Chernobyl Nuclear facts
While investigating facts about Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster and Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Radiotrophic fungi were discovered in 1991 growing inside and around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in an environment in which the radiation level was 500x higher than in the normal environment. The fungi converts gamma radiation into chemical energy for growth.
how chernobyl nuclear reactor works?
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster would have been much worse if not for three men who dove into contaminated water with minimal diving equipment, risking their own lives in the process.
What caused the explosion at chernobyl nuclear power plant?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what leaked at chernobyl nuclear plant. Here are 50 of the best facts about Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Fire and Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Disaster I managed to collect.
what happened at chernobyl nuclear power plant?
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In 1946 the Soviet Union built a secret city called City 40 to house workers of a nearby nuclear plant and their families. For decades the fenced city and its 100k inhabitants were officially non existent. Today the city is called Ozersk and it's been exposed to 5x the radiation of Chernobyl.
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Before Chernobyl, the Soviets had another massive nuclear disaster which contaminated over 20,000 square km. The area was turned into a preserve to cover up the accident. The CIA knew of the accident, but also covered it up in order to protect the fledgling US nuclear industry from hysteria.
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Radiosynthesis, a process like photosynthesis that uses the pigment melanin to convert gamma radiation into chemical energy for growth. Radiotrophic fungi were discovered in 1991 in and around Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
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Scientists used Sunflowers near Chernobyl after the 1986 nuclear accident, to extract radioactive cesium from contaminated ponds nearby. Then again in 2011 at Fukushima to extract radiation from the nearby communities.
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Three cleanup volunteers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant voluntarily suited up in scuba gear and swam into the radioactive water, knowing that they would die as a result, to open a gate valve allowing containmented water to drain out preventing a catastrophic thermal explosion.
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Firefighters responding to the Chernobyl nuclear accident described their experiences of the radiation as "tasting like metal", and feeling a sensation similar to that of pins and needles all over their faces.
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The city of Pripyat, Ukraine built an amusement park scheduled to open May 1, 1986, but never operated for more than a few hours before being forever abandoned after the April 26 Chernobyl nuclear disaster a few kilometers away.
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The forests of Chernobyl are not decomposing, making scientists concerned of a possible "nuclear forest fire."
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Russia had another nuclear disaster, almost as bad as Chernobyl that was kept a lot more secret. A reporter trying to get compensation for victims had to flee the country.
Why did the nuclear reactor explode in chernobyl?
You can easily fact check why did the chernobyl nuclear disaster happen by examining the linked well-known sources.
Despite the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Ukraine still gets 47% of its electricity from nuclear energy, compared to United States' 19%.
Environmental activist group Greenpeace once accidentally released a fact sheet which said "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]". - source
The infamous "Elephant's Foot", representing a mass of radioactive corium that formed at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, will remain radioactive for 100,000 years. - source
The Chernobyl nuclear plant wasn't shut down after the disaster, and was still producing electricity until the year 2000
The most radioactive place on earth isn't Chernobyl or Fukushima, but a lake in the southern Urals that was once home the the Soviet's nuclear waste storage area. You could receive a lethal dose of radiation in 30 minutes just standing on the shore of the lake. - source
When was chernobyl nuclear disaster?
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was still operational and producing power up until 2000, a full 14 after the infamous reactor 4 meltdown
How did the nuclear reactor at chernobyl explode?
That, including the Chernobyl disaster, Nuclear Power is responsible for 0.09 deaths per Terra-watt hour of electricity produced. Coal is responsible for 170 deaths/TWh
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant which suffered a reactor melt down in 1986, continued to produce electricity until 2000, and still has three intact nuclear reactors.
As recently as 2014, almost 30 years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, 1 in 3 wild boars in Germany are still too radioactive for humans to consume. In fact, some are more than 15 times the legal limit and the contamination is thought to originate nearly 700 miles away.
The power plants at Chernobyl didn't stop producing power for Ukraine till 2000. 14 years after the biggest nuclear disaster ever creating a 1000 sq mile exclusion zone.
Although the Chernobyl nuclear-power-plant had a meltdown in 1986 and had rendered the land around it uninhabitable, the remaining reactors of the facility remained in normal operation and generated power until the year 2000.