
Chernobyl’s new sarcophagus - Sami_Lehtinen
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170101-a-new-tomb-for-the-most-dangerous-disaster-site-in-the-world
======
doomlaser
If you haven't seen it, this is a great photo essay that goes through the
history of the Chernobyl accident and aftermath:
[http://imgur.com/a/TwY6q](http://imgur.com/a/TwY6q)

It's pretty enthralling

~~~
aw3c2
_WARNING_ : Human gore and mutated animal photos are part of this.

A lot of fascinating images I have never seen before, thanks!

~~~
savoytruffle
Another interesting biological result at Chernobyl is not mutation, but simply
natural selection: Radiotrophic Fungus.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus)

Fungus that is essentially using "photosynthesis" of gamma radiation from the
melted core instead of sunlight to grow.

------
bigbugbag
Vinci and Bouygues, two french companies in the construction business with a
long history of corruption all over the world including Russia (qatar,
turkmenistan, french pentagon, cambodia airports, notre dames des landes, ...
just to cite a few of the most recent). Both have ties with previous France
president and have pointed for shady practices from illegal construction to
use of migrant as slaves and forced labour.

The attribution of the sarcophagus contract to those two was suspicious at the
times. It's not unheard of in Vinci and Bouygues cases that whistleblowers and
witness tend to die or be sued into oblivion using SLAPPs. AFAIK no one came
forward to speak and the deal went on.

Seems to be a nice engineering work though, sadly it funnels money to rich
family with poor ethics and practices.

~~~
bengalister
"Notre Dame des landes" there are no proofs at all, only suspicions coming
from environmental extremists whom often lie to achieve their goal, not really
trustworthy people. I am not saying that the 2 companies are clean, but let's
face it the construction business is corrupted or using un-ethical practices
(like agreement on price between competitors) almost all over the world. For
instance, you would expect the construction business to be clean in a country
like Canada which is often praised for being a non-corrupted country but at
least in Québec it is owned by mobster overpricing every project.

------
rl3
The official time-lapse video of this, without all the ads:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH1bv9fAxiY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH1bv9fAxiY)

~~~
hometownglory
Some people are wearing hazmat suits, some others not. How come?

~~~
falcolas
From what little I know, the people in hazmat suits are those who are in an
area where they could pick up radioactive particles on their clothing; the
suits can be shucked as part of an exit process to keep all of the radioactive
particles confined. The hazmat suits do little to protect against the actual
radiation, most of that is mitigated by limiting the time you can spend in the
area.

There have been a few "dirty jobs" type shows which have shown this process in
action: when replacing a turbine on a nuclear generator, there was a literal
line in the floor everyone watched - materials and people could only move in
one direction with respect to that line without a lengthy cleaning and
inspection. There's also a few Veritasium YouTube videos about a visit to
Chernobyl which goes into detail about the exposure limits.

~~~
robertely
I'm fairly sure the show you are talking about is "World's Toughest Fixes"
specifically the episode "Nuclear Turbine".

It is available paid on Youtube/Amazon

------
matthewmacleod
It's not a bad article, but I do take exception to:

 _On 26 April 1986, the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
exploded during a routine stress test._

… which is emphatically not what happened!

~~~
2sk21
Indeed, many safeguards were deliberately disabled during this "test".

~~~
pja
Well, it was a test & it was deliberate. But definitely not routine.

I imagine the author is trying to convey that it was a pre-planned action, not
a response to some kind of emergency. It was still a terrible, terrible idea
of course.

------
myth_drannon
A mandatory read about how people's lives were affected by the accident -
"Chernobyl Prayer" \- Svetlana Alexievich
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Alexievich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Alexievich))

She won the Nobel prize for her writing.

The accident happened in Ukraine but a fact that is not usually written is
that Belarus had a QUARTER of it's land mass polluted (and Belarus is a large
country).Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)

~~~
IvarTheHomeless
I showed a Ukrainian a photo of Steven Seagal holding gift melons from the
president of Belarus, her response was "Only old people who don't care about
radiation buy produce from Belarus"

[http://time.com/4468168/steven-seagal-carrot-watermelon-
mins...](http://time.com/4468168/steven-seagal-carrot-watermelon-minsk-
belarus-president/)

------
udp
I only recently found out that Chernobyl was still a functioning power plant
until 2000:

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1071344.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1071344.stm)

~~~
kurthr
Yep, imagine if Fukashima (which leaked radiation slowly into the ground water
an ocean rather than burning the pile) were treated like Chernobyl. Amazing
how I read articles about how the area is such a great nature preserve now,
when it was so much (5-10x) larger.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Ch...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Chernobyl_nuclear_accidents)

In comparison the Tohoku Tsunami caused 25k casualties, which (outside of
Japan) seem have been largely ignored over by the coverage of the radiation
leaks.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami)

~~~
glasz
i love how wikipedia portraits it like an event with no aftermath.

fukushima is still leaking. 400 tons of radioactive water. this will probably
go on forever. the meltdown may have reached ground water. nobody knows
because tepco and japans enlighted gov won't tell.

[http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/15/whats-really-going-
on...](http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/15/whats-really-going-on-at-
fukushima/)

------
BozeWolf
More info about the arch. I recommend watching the movie.
[http://www.mammoet.com/en/cases/Arch-over-
Chernobyl/](http://www.mammoet.com/en/cases/Arch-over-Chernobyl/)

I studied mechanical engineering... and was mostly interested in off shore
(heavy) tech. this is kind of comparable. My background makes me more then
interested in these kind of things. The size of this mobile structure is just
impressive.

------
artursapek
> Invited guests enjoy a virtual reality experience in the hospitality tent at
> the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Credit: Anton Skyba)

I never considered VR as a way to explore things that would kill you in
reality. That's awesome. I want to go poke the elephant's foot.

~~~
eswat
Seems like a natural progression given video games. When I saw that photo I
immediately thought about the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series. That gave a
lot of gamers an idea of what walking around in the exclusion zone was like,
albeit a very fantastical version of it.

------
lisper
More info and pix on the original sarcophagus:

[http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-
disaster/sarcophagus/](http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-
disaster/sarcophagus/)

------
faragon
I still remember watching the Chernobyl accident report in TV with my family
when I was a boy. We started crying spontaneously when it was explained that
many volunteers knew they were working knowing they would not survive (when
the situation was still out of control). It was terrible.

~~~
hirsin
From my reading, the volunteers were not actually informed of the true danger
they faced. In multiple instances either no warning was given or the truth
hidden, saying that the background levels were harmless when in fact they
simply had no equipment that could measure high enough.

In addition, I'm skeptical that the biorobots and liquidators were true
volunteers. If the Soviet government comes to your house and hands you three
sets of clothing saying "we need volunteers", you didn't really have a choice.

~~~
IvarTheHomeless
I have watched a lot of footage and read many accounts of Liquidators who
thought they really were fulfilling their duty to the Motherland.

I suppose it could all be a Soviet psyop, but to me it's convincing.

------
saurabhjha
I remember watching a 90 minute documentary on Chernobyl on television around
2010. It was mentioned that the construction of sarcophagus was 10 year behind
schedule.

Glad to see the work done though the world paid a huge, huge price for it.

------
biktor_gj
There's something that always wonders me abouth these kind of disasters.

You have people saying "we shouldn't be making more nuclear plants, they're
all too dangerous and can explode!" And then you have others who say something
in the lines of

"But they get the cleanest energy" or "you can't depend on solar energy for
everything"

I think the question almost nobody is asking is what will happen to this if it
goes unmantained and workers leave the plant unattended, for example, a
disease striking the region, economic collapse or a civil war. What
containment do any goverment have for that kind of situation, it's not like
you can put someone in there and push some random buttons or something to keep
the entire thing from melting...

~~~
jdiez17
We already have inherently safe nuclear reactors[1] that automatically power
down if the core gets too hot due to the physical properties of the fuel,
without the need for an electronic control system. However, incidents such as
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima have already tarnished nuclear in
the public view, making it politically unfeasible to spend money on new
reactors. This is a good summary of the situation:
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602051/fail-safe-
nuclear-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602051/fail-safe-nuclear-
power/)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor)

~~~
guscost
It has to be said again that RBMKs like Chernobyl are a terribly unsafe
design, in that they have a positive void coefficient and can go prompt-
critical (basically the core can explode). If you read between the lines, this
design won in the USSR because it was easier and cheaper to build[0]. The
soviets also (allegedly) skimped on the construction[1].

Since way before Chernobyl, the US has been operating LWR and PWR designs,
which have a negative void coefficient and therefore can be built to be
passive-safe[2]. Correspondingly, no deaths have _ever_ been directly
attributed to failure of a production LWR or PWR.

[0]
[https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25204744759.pdf](https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25204744759.pdf)
(page 51)

[1]
[http://articles.latimes.com/1986-05-02/news/mn-3039_1_cherno...](http://articles.latimes.com/1986-05-02/news/mn-3039_1_chernobyl-
plant)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety)

~~~
my123
For Chernobyl, the security measures were explicitly bypassed after the
reactor was poisoned to raise the power level...

~~~
guscost
Yeah, that too...

------
stplsd
There is a great documentary from BBC Horizon series made in 1991 called
"Inside Chernobyl's Sarcophagus", it won a Emmy. It shows scientists working
inside chernobyl's sarcophagus, in 1996 BBC did a follow-up, and almost all
scientists form original program were already dead, mostly from heart attacks.

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x223h9r_bbc-
horizon-1996-in...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x223h9r_bbc-
horizon-1996-inside-chernobyl-s-sarcophagus_shortfilms)

------
gravypod
Earlier when I read this thread someone mentioned they were disassembling the
plant. Where are they putting it and why are they moving it? Is it not better
to keep it contained or are there some sanitization proceedures that can be
used to better contain the radioative particles?

~~~
tempestn
It didn't say explicitly, but my guess is that they want to disassemble the
first sarcophagus and the original plant in an orderly manner before they
eventually just collapse. Even the new sarcophagus won't last forever, so
there also needs to be a plan to eventually deal with the most radioactive
material as is done with other highly radioactive waste. (It's entirely likely
I expect that the less radioactive stuff will be left on-site, just not as
part of crumbling buildings that could eventually collapse, blowing out
radioactive dust.)

------
mp3geek
Do they have plans to fix whats below? "Elephants foot".

~~~
tehabe
I think I heard that the long term plan is to remove all material from the
reactor. But I don't when and most importantly, I don't think anyone has a
clue on how to remove the material from the reactor.

~~~
mkj
I guess it's probably "wait for more advanced robots to be developed"

~~~
tehabe
I think the Japanese are working on those because they need them for cleaning
up Fukushima.

------
cladari
If they had built a containment building and a shield building into the design
instead of after they melted it down Chernobyl would be a footnote and a
lessons learned training tool instead of a disaster area. I was in the nuclear
industry in Operations from '74 to '00 and simply could not believe what they
did and how unprepared they were.

------
throw2016
I think the massive costs of a mistake rule nuclear power our. There is no
rational calculation to be made. We risk decimating the entire environment
around the plant for hundreds of years with consequences that will stay with
us hundreds of years. No price can be put on that kind of damage and we have
zero right to ruin the earth in this way.

We need to find safer technology. God knows what the final consequences of
Fukushima will be. I think nuclear power proponents have no case. I am not
russian and have nothing to do with Russia but as a fellow human being those
images of ordinary russians trying to deal with the crisis bring me to tears
and I don't want any human being to be in that position or suffer in this
grotesque way because of someone's overconfidence or mistake.

~~~
cknight
When working as intended, nuclear is low on emissions and the main concern is
the requirement for waste disposal. The waste can be deposited far from human
habitation or particularly sensitive ecological areas. Big problems that kill
or injure people are rare, but catastrophic.

Its main competitor, coal, is estimated to cause hundreds of thousands of
premature deaths every year when working exactly as intended, and is the
single biggest culprit with regards to human induced climate change, the
results of which may be catastrophic.

I wouldn't say I am exactly pro-nuclear but it makes no sense to me to target
nuclear when we have this fossilized wooden elephant in the room.

~~~
beders
"deposited far from human habitation" Which is not really a solution.

Solar is at $.029/wH now.

Stop the nuclear power non-sense. Stop the coal power non-sense. All of this
is obsolete technology now. Both have disastrous and costly consequences.

~~~
cknight
No solution is going to be perfect.

Going pure solar and wind in the US would require several hundred thousand
square kilometers of photovoltaic panels. More for the windmills if you can't
build them all out at sea.

Aside from the cost running in to the trillions, you need so much steel and
concrete that the emissions produced by those ingredients being made (remember
steel in particular requires coal) that the overall emissions from such a
project are, let's say, non-negligible.

I'm afraid even visionaries like Elon Musk know that renewables are only part
of the solution. Solar and wind's energy output per area is just too small,
even before you consider their consistency drawbacks.

Molten salt looks cool but it's not prime time for that yet, and certainly not
.029/wH. If we want to reduce emissions _now_ while waiting for better
technology to be made, nuclear is as viable an option as any. It's been a
shame here to see Germany go backwards and shut down its nuclear plants for
new coal ones.

[http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-
nuclear...](http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-nuclear-
energy-vs-wind-and-solar/)

------
glasz
so sad most of you don't understand german. i could show you one years-old
(2002) documentary featuring dr. pflugbeil who went into reactor 4 and to the
infamous elephant's foot.

while birds and rainwater went in and out of the defective roof he concluded
that that more than 90% of the radioactive material exploded into the
atmosphere and unless you're living in chernobyl, there's no danger for the
rest of the world anymore. in fact, ppl are living in the zone...

the elephant's foot is no radioactive material. it is just molten material
from the building.

if it is that dangerous, why is there no military protecting it from
terrorists?

meanwhile, money is to be made from the spectacle that is the fud being spread
about chernobyl.

[https://youtu.be/DM6uDZsyX1E](https://youtu.be/DM6uDZsyX1E)

in another film, ranga yogeshwar demonstrated how european companies sold and
built decommission facilities on-site, multimillion euro projects, and handed
them over w/o instructions. it is left up to the ukrain to use the tools but
they don't know how.

scroll to timestamp 35:00
[https://youtu.be/eFt1SezekaE](https://youtu.be/eFt1SezekaE)

the new sarcophagus is a testament to the political corruption and bankruptcy
of the eu. nothing more.

