
the reactor. This caused the fuel lines to burst, causing a rapid drop in
pressure, causing the coolant to flash on steam. This reduced neutron
absorption, leading to increased reactor activity, which further increased
coolant temperatures. This process led to steam explosions and meltdowns of
the reactor core.
CONSEQUENCES OF THIS DISASTER
According to official reports, 31 people died immediately and 600,000
"liquidators" involved in firefighting and remediation operations were exposed
to high doses of radiation. According to official reports, almost 8,400,000
people were exposed to radiation in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, which is
more than the population of Austria.
About 155,000 km^2 of land was contaminated in the three countries, which
is almost half of the total area of Italy.
Agricultural areas covering nearly 52,000 km^2, more than the size of
Denmark, were contaminated with cesium-137 and strontium-90, with half-
lives of 30 and 28 years, respectively.
Nearly 404,000 people were resettled, but millions continued to live in an
environment where continued residual exposure created a range of adverse
effects.
32 years after the Chernobyl disaster
IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH
The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the resulting explosions
caused a large release of nuclear radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Radionuclides were scattered around the plant and across much of Europe.
Fallout from Chernobyl had a major impact on agricultural and natural
ecosystems in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, as well as many other European
countries. Radionuclides were taken up by plants and later by animals. In some
areas, they were subsequently found in milk, meat, forest foods, freshwater
fish and wood.
Environmental impacts vary by location and ecosystem. Forests and freshwater
bodies are among the most affected ecosystems. The impacts on wildlife
around the Chernobyl power plant are questionable. The effects on human
health have been extensively studied, although experts are not unanimous in
their opinions.
Official assessments by UN agencies have been disputed. The main exposed
population groups were cleaning workers, evacuees and residents of
contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. There is no clear evidence
of any measurable increase in adverse health effects from radiation in other
European countries.
Immediate and short-term effects from exposure to heavy fallout include
radiation sickness and cataracts. Late effects are thyroid cancer, especially in
children and adolescents, and leukemia in exposed workers. The accident also
had important psychosocial effects.

Automation would have prevented the accident


The Chernobyl accident was a purely man-made event. It was the result of a
"security process" gone horribly wrong, compounded by incompetence and
even worse disinformation and cover-up. With effective training, management
and regulatory oversight, the accident could have been completely prevented
and its consequences mitigated.

An automatic safety lockout would prevent the test from starting


until reaching the limit of 700 MWt. Unfortunately, automatic safety interlocks
can only prevent accidents if they exist and cannot be disabled by operators. In
other words, allowing panicked, unskilled and sleepy operators to do whatever
they wanted at 1am was a recipe for disaster.
If the control system had been designed so that the operator could not bypass
the automatic safety system, the accident could not have occurred, but even if
it had occurred from some other cause, at the first sign of an overvoltage, the
control computer would have "exploded" the reactor by inserting all the
control rods into the core and inundation of water.
Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

https://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/l-2/3-chernobyl-environment.htm

https://www.controlglobal.com/protect/safety-instrumented-systems/article/
11380173/automation-could-have-prevented-chernobyl

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/
chernobyl-accident.aspxhttps://www.britannica.com/event/Chernobyl-disaster

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