Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal

[n2doc]

300 seconds will produce a relatively quick death, which is better than many alternatives.

After just 30 seconds of exposure, dizziness and fatigue will find you a week later. Two minutes of exposure and your cells will soon begin to hemorrhage; four minutes: vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. 300 seconds and you have two days to live.

By the fall of 1986, the emergency crews fighting to contain the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl made it into a steam corridor beneath failed reactor Number 4. Inside this chamber they found black lava that had oozed straight from the core. The most famous formation was a solid flow that their radiation sensors firmly told them not to approach. With cameras pushed in from around a corner, the workers dubbed the dimly lit mass “the Elephant’s Foot.” According to readings taken at the time, the still hot portion of molten core put out enough radiation to give a lethal dose in 300 seconds.

The Elephant’s Foot could be the most dangerous piece of waste in the world.

more
http://nautil.us/blog/chernobyls-hot-mess-the-elephants-foot-is-still-lethal?utm_source=frontpage&utm_medium=mview&utm_campaign=chernobyls-hot-mess-the-elephants-foot-is-still-lethal

[juxtaposed]

1. scary shit

i remember seeing this foot on nova or frontline. I've have the misfortune of working on refuels in nuke's.

[Demeter]

2. And god alone knows what's left in Fukushima

[FBaggins]

3. That raises some interesting questions that the anti-nuke fringe can't answer

Chernobyl was worse than Fukushima in many ways, but one of the most obvious is that while Fukushima had an hour after shutdown to start cooling, Chernobyl actually powered up and was running well above full power as it melted down. Also worth noting is that they didn't spend years pouring water over the "elephant's foot"... yet there it still sits - decades later.

Why hasn't it stayed in molten form?
Why isn't it burning its way through the concrete floor and down to the water table?
Why didn't fission continue or restart?

[Demeter]

4. There is nothing about public health or safety in those questions

It's still a death spot. It doesn't really matter...it's still death.

[FBaggins]

6. So we'll just pretend that's why you won't answer them

[Hydra]

8. Gee, science is hard...

"Careful examination determined that it wasn’t all nuclear fuel. In fact, the mass was comprised of only a small percentage of fuel; the rest was melted concrete, sand, and core shielding that all melted and flowed together. The material was dubbed “corium,” after the part of the reactor that spawned it. Over time, the Elephant’s Foot decomposed. It puffed dust and its surface cracked. But for years it remained too dangerous to approach."

As an odd fellow I met once said, "The solution to pollution is dilution"

Better question- why are we using a super toxic substance that is highly cost inefficient and produces waste that lasts so long to produce power? Mind you, I was fascinated by fission as a kid. Then I grew up.

[FBaggins]

18. I'm afraid that you've missed the point

No doubt the corium at Fukushima also contains concrete and core shielding and any number of other broken parts of the reactor. The questions are really to ask why the fringe anti-nukes think that Fukushima's corium is doing something other than what happened in a far-worse meltdown.

[kristopher]

14. "...few signs of nuclear fuel remaining in the reactor core..."

Researchers: More than 70% of No. 2 reactor's fuel may have melted
September 27, 2015

By HIROMI KUMAI/ Staff Writer
More than 70 percent of the fuel may have melted in one of the three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that suffered meltdowns in the wake of the 2011 nuclear disaster, researchers reported on Sept. 26.

The group, which includes researchers from Nagoya University, concluded that it is highly likely that 70 to 100 percent of the fuel has melted in the No. 2 reactor through inspecting the interior using a fluoroscopic device, which utilizes elementary particles called muons.

It was the second time that researchers successfully scanned the interior of the damaged reactors using a fluoroscopic device since a group led by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled plant, announced the results of its survey inside the No. 1 reactor in March.

...The survey detected few signs of nuclear fuel remaining in the reactor core...

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201509270023

[FBaggins]

5. The way you excerpted the piece could be unintentionally deceptive

Those first paragraphs refer to how lethal the radiation levels were when they first discovered it. The blog post goes on to summarize the lower levels of a decade later (when an hour would be fatal).

The levels are, of course, even lower now (almost 30 years after the accident). You obviously wouldn't want to hold a dinner party there or take a nap next to it, but you also wouldn't get radiation sickness after 30 seconds of exposure.

[AuntPatsy]

7. Facts matter, thank you

[hunter]

9. Oh, not nearly the "most dangerous."

Anyone who has worked in medicine with nastiness like HIV, polio, ebola, etc., can tell you that.

Toxic shit is toxic shit, radioactive or not.

The Bhopal Disaster wasn't radioactive, but it was still horribly deadly, and those toxins are still around.

There is plenty of deadly shit in our industrial society scattered about as dangerous deadly waste, much of it invisible to any Geiger counter, some very well contained, some not, many toxins with a "half-life" of fucking FOREVER.

But it's the biological stuff that scares me. When I was working in medical labs, before HIV and after powerful antibiotics, we'd handle hospital blood and tissue samples rather casually. Antibiotics still worked, and deadly viral diseases were under control by vaccines. Sure I wore my goggles and gloves and lab coat, but I wasn't really thinking any of it might kill me. I had all my shots, even smallpox. Antibiotics like erythromycin knocked down occasional infections in my asthmatic lungs.

Then the AIDS crisis hit. People I knew in high school died. Later I worked in a blood bank, where our hemophilia patients were dead or dying.

And in the same time period the stories started hitting REALLY close to me, in my own family.

Chernobyl isn't a huge moment in the long history of Human Stupidity. The "Elephant's Foot" isn't going anywhere soon.

The election of Ronald Reagan was a far deadlier event than Chernobyl. People are still dying by the millions.

[bananas]

10. Gorbachev: Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Was Real Cause Of The Collapse of Soviet Union

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/12/gorbachev-chernobyl-nuclear-accident.html

<snip>

1986 - GORBACHEV SAID CHERNOBYL WOULD HAVE NO LASTING EFFECTS ON SOVIETS OR ANYONE ELSE

<snip>

2006 - GORBACHEV SAID CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR PLANT DISASTER WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION

Washington's Blog reports; As Gorbachev wrote in 2006:

"The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was an historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed....

The price of the Chernobyl catastrophe was overwhelming, not only in human terms, but also economically. Even today, the legacy of Chernobyl affects the economies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. "

<snip>

AFTER CHERNOBYL, NUCLEAR EXPERTS AND POLITICIANS COVERED UP THE DISASTER

The cover up of Chernobyl would have been 'perfect', if only it been allowed to take place by the politicians of the Soviet Union. There was a small problem. Gorbachev got tired of the lies and deception. He saw and felt the suffering of hundreds of millions of people at the hands of invisible poison, called nuclear radiation.

Via DailyKos; "On July 3, 1986, Gorbachev turned on both the lords of the country’s nuclear industry, and his own Politburo. “For thirty years, you told us that everything was perfectly safe,” he said. “You assumed we would all look up to you as gods. That’s why all this happened, why it ended in disaster. There was nobody controlling the ministries and scientific centers. And for the moment, I can see no signs that you have drawn the necessary conclusions. In fact, it seems that you are attempting to cover everything up.”

Gorbachev learned through Chernobyl that the entire country lay concealed behind a rotting Potemkin facade. And he was determined to kick the thing down. “We’re going to put an end to all this,” he said. “We have suffered great losses, and not only economic ones. There have been human victims, and there will be more. We have been damaged politically. All our work has been compromised. Our science and technology have been discredited as a result of what happened. From now on, what we do is going to be visible to our entire people and the whole world. We need full information.”

<snip>


Gorbachev made a difference, but he did not turn it all around by himself, because the lies and deception inside of the nuclear machine were so deeply entrenched, that even when he came out of the closet and turned on his nuclear experts, the lies and deception went on, possibly at a lower level for a short period of time. The whole lying and deceptive nuclear industry cannot be turned around with just one man saying something.

NUCLEAR INDUSTRY SURVIVES ONLY BY LIES AND DECEPTIONS

<snip>

[GliderGuider]

13. Perhaps a few more could hasten the collapse of industrial societies throughout the world.

Signs of hope?

[Ghost Dog]

17. Signs of hope?

Yes. There will be more.

[bananas]

11. Gorbachev: "the world must quickly transition to efficient, safe, and renewable energy"

Shortly before Fukushima, Gorbachev wrote:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x956612

Chernobyl 25 years later: Many lessons learned - by Mikhail Gorbachev

<snip>

To end the vicious cycle of “poverty versus safe environment,” the world must quickly transition to efficient, safe, and renewable energy, which will bring enormous economic, social, and environmental benefits. As the global population continues to expand, and the demand for energy production grows, we must invest in alternative and more sustainable sources of energy—wind, solar, geothermal, hydro—and widespread conservation and energy efficiency initiatives as safer, more efficient, and more affordable avenues for meeting both energy demands and conserving our fragile planet.

<snip>

[kristopher]

12. Thank you for those references.

It shows me that I haven't looked at the political aftermath of Chernobyl at all. I'll rectify that omission.

[NNadir]

15. Lethal? Really? How many people died this year from it?

Anything like the 7 million people who died this year, on a continuous basis from air pollution?

It is the height of being insipid to call the so called "Elephant's foot" the "most dangerous piece of waste in the world" when the most dangerous piece of waste in the world happens to be the planetary atmosphere, loaded as it is with dangerous fossil fuel waste that has been incorporated not only in the flesh of every human being on the planet, but, in fact, every living thing on the planet.

More people have undoubtedly died from the coal and gas burned to run computers to run scare stories about Chernobyl than the radiation from the reactor killed.

The most lethal form of waste in the world, other than the chemical waste that has poisoned the planetary atmosphere, has to be anti-nuke rhetoric. Nuclear energy saves lives, according to Jim Hansen, roughly 2 million people are alive today who would not be alive had nuclear power plants not been built.

Have a nice day.

[kristopher]

16. Former PM Naoto Kan says nuclear power makes little economic sense, must end

Former PM Naoto Kan says nuclear power makes little economic sense, must end
BY KAZUAKI NAGATA

Although the first reactor in Japan to be fired up in two years went online last month, former Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Wednesday that Japan needs to seek a nuclear-free path.

This is a lesson the country has learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, said Kan, who was prime minister when the Fukushima No. 1 plant was hit by a huge quake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

“I’m absolutely sure that there will no longer be nuclear power by the end of this century. This is because it doesn’t make sense economically, and enough energy can be provided without it,” Kan said in a lecture to foreign residents in Tokyo...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/09/16/national/former-pm-naoto-kan-says-nuclear-power-makes-little-economic-sense-must-end