Chernobyl Anniversary Time

...In a nuclear plant this is an important safety concern because coolant pumps must be kept working—even after the reactor is shut down—to supply coolant water to the hot reactor core...

...The diesels at Soviet nuclear plants are designed to get going in about a minute's time—much too long to leave their volatile reactors without adequate cooling water...

...Savvy politicians can thus take advantage of a temporary surplus in electric capacity, mortgage the future of regional economies, and fully exploit the fact that a large part of the public doesn't know where their electricity comes from in the first place...

...corn'Some U.S...

...Then, however, the turbine slowed still further, which reduced the voltage reaching the pumps...

...on April 26—less than a minute before the fireworks...

...In other words, they may have been shot or were among those thirty or so plant workers who perishedwith 80 to 90 percent loss of skin," as the Soviets put it—in the shower of radiation and white-hot debris that followed the big blow-out...

...Most significantly, the RBMK is different from all commercial nuclear plants in the United States by virtue of its positive void coefficient of reactivity.2 This means that the nuclear chain reaction in the RBMK is accelerated when its tubes of uranium fuel are deprived (or "voided") of coolant...

...Last August, Professor Aram Abagayan of the new Soviet Ministry for Atomic Energy told Nucleonics Week that the operators are "quite well and alive," but he was contradicted in statements made the same week in Vienna by Academician Valery Legasov, who referred to the operators "while they were still alive...

...The safety of the two graphite reactors operated by the federal government for nuclear weapons production is beyond the purview of this article...

...For this and many other reasons, a LOCA causing danger to the American public is about as likely as a Boeing 747 crashing into Yankee Stadium during a Sunday doubleheader while Don Mattingly is at bat...

...This reactor is cooled with gas, fully contained, and free of the dangerous reactivity characteristics of the RBMK...

...We would face a disaster very different from the one at Chernobyl if these obstacles should impede our ability toward the end of the century to further develop what can be our safest, cleanest, and cheapest source of energy...

...In any case, the proposed corrections are mere band-aids that provide neither adequate containment, an adequate system for quickly shutting down the reactor, nor a complete solution to the RBMKS predisposition to getting out of control...

...But this would bring an emergency coolant system into play and spoil the test conditions...

...Seven new RBMKs are in construction and figure prominently in a massive Soviet commitment to nuclear power that will bring at least forty-four new nuclear plants on line before the end of the century...

...reactor, as happened at Three Mile Island, and the chain reaction will come to a halt...

...The Chernobyl 4 reactor, as the world would soon learn, was housed in a multi-story garage...

...If coolant is taken away—as happened at Chernobyl—an RBMK operating at low power can rapidly surge in power...

...With the nuclear chain reaction accelerating out of control, a blast of heat was released from the uranium fuel that disintegrated much of the reactor core in an eruption of poisonous steam...

...Take away coolant from a U.S...

...To date, there is no evidence that they have done so...

...While these plants sit idle at the expense of both utility shareholders and ratepayers, existing nuclear plants are cleanly and safely powering the same regions where the new nukes have been declared taboo...

...Because the Soviets won't abide snooping on their weapons production system, they have steadfastly refused Western experts more than superficial tours of their nuclear plants...

...Who left the poorly trained test operators at the controls of the reactor...

...Who planned the ill-advised turbine test that precipitated the accident...

...Accordingly, the operators switched off the emergency coolant system—the last line of their safety defense...

...These protests, however, steer clear of the fact that the doomed power plant—and many more still operating in the Soviet Union—are designed to double as bomb factories...

...They link the turbine generator to the main coolant pumps with a voltage regulator, on the theory that momentum will keep the turbine spinning for at least a minute after the reactor is shut down...

...If they (or their superiors...

...The combination of graphite, the unstable core, and the lack of containment adds up to a reactor that could not be licensed in any country outside the Soviet bloc...

...This allows them not only to harvest plutonium for use in their warheads, but to do so without interrupting the flow of electricity...

...Sweden has voted for a rapid phase-out, and the West German program is suddenly under attack...

...The Soviets relied heavily on this seriously flawed design because it enabled them to use their civilian power plants for the dual purpose of making weapons plutonium...

...The events described in the Soviet report are at the same time too logical, too detailed, and too unusual to seem untrue," said Dr...

...plants) are judged an extravagance...

...The Chernobyl test operators meant to simulate this sort of emergency...

...Some have also claimed that the Chernobyl disaster should have wide-ranging implications for the commercial nuclear power program in the United States...

...operators facing a loss-of-coolant-accident (LOCA) must contend only with the .decay heat produced by the residue of the halted fission process...

...media, Chernobyl did not suffer a "meltdown" of the kind that partially occurred at Three Mile Island...

...The graphite creates an added danger—also made real at Chernobyl —of a fire burning and then smoldering in the core for days after the accident...

...Setbacks for a few U.S...

...For liberals—especially those opposed to all things nuclear and friendly toward the Soviets Chernobyl created cognitive dissonance and was quickly forgotten...

...In all but one U.S...

...By designing the Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor with a minimal regard for safety and by manning it with incompetent operators, the Soviets produced a new kind of catastrophe: the world's first nuclear power plant blow-out...

...It is also possible that they received orders from a higher-up to damn the torpedoes and get the test over with...

...It was this protective shell, as was only sometimes mentioned, that kept the accident at Three Mile Island (which involved some melting of nuclear fuel due to a temporary loss of coolant) from posing any danger to the public...

...Though a U.S.-type containment would have certainly restricted the spread of radioactive poison following the blow-out, it should be emphasized that the design of the RBMK reactor was the fundamental cause of both the explosion and its consequences...

...nuclear plants...

...And by forgoing containment buildings, the Soviets can slide bundles of fuel in and out of the reactor without first shutting it down...

...L. M. Grossman of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley...

...Instead, Chernobyl Unit 4 was blown to bits...

...The RBMK, on the other hand, uses water for a coolant and a block of flammable graphite as a moderator...

...Power had to be stabilized at 50 percent, well above the 22 to 30 percent required by the test...

...In order to keep itself going, an RBMK diverts some of the electricity it produces...

...Soviet energy officials have several times denied to Western experts that Cher'The only commercial reactor in the United States that is not a LWR is the graphite-moderated Fort St...

...Incidentally, the Soviets have since announced a piecemeal plan to adjust their RBMKS to eliminate the possibility of an identical accident occurring in the future...

...The power level prescribed by the test plan proved to be an elusive target for the operators...

...20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987 nobyl Unit 4 was used for weapons production...

...Seabrook, New Hampshire...

...Vrain Station operated by Public Service Company of Colorado in Platteville, Colorado...

...s was frequently mentioned in the U.S...

...Perhaps there was some undue emphasis placed on blaming the plant operators, rather than the reactor design, but the accident scenario is convincing...

...In the United States such an occurrence is prepared for with great seriousness, and at great expense...

...Unfortunately, the RBMK is a finicky mechanism: its graphite core is channelled with more than 1,600 pressurized tubes of nuclear fuel, each of which can be independently controlled...

...Just when they were approaching the right level of power, however, an order arrived that more electricity was needed from the plant...

...The blast instantly destroyed the hall built on top of the reactor (where a handful of victims were at work), and it easily lifted away the flimsy roof...

...The operators, in other words, were left in the cheerful state of mind that comes from working all night for no reason...

...By 11:10 p.m.—in spite of efforts to split more atoms—power had fallen to one percent...

...This contrasts radically with the predominant U.S...

...The most comprehensive version of the accident that we have—or are likely to have—is contained in a Soviet report issued at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna this past August...

...nuclear plant to purchase, maintain, and constantly test emergency diesel generators that are designed to deliver electricity to plant systems in ten seconds or less, which ensures the renewed operation of pumps and other plant systems in time to prevent the overheating of nuclear fuel...

...Second, containment buildings cost too much money...

...If the RBMK is shut down on short notice (or "scrammed" as our engineers say), electricity must be delivered to coolant pumps from an off-site source...

...Through the 1950s and 1960s, this lack of know-how left them stuck with pressure tubes in graphite...

...Who made the original decision to dot the Soviet landscape with the dangerous RBMKs...

...Interestingly, the fate of the three operators, who were employed by the Soviet electrical firm Dom Tech Energo, is also uncertain...

...They struggled through theearly morning hours on April 25 and into the afternoon on April 26 to produce the right conditions...

...The elaborate system of pressure tubes allows the Soviets to dedicate individual fuel channels to specially prepared uranium that can be transmuted during the normal operation of the reactor into the stuff of nuclear warheads...

...This boils away more coolant, causing a further increase in power and still more boiling...

...United States...

...plants, however, may not be as significant as the anti-nuclear groundswell that has followed the disaster in Europe...

...In fact, Energy Secretary John Herrington told a Senate subcommittee last November that two of the other RBMKs at the Chernobyl site had most probably been restarted without the completion of the promised upgrades...

...If things aren't quickly brought under control with a fresh supply of coolant, a disastrous release of heat can result...

...Apparently, the operators decided at this point to break with their orders...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987 21...

...And finally—and perhaps most importantly—the RBMK is designed to double as both a power plant and a production facility for weapons plutonium...

...For now, nuclear power in the United States remains in deep trouble because of problems in the licensing system, and in the public's misperception of the dangers...

...scientists, no expert, as far as can be determined, has doubted the basic Soviet account of the disaster...

...By contrast, the United States is planning no new nuclear capacity after 1990...

...Without off-site power and without a steady supply of coolant, the core of the shutdown, reactor will become dangerously hot...

...Though the degree of irresponsibility in the Soviet nuclear power program came as a surprise to many U.S...

...A pril marks the first anniversary of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl Unit 4 in Pripyat, USSR, which resulted in billions of dollars in industrial and agricultural damage, the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from their homes, the rendering of more than 100 square miles of the Ukraine useless and uninhabitable for years to come, general panic throughout Europe, the serious injury of more than 200 fire fighters and plant workers, and the death of thirty-one others...

...Plans to add more nuclear capacity have been stopped in the Netherlands and Finland...

...The stage was thus set for the world's first nuclear blow-out...

...First, the Soviets have only recently mastered the metallurgical skills necessary to forge the steel pressure vessels used to contain the nuclear fuel in U.S...

...The political incongruities, however, are apparently meant to draw attention from the more serious news: •Before the accident, more than half of the USSR's nuclear power was being produced by RBMK', graphite reactors of the kind that exploded at Chernobyl (fourteen larger plants and several smaller ones...

...And along with this capability come the design flaws that make the RBMKS so dangerous...

...And to make things worse, after the interruption the reactor again proved difficult to control...

...The test was started at 1:23 a.m...

...mercial reactor, 3 water serves as both the coolant and the "moderator" that "transfers" neutrons between rods of uranium fuel...

...As with other famous Soviet booboos, the real villains are bureaucratic, and the report leaves them shrouded in the mists of unofficial history...

...Jonathan Cohen is a science writer in Palo Alto, California...

...and North Perry, Ohio...

...Western experts have offered technical help through the IAEA, but they andtheir international organization are being kept informed only to the extent that they can serve Soviet purposes...

...And some politicians, like New York's Governor Cuomo and Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, rediscovered nuclear power as an issue for alarming that growing part of the electorate that is not so much skeptical about energy sources as merely without a clue...

...The Soviet report squarely blames a team of three test operators who pushed buttons in the right sequence to blow the roof off the power plant, citing their "deliberate and willful" violations of operating rules and procedures, their poorly prepared and unapproved test plan, and the safety measures that had been drafted for a special test and then "ignored as a mere formality...

...Whatever the motivation, the operators made the ghastly decision to conduct the test while the reactor was operating at low power...

...had possessed a more sophisticated understanding of the reactor, they would have realized that this was suicidally dangerous...

...commercial reactors can briefly show a positive void coefficient of reactivity when operated at low power...

...Because of the mysterious similarities discovered by the likes of Cuomo and Markey between Chernobyl and the U.S...

...Contrary to hasty reports in the U.S...

...But why did the Soviets make these dangerous choices in nuclear technology...

...LWRs...

...In the Soviet Union, however, fast-starting diesels (like a dozen other safety features required on all U.S...

...Tens of millions of dollars are spent at every U.S...

...T he Chernobyl blow-out was started during a seemingly mundane experiment to see how some new electrical equipment would work in the event of a station blackout, or—as engineers call it—a loss of both on-site and off-site power...

...To test this system, the reactor busters from Dom Tech Energo were ordered first to adjust the nuclear chain reaction to a specified moderate level of power at which they could safely recreate emergency conditions...

...The reactor responded by zooming from 7 to 50 percent power injust a few seconds...

...As the turbine slows, it is supposed to supply enough electricity to keep the pumps in operation until the slow-starting diesels kick in...

...operator errors that pose no danger in U.S...

...A reactor shutdown combined with THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1987 19 a loss of coolant and a loss of off-site power could conceivably result from a major earthquake, a military or terrorist attack, or any number of even less likely events...

...nuclear power program, further delays were engineered in the opening of new nuclear plants at Shoreham, Long Island...

...It was this graphite fire at Chernobyl, and not the blow-out itself, that caused most of the dispersal of radioactive materials over the Ukraine and points west...

...media following the accident, Chernobyl Unit 4 was without the thick steel and concrete containment shell that must surround all commercial nuclear power reactors in the...

...It was probably clear to the operators at this point that the test—if carried out according to specifications—might take several days longer than planned...

...The Soviets thus rely on a kind of Rube Goldberg strategy to keep cooling water flowing to the reactor in a blackout...

...This, in turn, reduced the reactor's supply of coolant...

...U nfortunately, the technical and philosophical differences between the U.S...

...Some scientists have speculated that the operators were hurrying in order to assure their time off for the upcoming May Day holiday...

...reactor type, the light water reactor (LWR), which for fundamental purposes of safety is designed to cease operation when coolant is taken away...

...The report is surprisingly complete, even though it is sprinkled with references to "the senselessness and unacceptability of war under modern conditions," and "the problem of the spread of nuclear weapons...

...The turbine, gradually slowing to a halt, kept the main coolant pumps working for about 40 seconds...

...Soviet technical literature is full of warnings about the predisposition of the RBMK to zoom out of control at low power if any disturbance should occur in the coolant supply...

...This condition, however, would quickly correct itself if too much coolant were boiled away...

...And it should remind us that the Soviets are recklessly lurching toward self-sufficiency in energy—with us or without us...

...They did this while fully aware that the RBMK can lurch out of control under many kinds of mechanical failures and 'RBMK is a Cyrillic acronym for "Heterogenous water-graphite channel-type reactor...

...To get the test started, the operators first had to disconnect the turbine from the steam being generated in the core...

...Chernobyl should remind us that we have invested billions of dollars and some of the country's most conscientious technical talent for the enviable option of safe nuclear power...

...and Soviet nuclear power programs—including the fact that weapons and power production are kept separate in the United States—have not piqued the interest of the American press, which has thus missed the chief lesson of the disaster: our nuclear plants are safer by several orders of magnitude than Chernobyl Unit 4. The unwillingness of the media to discuss positive void coefficients of reactivity, for example, is representative of the new status of nuclear power as a political issue...

...The Soviets rely on a kind of Rube Goldberg strategy to keep cooling water flowing to the reactor in a blackout...