#even with chernobyl! even with fukushima!

[bogmommy]

you know what really grinds my gears??? the misconceptions abt nuclear power and radioactivity

[good-night-space-kid]

I don’t talk about it much but one of my biggest interests is nuclear energy and disasters and I see that Netflix has recently added a new dramatized series on Fukushima daiichi so 👀

I’ve actually been really hoping for a docu series on the event and aftermath for a while, and even though I’m not big on the dramatized series I’m still super excited that this is happening because it might open the door for a proper documentary series in the near future

[yourlocalbreadenthusiast]

ask for infodump about Chernobyl as someone who has never even heard of it

INHALES

Chernobyl is considered to be the worst nuclear disaster in history, rated at a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), the only other disaster ranking at a 7 being in Fukushima back in 2011. The disaster occurred on April 26, 1986. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant was located in Ukraine, which was under the control of the Soviet Union at the time. It was only about 16 miles from the Belarus-Ukraine border, which was also under Soviet control. There were two main towns nearby, Chernobyl itself, which was older, had only about 15,000 residents, and was actually farther from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant than Pripyat, which had about 50,000 residents, and was only about 2 miles from the plant. Pripyat was newer, and residents had an average age of about 26. The town itself was filled with young, well educated people starting new lives. A large number of public buildings were located in Pripyat, including a school and a sports complex, which contains the famous Azure Swimming Pool. The plant supplied Pripyat with energy, and the place was considered a sort of "dream city." The plant was an RBMK-1000 type reactor, a generation I nuclear reactor, which are the earliest, and generally most hazardous, nuclear reactors. RBMKs were used to produce Plutonium, a radioactive material primarily used in nuclear weapons. However, they could also be used to produce civilian energy, so a few were constructed to supply parts of the USSR with power. At the time of the incident, there were four reactors in operation, with reactors 5 and 6 under construction. A test was scheduled to be conducted to see if the backup generators could successfully turn on in time to keep the cooling systems running at safe levels. However, the test was delayed until the less experienced night shift was in. They turned off the reactor's shutdown feature and lowered the power to the reactor. Reactors need energy to function, as they have to be cooled. For these reactors, large amounts of water were used to cool them. Without the shutdown function, the reactor was in danger of overheating if it wasn't cooled. Regardless, they ran the test. When the backup generators took too long to turn on, panic set in, and the reactor began to overheat. Then, somehow hit the AZ-5 button, which lowers all control rods into the reactor at once. Control rods are used to absorb excess amounts of shed neutrons from the nuclear reactions. However, they momentarily increase reactions when first introduced into the reactor chambers. The undertrained staff of the night shift were not aware of this. With the increased reactivity, the reactor was now dangerously hot, and the casinging around the fuel rods began to rupture, causing white-hot radioactive fuel to come into direct contact with steam. At 1:23 A.M., April 26, 1986, Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor #4 exploded. The contact between the fuel and the steam caused a steam explosion, blowing the 1000 tonne reactor roof into the air and spewing radioactive debris and particles into the air.

Two plant workers were killed instantly by either the force of the blast or from being hit by debris. Although plant workers realized what had happened rather quickly, superiors were slow to act. Firefighters were called in, but they were not told the dangers of the radiation. Most died within a few months. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. In Pripyat, the Amusement Park that had been scheduled to open the next day was hurriedly opened a day early to distract residents from the fact that the reactor was on fire.

It took 36 hours for Soviet Officials to finally begin to evacuate Pripyat, only after residents had begun to report nausea, dizziness, fatigue, vomiting, and headaches, all symptoms of radiation poisoning. A few weeks earlier, citizens were trained with gas masks in case there ever was an incident. Officials said that they didn’t need them, as they didn’t want to cause a panic.

Residents were also told they would be returning soon, and to leave everything behind. They did not come back. This left Pripyat as an eerie ghost down where everything seemed to have simply been dropped and left. Today, it is still abandoned, and is being slowly reclaimed by nature.

During the cleanup of the incident, “Liquidators” were called in. Some knew the dangers, others didn’t. The fire of the reactor was too hot to be put out by water, so tons and tons or boron, sand, and lead were dumped onto the burning reactor by helicopters that flew over. It didn’t help much, and the reactor finally stopped burning after about 2-3 weeks. A structure dubbed “The sarcophagus” was built over the reactor to contain the radiation, though it was rushed and leaked radiation. A large area of woodlands was contaminated by the radiation, and it turned red and died, earning the nickname “The Red Forest.” Most of these trees were cleared and buried. Highly contaminated houses were knocked down, animals were shot, and crops destroyed. Absolutely everything that was highly contaminated was at least attempted to be destroyed and buried. Still, not everything could be destroyed and buried, there was simply too much. One object, dubbed “The Claw of Death” was, according to conflicting accounts, either used to assist in the overall cleanup or was used specifically in the cleanup of the plant roof. It is radioactive enough to give a lethal dose if sat in for about 11 hours.

Another rather infamous object is “The Elephant’s Foot” which is a mass of sand, concrete, and melted reactor fuel that had melted its way through the floor and down into the basement. Upon discovery, the sheer amount of radiation it gave off was enough to give you a fatal dose within about 90 seconds. Today, that’s increased to about five minutes. The foot was unyielding to sampling tools, so, they shot it with a Kalashnikov Rifle (AK-47) to get a sample.

After a very short period of time, the remaining three reactors were up and running again, as the USSR simply needed power desperately. By December of 1987, all three reactors were up and running again. They were operated for years, until the last reactor was finally shut down for good in 2000. Being so close to the border, and with the wind conditions of the time, mass amount of radioactive particles were blown north to Belarus. The Soviet Union had planes fly over and seed the clouds with chemicals, forcing them to rain on rural land instead of heavily populated areas, but this still had a major effect, as about 1/3 of Belarusian farmland was contaminated. However, the winds began to shift, blowing radiation towards Europe. Sweden was the first to sound the alarm, asking if something had happened after detecting dangerous amounts of airborne radiation and determining it was not from any of their own reactors. The USSR finally admitted there had been a “very small” incident at Chernobyl, and was very reluctant to give the world information. Careful monitoring protocols were put on resources everywhere in Europe, from grain to milk to wood, all were carefully measured for radiation. Years later, after the Sarcophagus was determined to be unsafe, the New Safe Confinement unit was constructed, which is a semicircular dome over the existing Sarcophagus. The New Safe Confinement was finished in 2018. 

DONE!

(For now)

@not-wizard-council-aristocrat @anarcho-neptunism @siley-the-wizard @villainessbian

[teeth--thief]

Google Drive full of book PDFs about Chernobyl

Link to the Google Drive if you don't want to click the title: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kscKFciW6almJA8p-0sUQPO3c0A4AQYe

Note: It will be updated regularly - for as long as I'll be able to find/get new things =) So far I've compiled 41 books in three languages.

Just to repeat what I said in the first post: I'm open to any requests or suggestions or even PDFs themselves, if someone wants to share theirs from their collection. Message me, send me an ask, throw a rock through my window - whatever you prefer, just please, do it yourself because I'm too scared to message anyone, thanks. No fiction - that's the only rule. Any language is welcome - if you want me to look for a certain book in the language of your choice, I'll do that. If you have a book in language other than English, I'd love to add it to the Drive! If you have a better version of whatever PDF I've already got, then I'd be more than happy to do a swap.

Now, some of my reasoning, if anyone's interested: first of all, I think it's important for everyone to be able to access stuff like this. Think of it as a library, minus the "give these back" part. Secondly, I get soooo mad when people are like haha, found this super rare, basically impossible to find, very expensive book! ...I shall now keep it exclusively to myself. Ma'am, you're ruining the vibe and stalling everyone's hobby research but I guess you do you...

List of all the books (under the cut):

In English:

Voices from Chernobyl - Alexievich S.

Chernobyl Reactor Accident - Source Term

Chernobyl - Insight from the Inside - Dr. Chernousenko V.M.

How It Was - Dyatlov A.S.

(ENG+RUS) Chernobyl Booklet

Chernobyl: The Devastation, Destruction and Consequences of the World’s Worst Radiation Accident - Fitzgerald I.

Final Warning. The Legacy of Chernobyl - Gale R.P.

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster - Higginbotham A.

INSAG-1

INSAG-7

Interesting Chernobyl - 100 Symbols

From Chernobyl To Fukushima - Karpan N.

Manual for Survival. A Chernobyl Guide to the Future - Kate Brown

Chernobyl. Confessions of a Reporter - Kostin I.

The Politics of Invisibility. Public Knowledge about Radiation Health Effects after Chernobyl - Kuchinskaya O.

Memories - Kupnyi A.

Chernobyl 01:23:40 - The Incredible True Story of the World’s Worst Nuclear Disaster - Leatherbarrow A.

Chernobyl Notebook - Medvedev G.

No Breathing Room - Medvedev G.

Chernobyl Record - The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe - Mould R. F.

Wormwood Forest - A Natural History of Chernobyl - Mycio M.

Life Exposed: Biological Citizens After Chernobyl - Petryna A.

Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy - Plokhy S.

Ablaze - Story of Chernobyl - Read P.P.

Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry - Schmid S. D.

Chernobyl: A Documentary Story - Shcherbak I.

The Vienna Report

Chernobyl - Crime Without Punishment - Yaroshinskaya A.A.

In Russian:

Chernobyl: Kak eto bylo. Preduprezhdeni - Kopchinsky, Steinberg

Chernobyl. Tak eto bylo. Vzglyad Iznutri - Voznyak Ya. Troitskiy N.

Лучевая болезнь человека (очерки) - Гуськова А.К., Байсоголов Г.Д.

Чернобыль. Как это было - Дятлов А.С.

Чернобыль: 30 лет спустя - Кр��вчук Н.В.

Живы - Купный А.

Чернобыль - Щербак Ю.

(ONLY Pages 367-383) Чернобыль, 10 лет спустя. Неизбежность или случайность?

KGB files - pre and post accident (includes additional information in Ukrainian)

In Polish: 

Jak to było - Diatłov A.S.

Czarnobyl - Plokhy S.

Czarnobyl - Sekuła P.

Katastrofa w Czarnobylu - Sekuła P.

Czarnobyl. Od katastrofy do procesu - Siwiński W.

[curiousnaturestudio]

Mothman is a popular United States myth of a large, flying humanoid creature with glowing red eyes. This cryptid was first spotted in the 1960's haunting skies of West Virginia by two cemetery workers, where shortly after reports of a 10 foot winged creature started appearing in the newspapers.

The most famous sighting of Mothman was on December 15th, 1967 where locals said to have seen a mysterious figure over the Silver Bridge, a suspension bridge that connected Point Pleasant to Gallipolis, Ohio. According to the legend, shortly after the creature was spotted the bridge had collapsed resulting in the tragic deaths of 46 people.

After Mothman disappeared from Point Pleasant sightings started to appear all around the world claiming this winged humanoid creature that would appear right before a major disaster. For example, the year before the Chernobyl incident (Ukraine) there were numerous claims of a creature flying around the plant as well as in 2011 a similar sighting was seen at the Fukushima plant (Japan) before Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami had triggered a massive nuclear explosion. It’s even said he was spotted in Minnesota one month before the collapse of the I-35W bridge, leaving storytellers unsure on whether Mothman should be considered good or evil. Some say the creature is bad luck and causing these catastrophes, but others speculate Mothman may be able to see into the future and is only trying to help warn the people of an impending disaster, giving him the nickname “Harbinger of Doom”

[trinitywc]

Your great light story is so much fun to read! May I ask about some of your research into nuclear effects on the environment and living things? It all seems too detailed for you to have winged it!

Thank you! (Long answer)

So a lot of my research started off from what I already knew about Chernobyl, Fukushima, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, the Manhattan Project, etc, for the specific chain of events or immediate after a nuclear incident. For general "what happens in a disaster", you can research any kind of disaster for the basics of survival and what needs must be fulfilled for life. I've linked some books I recommend below. I also recommend Slaughterhouse Five for an account of the Dresden bombing and how absurd and insane these things are.

I also used films like Threads, Grave of the Fireflies, Where the Wind Blows, for the more "human" or down to earth element and start researching from there; Cold War nuclear theories and nuclear war tends to be quite macro- and focus on the *big*- and not the day to day human (and then animal) aspect. I guess I wanted to focus on the lesser thought about things- I've always wondered "what happens to a hobby shop during a war" and while the answer is obvious, no one really thinks about the specifics; rubble is not rubble, it's a cafe and a mechanics and a dress shop, all tattered in the brick. What happens to the park when it is abandoned? The school? The pet shop? Walk around your neighbourhood.

A lot of stuff on the Internet is sensationalised- especially ""crazy nuclear wildlife"" and pictures of "crazy" flora and fauna are likely misleading- the wildlife bounces back quite well decades later; a little skew-iff, but no six legged deer monsters en mass, or Deathclaws. Disregard it.

Also remember, nuclear winter is just a theory. A lot of the side effects from radiation/nuclear war is just that! We don't know, because it never happened; however as volcanic clouds, ie Krakatoa, or debris from meteor strikes, ie the Dinosaur Extinction, have caused weather disturbances, long winters, etc, so its reasonable to assume the debris from nuclear firestorms would do similar. A lot of the nuclear war theories come from the Cold War idea of Mutually Assured Destruction and nuclear panic (or even todays) and is likely over the top. The Manhattan project feared setting the whole world on fire through chain reaction so. Have fun with it, take creative liberties. Radiation fucks with DNA- do you know how little natural/accidental mutation it takes to make people ginger? Why not have radiation change the future cats colours as well. Hell why not have it change the landscape entirely. It's your story. Pinefrost should likely be dead, but nature always finds a way.

I also played a shitton of Stalker. Thats neither here nor there.

[macbeth-n-cheese]

Glowing Ones: Why and How

They look beautiful, don't they?

Lonely beacons of light in the darkness of the wasteland, those radiant guys were difficult to break down.

In definition, glowing ones —or "luminous necrotic post-humans" as the wiki states, despite them not being necrotic whatsoever— are said to be "ghouls who have absorbed so much radiation that they emit a strong, green glow," and I could've taken the easy approach and agreed, but then I continued reading the wiki, and they presented me with this:

"The distinctive luminescence that is the trademark of the glowing one can be best attributed to an unusually high amount of radioactive material that builds up in the bloodstream and muscle tissue of a typical ghoul. Sometimes, upon the transformation into a feral ghoul, the neurological systems of the body cease filtering these particles from the blood and tissue, instead of causing them to build a distinctive bio-luminescence that is a characteristic of the glowing ones. In daylight, they simply appear to be incredibly pale feral ghouls, but in the darkness, they glow with a vivid yellow-green hue, their opaque skeletons clearly visible as in an x-ray."

...And I felt like I had to intervene.

Disclaimer: I get the green glow allegory for radioactive stuff, and I know making those ghouls glow was a design choice more than anything, but I like speculating and applying medical knowledge to daily life. I could also be wrong in my assumptions, and am always happy to be corrected when needed.

First of all, it's really not the "neurological system" (nervous system, I assume, because there's no such thing as neurological system) that "filters the blood and tissue" :") it's the organs from our immune system, like the spleen, lymph nodes and other glands. And as for the "radioactive material build-up," if there were solid radioactive particles in your blood stream I think you'd have to have injected them with a needle lol, because simple exposure to radiation wouldn't cause solid particles to infiltrate the human body.

Radiation damage to tissue is caused by, wait for it, the radiation in itself, the invisible waves that are emitted by a solid like radium or uranium (or graphite...). Fabrics, rough cement and some types of wood catch a lot of particles because of their structure, and they 'become radioactive' because of that, but our skin is not as favourable to this and taking a good shower would be enough to decontaminate us in some cases.

(chunk of radioactive material^)

If a person has breathed in a significant amount of radioactive dust (the literal meaning of fallout), however, then there would be deposits of said dust inside the lungs, and the radiation emitted from it would destroy the nearby tissue. Also, if a bomb fell somewhat close to you and you survived, chances are you're completely peppered by radioactive shrapnel, so...

Now that that's dealt with, let's move on!

The first thing that comes to mind when considering their glow, besides cartoony radioactivity, is bioluminescence. This is a living being's ability to emit light, and it is present in many species of algae, bacteria, sea creatures and even insects like fireflies and other beetles. It's the result of the activity of a very specific enzyme, and knowledge surrounding it is complicated, so for convenience's sake I'll say it's a product of a cell's metabolism, that can be triggered by specific circumstances.

(Look up Aequorea victoria, aka crystal jellyfish, they're very pretty)

Nowadays, some species of bacteria have been found to thrive in radioactive environments, processing substances and essentially using radiation as fuel. This has huge potential in leak-prevention and management of disaster sites like Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Imagine now, if you will, that there exists a type of bacteria in the Fallout universe that feeds off of radiation and responds with bioluminescence, shining constantly as long as there's a stable source of fuel for them. This would pretty much explain the glowing as a biofilm (visible bacterial colonies that stick to stuff, plaque on teeth for example) of that specific bacteria feeding off of radiation, with the shinier patches being a thicker film that grew above radioactive material deposits, or just areas in the body with higher radiation. This material could be a piece of shrapnel from the bombs, a chunk of uranium, or any other solid and long-lasting irradiated thing that got lodged into the ghoul's body.

The relationship between the ghoul and the bacteria in this case would be symbiotic (cooperation of organisms from different species that can't survive when separated) to a point or even just mutualistic (cooperation of organisms from different species that can survive when separated), because they continue glowing even after the ghoul's death. For those ghouls to be as long-living while glowing all the way, though, this bacteria's feeding process would have to be extremely slow, so that could be tied to this.

Tldr: glowing ones have radiation-eating, bioluminescent bacteria infestations as an added bonus to their ghoulishness.

And that settles it : ) hope ya liked it!

(P.S.: I have some other posts in this same vibe, in case you're interested ^^)

[atomarium]

So @neoncityrain,

I'll being again.

You have probably heard the words "nuclear" reactor at least a couple of times. Many people fear them and don't understand. Some fear them because of that. In the principle nuclear reactors are actually incredibly simple on their own. It's basically a kettle with a turbine that heats using shiny rocks. To be specific about what happens in the process of "fission" (the process of atoms doing the absolutely mental). We fire a neuron, it hits a heavy atom like uranium 238 (238 indicates the number of protons inside the atom, this is important because different amounts of neutrons make different isotopes of the same element. And while some isotopes are stable, some are incredibly radioactive. This is needed to calculate the energy potential.) After the neutron gits the atom, it splits in to two atoms of a lighter elements. For example uranium 235 when split produces either barium and kripton, strontium and xenon or tin and molybdenum. Depending on how it splits. When the atom is split it releases other neutrons, Wich are moving very fast and carry an energy potential. It's also called the neutron temperature. Basically how much kinetic potential it has. Kinetic potential is basically temperature. As movment in atoms is heat. It in itself is important for splitting lighter elements or achieving higher efficiency. But I'll come back to that later.

So basically green rock Magic happens (it's actually emits blue light not green). And it heats a pot of watter Wich we make in to steam and then in to energy.

With the rock Magic done we come to the part of construction. Eich is my favorite as you see there is a lot of concrete metal and vey sturdy stuff in general.

Main concern for people that are afraid of nuclear reactors is another Chernobyl, Fukushima or three mile island.

Wich is a completely valid concern. However they are all human error. Fukushima was built on a shore... with tsunamis.

Chernobyl was managed by my ancestors, Wich they did incredibly porly and did experiments to the reactor that it was not Designed for.

Nuclear reactors altho do have uranium inside of them, just as nuclear bombs. Their are utterly and absolutely Incapable of exploding like one. It's just not as pure and condensed. And it's also not being exploded together. That's just not going to happen.

With today's technology in automatic control units, Materials and stuff, reactors are incredibly unlikely to fail. Unless humans do stupid human stuff. France for example is Europes largest nuclear powerhouse. And it's energy sources are basically carbon neutral. Also the concern of people that radiation will spread and radiate the area is very unfounded. I blame the Simpsons for that fear. Uranium is not a green glowy liquid. It's a metal ish metal, maybe greyish. And you can calmly hold it. It generaly doesn't contaminate watter. And not is it in direct contact with it. It's inside it's heat transfering case. The heat from the uranium case rods is transfers with either watter molten sodium or salt. (It sounds scary but each of them has their own benefits). There is a three loops design usually implemented. The first loop takes heat directly from the uranium. And transfers it via a heat exchanger (a radiator basically) to the second loop. The second loop uses the heated watter to spin the turbines. And then at the end cools it even more with the help of the third loop. The third loop is usually just taking water from a river and spraying it in the air after it took the heat. Those are the huge cooling towers you usually see. It's not smoke or radiation. It's just steam. So you can drink it without problem. Wich I proudly day I did. (it's almost like an iterator)(wait nuclear powered iterator) (a universe where the didn't discover void fluid energy) (holy shit I made something creative)

Nuclear power occupies a very important niech. It can produce A LOT of power on demand. Meaning if suddenly it's a holiday and everyone has decided it is time their ovens on. Renewables won't be able to compensate. As you see, if there is simply no wind or sun. There is nothing you can do. You can build batteries, but litium ion are very expensive and bad for the environment. And batteries that pump watter up so it later can spin generators falling down (usually called a gravity battery) are good and massive. But can't be everywhere.

Nuclear power plants can ramp up their energy production to cover that spike rapidly and efficiently. Making sure your country won't suddenly be low on energy ((KHEM KHEM GERMANY)) in the winter. Because uranium doesn't care for the weather.

Nod for the main part and the most interesting.

NUCLEAR WASTE

I shall repeat again. It's unfortunately not a dlurpee. And it doesn't leak.

Nuclear waste has 3 stages.

Fresh out of the reactor.

This kind needs to be actively cooled, because altho it has much of the useful uranium used up. There is still a little bit of wamrth. It needs to be cooled in a pond for a couple of months.

That's the cooling pond. It's about a years with I think. Fissile material is incredible energy dense. One kilogram of enriched uranium is enough to power uhhh. A lot of stuff for s long time. The voyager for example has been out there since uhh. A log time. And it's own small littler radio isotope nuclear generator is what keeps it warm and alive.

The second stage is splitting stuff that could be useful,such as enriched uranium. 238 neutrons. It can still be used. And recycled. Wich many do.

The third kind is the bad kind. The stuff thats radioactive enough to be dangerous but not useful. Right now it is stored underground in metal and concrete husks.

This is of course bad. As it accumulates there and isn't useful.

However, there is not that much nuclear waste. It's actually doesn't take up that much space. And in the end you're putting radioactive rocks back were you found them.

HOWEVER

here comes my favorite part.

THERE IS A WAY TO AVOID ALL OF THAT.

it's called fast neutron fission reactors. Those are experimental reactors right now. So there aren't any used actevly. But they posses a very useful trait. They feed using nuclear waste. And guess what it produces as a result ?

NUCLEAR FUEL.

This means it's an infinite energy glitch (not technically. Some of the matter is concerted to energy)

You put nuclear waste of normal reactors, in to fast neutron reactors ( also referd as breeder reactors or fast spectrum reactors) and get fuel back. And we'll 1 Gramm or so of trans uranics (the nasty nuclear waste) per ton. Wich tooooo be fair... it's just a Gramm, just pour it underground it'll be fine. Or keep it in a bottle as a lava lamp.

Altogether, nuclear reactors altho not as simple as burning coal or shining the sun at a panel. Are INCREDIBLY powerful. And are just misunderstood behemoths capable of boosting our civilization past the climate change. Many people fear them, but they shouldn't. They fear the complex, and refuse to learn about it.

Germany should really revisit it's nuclear policy.

Ah and by the way. Most biggest reason why we aren't building more faster is because they are expensive. However. Most of the cost comes from turbines and cooling stuff. The exact same as in coal power plants or gas powerplants. We can just put a kettle of cool rocks in there and get one free powerplant for relatively cheap and no CO2!!

Feel free to ask any questions, I have absolutely no problem with that. Also i apologize for my grammar and typos, I just don't wsnt to correct the entirety of the text. Hopefully I didn't screw something up badly.

Also @eltanin0 you might find this interesting to.

Bonus argument

JUST LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS

Literally rainworld irl

The last two are scientific reactors, nuclear powerplants don't look like this

Oh and a schematic just in case.

Forgot to mention the control rods, it's just to stop neutrons when you don't need them. It's like graphite or similar. And its safer to be gravity droped so if there is suddenly no power they shutdown the reactor automatically.

Also one of the reasons Chernobyl went boom.

Yeah I'm definitely fucking autistic

[obscureoldguy]

ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT PILZ

Do you suffer from mild to severe blandness? Do you find yourself asking friends and family "Oh what's the point?" more than the normal amount of times per day? Do you often feel run down by a Mack truck, and just not motivated to even care about what happened to the driver of the truck?

Then ask your doctor about PILZ the new prescription strength anti-ungunkulator inhibitor for mild to severe blandness! In extensive double blind case studies done in the dead of night, PILZ was found to be no less harmful than living next to Chernobyl, or Fukushima!

Some study members did suffer separation of the scull from the body, and, in rare cases, spontaneously combusted. Obsessive fidgeting, and telling of inappropriate jokes may be a sign of other rarer and more serious conditions, such as complete psychosis or belief in government, god and apple pie. Tell your doctor if you suddenly grow a third foot. Pilz may increase your risk of gullibility, stupidity or in some cases, hypochondria. Pilz is not a toy, and should not be given to infants or registered Republicans, as they may become severely addicted to Pilz.

Pilz. From Dasgoodenov Pharmaceuticals.

[man-and-atom]

Anyone who can make something of this piece is welcome to.

In one scenario highlighted by the Energy Market Authority in its 2050 committee report, nuclear energy could supply about 10 per cent of Singapore’s energy needs by 2050. This could potentially form a larger proportion of Singapore’s energy mix post-2050, once nuclear tech has been proven viable, said Prof Chung.

Electricity currently accounts for about 30% of Singapore’s energy consumption. Supplying two-thirds of that from fission within five years or so would seem to be entirely practicable, when we look at examples from Pickering to Barakah. It is difficult to see how the “viability” of atomic power there needs any proving which hasn’t been accomplished, for instance, by Finland, which has about the same population and also depends heavily on fuel imports.

In addition, newer nuclear power-plant designs like SMRs are being developed, and they have the potential to be much safer than many of the traditional power plants in operation today.

Claims that small modular reactors will be safer than existing nuclear generating units, like claims that extensive new research on atomic power safety is needed, are uselessly vague and even misleading without some illumination of just what deficiencies in safety are to be alleviated. What information is available seems to leave little doubt that fission is far and away the safest means of supplying energy on an industrial scale.

While severe nuclear accidents are few and far between, nuclear power has earned itself a bad reputation after disasters such as those in Fukushima and Chernobyl.

Must we reiterate that the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami killed twenty thousand people? It is hard to understand why the damage to the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi is painted as the main story of that terrible day, except perhaps that it happened so much more slowly. The real “nuclear disaster” was the large-scale, long-lasting evacuation imposed, even though releases of radioactive materials from the stricken reactors were too small to justify (according to international standards) more than a “shelter in place” order.

We can certainly understand that the citizens of Singapore, with its small land area, would not want to risk losing any of that to something like the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, but the Pickering accident of 1983 is proof positive that there are well-established power reactor designs available now that pose no such danger, and can be located without fear even in the environs of the largest cities.

[anhilliator1]

People think nuclear power is somehow not safe and reliable

Dear god, nuclear power plants are deliberately overengineered to an absurd degree so they don't malfunction, and there are so many regulations, practices, and rules involved in the operation of one it's almost ridiculous. Hell, they can theoretically take a commercial jet crashing headlong into them, and even then they'd still trigger a failsafe just in case.

Plus, nuclear plants have extremely tight security, with one guy noting that some have more security than military bases. By the way if you break in, they are well within their rights to shoot you dead on the spot.

We've figured out how to make them safer to utilize for decades, and barring extraneous circumstances, such as the delibrate ignoring of safe practices (Chernobyl) or an already-occurring natural disaster (Fukushima) they're generally pretty solid, and even then part of what contributed to Fukushima was the fact that recommended safety measures were not taken against tsunamis and earthquakes despite being warned about the issues such vulnerabilities could cause prior to the incident.

Long story short, nuclear gets a bad rap.

[lingshanhermit]

Lingshan Hermit: The 155-year-old mousetrap that can still catch mice and the Diamond Sutra that can still benefit sentient beings after 1600 years

In a rural cultural museum in the UK, something astonishing happened one day that left the managers dumbfounded. A mousetrap that had been an exhibit in the museum for over 100 years somehow caught a mouse. Since it lacked food after being caught, the mouse starved to death inside. The news reported that the museum decided to preserve the mouse as a specimen and place it back inside the mousetrap for visitors to see. Ordinary people might say this mousetrap is too amazing - it can still catch mice after over 100 years. The quality is truly remarkable. However, my train of thought is a little different from yours.

As we live in this world, everyone does things that leave traces and impact both your future and that of others. According to Buddhist teachings, every minute and every second we are arranging our own future - your present is also arranged by your own hands in the past. Our three karmic doors of body, speech and mind are continuously creating good karma, bad karma, or neutral karma, depending on our motivations. If not destroyed or weakened, these karmas will ripen at some point in the future. Anything we do will inevitably affect others. There is an ancient Chinese saying that goes: "Previous generations plant trees for the later generations to enjoy the shade."

It is said that the mousetrap which caught the mouse already had 155 years of history. Now it is 2016 AD. We can imagine that in 1861, an artisan at the Colin Pullinger & Sons company in the UK made this mousetrap. They put their heart and soul into making it perfect, so perfect that it could still harm sentient beings even in 2016. That artisan who was responsible for making it, even though he may have reincarnated many times, is still accountable for this. Some imaginative Buddhists might even speculate that the mouse was the reincarnation of that artisan. In contrast, about 1600 years ago (around the same time the Xiongnu people were busy invading Europe and the Roman emperor made an important decision - to make Christianity the state religion), in the East there was a gifted monk called Kumarajiva. He spent his whole life translating countless Buddhist scriptures, the most famous being the Diamond Sutra in Chinese. Even today, countless people recite the Chinese Diamond Sutra and accumulate merit. Throughout history, countless masters have attained enlightenment from reciting the Diamond Sutra. Countless people have reduced or eliminated harmful acts towards sentient beings because of reciting the Diamond Sutra.

Which kind of person do you want to be? If we had a choice, we should never be the kind of person whose creations can still harm sentient beings 155 years later. The scientific giant Einstein was plagued with long-term unease for participating in the development of nuclear weapons in the US, because he could foresee the harm they would inflict on humanity. Upon seeing the atomic bomb test scene, he exclaimed: we have unleashed the devil. He kept finding excuses to reassure himself, but I believe he was never fully at ease about it until his death. Even today, we have all seen from the media the harm nuclear technology has caused humanity, from Hiroshima to Chernobyl to Fukushima - the deformed babies at birth, the mutated animals, the abandoned and uninhabitable ruined cities.

The 155-year-old mousetrap that can still catch mice and the Diamond Sutra that can still benefit sentient beings after 1600 years are both results of human intellectual activities. They represent two different choices that lead to two different futures.

This article was first published on Lingshan Hermit's Sina blog on April 30, 2016.

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灵山居士：155年后还可以抓老鼠的捕鼠器与1600年后还可以利益众生的金刚经

[bowl-of-shortness]

I wanna hear more about nuclear energy 👀

Ok

- The reason atoms let off radiation is because the atom probably has too many protons. The neutrons are what keep the protons in the atom, like a glue of sorts. If there are more protons than neutrons, then the protons repel each other and fall off, resulting in radiation.

- there are (of course) three kinds of radiation, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma

- alpha generally is your weakest kind of radiation, skin or even paper is able to protect you from it

- beta is stronger, beta radiation can go through skin or paper but can be stopped with things like aluminum,

- gamma rays are your strongest, they can go through basically anything except lead, concrete, or things such as those two.

- gamma rays have the shortest wavelength but are the most dangerous.

- in high amounts, radiation can mutate and destroy every cell in the human body, it can literally destroy your chromosomes.

- x-rays let off radiation which is why say at the dentist, when they take an x-ray, they put that big heavy coat thing on you. So that you don’t get radiation you don’t need.

- the most radioactive man in the world intook 17 sieverts of radiation, he died a 83 day long death where his body essentially decomposed while he was possibly still conscious and alive.

- Fukushima was a situation of “the perfect storm”, nobody was truly at fault for what happened, it just so happened that the correct circumstances happened to create a disaster

- Chernobyl happened because of the company cutting corners with the nuclear reactor and using cheap materials for it, essentially turning its graphic tipped control rods into an excelerator to cause a massive reaction in the reactor.

- Three Mile Island happened for a similar reason.

- nuclear energy is surprisingly safe actually as long as the proper safety measures are taken.

- nuclear fission is splitting atoms apart, while it’s more effective alternative, nuclear fusion, fuses atoms and creates more energy.

- nuclear fusion lacks the risk of a nuclear meltdown, the reason we haven’t done it or implemented it into our nuclear facilities is because it requires ultra specific heat and pressure in order to happen which takes a LOT of money to fund.

- nuclear fusion is by far the superior method however

- nuclear fusion doesn’t create nuclear waste either!

- fission just happens to be more accessible at the moment, but recently they’ve made good progress on trying to make fusion happen :)

- anyways that’s all I’ll ramble about for now, have fun learning about this stuff lol. It’s as great as it can be dangerous.

[teeth--thief]

I'm compiling a Google Drive full of book PDFs about Chernobyl.

It's not a lengthy list just yet and I'm open to any requests or suggestions or even PDFs themselves, if someone wants to share theirs from their collection. No fiction - that's the only rule. Any language is welcome - if you want me to look for a certain book in the language of your choice, I'll do that. If you have a book in language other than English, I'd also love to add it to the Drive =)

List of what I currently have under the cut:

In English:

Voices from Chernobyl - Alexievich S.

Chernobyl - Insight from the Inside - Dr. Chernousenko V.M.

How It Was - Dyatlov A.S.

Chernobyl: The Devastation, Destruction and Consequences of the World’s Worst Radiation Accident - Fitzgerald I. 

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster - Higginbotham A.

INSAG-7

From Chernobyl To Fukushima - Karpan N.

Manual for Survival. A Chernobyl Guide to the Future - Kate Brown

Chernobyl. Confessions of a Reporter - Kostin I.

The Politics of Invisibility. Public Knowledge about Radiation Health Effects after Chernobyl - Kuchinskaya O.

Chernobyl 01:23:40 - The Incredible True Story of the World’s Worst Nuclear Disaster - Leatherbarrow A.

Chernobyl Notebook - Medvedev G.

No Breathing Room - Medvedev G.

Chernobyl Record - The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe - Mould R. F.

Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy - Plokhy S.

Ablaze - Story of Chernobyl - Read P.P.

Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry - Schmid S. D.

Chernobyl: A Documentary Story - Shcherbak I.

In Russian:

Chernobyl: Kak eto bylo. Preduprezhdeni - Kopchinsky, Steinberg

Chernobyl. Tak eto bylo. Vzglyad Iznutri - Voznyak Ya. Troitskiy N.

Лучевая болезнь человека (очерки) - Гуськова А.К., Байсоголов Г.Д.

Чернобыль. Как это было - Дятлов А.С.

Чернобыль - Щербак Ю.

In Polish: 

Jak to było - Diatłov A.S.

[redpillfuturist215]

Screenshots of 1 of my Twitter threads on nuclear energy, and a little ranting

Added content below

Nuclear power done right with proper safeguards produces the cleanest, cheapest, safest and most reliable energy source. 8-9 million people a year die from fossil fuel derived pollution. The total death toll from nuclear power incidents and leaks is under 5,000, and that's ever. Sure a disaster is bad but how different would that be from a super cell or volcano, which can kills thousands or millions of animals in one fell swoop. Solar and electric vehicles relies on slave labor. Commercial windmills kills millions of flying animals. Neither of these can really be recycled and many have toxic components that unlike nuclear materials, don’t really have proper disposal regulations. The cost of nuclear waste is also factored into the entire lifetime of a plant, spread out over decades.

Time posted an article about nuclear on Twitter about the safety of nuclear energy Some dude commented “Safe like Fukushima” I'm so tired of people demonizing nuclear energy over a few isolated incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Fossil fuel pollution alone kills several million people each year.

Nuclear is also by far the most reliable source. Links

[lovelanguageisolate]

OK, so nuclear-powered aircraft, while extremely cool, are Not A Good Idea (the inherent cost, need for shielding and attendant weight, difficulty of servicing the reactor in any situation besides routine maintenance, and dangerous dispersion of fission products in the event of a crash all recommend against it even in a world without eg NRC certification). But—bear with me—would it actually be Worse For The Environment than the status quo of aircraft burning fossil kerosene? I don't think the answer is Obviously Yes Duh! Every transcontinental plane flight melts 3m² of arctic sea ice. Kerosene is a carcinogen, thanks largely to the aromatics in refined petroleum. With the right shielding, the radiation exposure from flying par l'atome would be dominated by the cosmic rays that normally come from flying.

Even minute leaks of radionuclides would be easy to detect, both inside the aircraft and out—moreso than other safety-critical leaks like those of the hydraulic or fuel lines.

Anything short of a hull loss of the aircraft is unlikely to produce a radiotoxic dispersion event, assuming the aircraft is at all sanely designed. In a configuration similar to the Air Force's project, air would be ducted from the turbofans through heat exchangers near the reactor, so even a bird strike would not be a radionuclide/toxin dispersion event. There is absolutely no reason to pipe radioactive material from the vicinity of the reactor, well within the hull of the aircraft, anywhere else.

It would surprise me if a crash (rare, if we ignore the 737 MAX) killed more people from the radiotoxicity of dispersed radionuclides than from the things that normally kill people in plane crashes. Besides which, keep in mind that the molten salt that would almost certainly be used as coolant would have all the fuel and fission products in solution. A properly functioning airborne molten salt reactor would have in-situ reprocessing of actinides (if you wanted to prioritize service flexibility and medium-lived isotope elimination) or on-the-ground reprocessing (if you wanted to prioritize mechanical simplicity). In either case, the mid-lived fission products would be minimal. Cleaning up a crash site would be…not easy, but not necessarily much harder compared with how we deal with crashes now. The scattered nuclear remnants, unlike with Chernobyl, would be fairly well localized and could be robotically isolated, processed and buried in geological storage. It would be fairly straightforward to verify decontamination of an accident site with radiation monitoring.

The biggest concern I'd have would be suicide hijackings, but this has gotten a lot harder since 9/11 thanks to airport security and the hardening of cockpit doors against forced entry. Even if you assume this kind of hijacking would happen, it's hard for me to come up with a worst case scenario for one that's obviously worse than eg probability-weighted material/bodily damages over global warming contributions from aviation.

Also—how deadly Chernobyl and Fukushima actually were qua radiotoxicity is vastly overstated in the popular imagination; UN thinks about 6k people have ultimately died from exposure to radioactive toxins at Chernobyl, while several sources think no one died from exposure to Fukushima.

You're possibly looking at a mechanically simpler bird than our extant aircraft.

Also: this doesn't bear on the enviro question, but...

Think of the power and range at your disposal! Mach 5 baybeeee!!!! New York to Tokyo in 3 hours!* No refueling for months!

---

Note: i am a random internet person and not a nuclear plane doctor I filmed this on a closed course please do not attempt this experiment at home nuclear passenger jets are not a good idea

★at least at altitude and assuming eg Boom Aerospace actually have figured out a solution to the noise problem!