In the early morning of February 24, 2022, Russian troops launched military operations in Ukraine, on the same day, a Russian special forces burst into the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the northern region of Ukraine, and after a fierce exchange of fire with the local Ukrainian army, the Russian army completely controlled the Chernobyl region and reached an agreement with the nuclear power plant management to jointly ensure the safety of the nuclear power plant.
Some friends wonder, wasn't the Chernobyl nuclear power plant shut down for 36 years? Why did the Russian army occupy this place in the first place, is there any hidden secret in this nuclear power plant?
Metal hood for Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
When it comes to how dangerous nuclear power generation is, many people think of two nuclear power plants:
One is the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, where the tsunami caused by the 2011 March 11 earthquake crashed into the power plant building, causing several reactor cores to melt down and plants to explode, and the impact of the leakage of radioactive materials continues to this day.
The other is the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, on April 26, 1986, due to a steam explosion at reactor No. 4, which blew up the entire reactor shell and blew up the plant, the accident caused a large number of casualties, and the nuclear radiation pollution affected the whole of Europe.
Plant 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was destroyed
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant, formerly known as the Vladimir Lenin nuclear power plant, is the only large-scale closed nuclear power plant built by the former Soviet Union in Ukraine. It is located on the border between Ukraine and Belarus (Belarus), just 16 km from Belarus, about 100 km from Kiev and about 150 km from Russia. After the accident, the Soviet Union quickly invested about 600,000 people to rescue, nuclear radiation caused 31 rescue workers to die within half a year, and more people fell ill due to radiation, and the specific number of deaths has been disputed statistically.
Until a decade later, in 1996, the vast area of about 28,000 square kilometres caused by the Chernobyl accident remained uninhabited because of the severe excess of radioactive material, including the deadly cesium-137.
Radioactive cesium contaminated large areas
Cesium-137 is one of the most common fission products of uranium-235 in nuclear reactors, it is easily transported and diffused through the air, and after settling into the soil, it will form a high water-soluble cesium hydroxide, which in turn will spread with the water flow to a wider area. The half-life of cesium-137 is 30.17 years, which means that half of cesium-137 decays into metastable barium-137 nuclear isomers (Ba-137m) and barium-137 for every 30 years. In addition to cesium-137, uranium decay also produces a large number of radioactive elements such as strontium-90, iodine-131, zirconium-95, etc., most of which can cause disease and even take human life.
31 Soviet nuclear accident repair personnel were killed
In order to minimize the impact of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Soviet Union spent a huge amount of money to build a huge "sarcophagus" that completely enclosed the accident's No. 4 reactor in concrete. Later, a huge steel arch was built on it, sealing the sarcophagus inside to minimize the leakage of nuclear material.
Repair crews completed the construction of the Sarcophagus of Reactor No. 4
The sarcophagus that enclosed Reactor 4 was very thick, but that didn't mean the Chernobyl plant was safe from then on, as enough explosives could blow the concrete apart and unleash the terrible nuclear devil.
Due to a series of problems in design, construction process, and management, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been in constant trouble since it was put into service. In 1982, reactor 1 was partially destroyed by the core; in 1984, there were "serious accidents" at reactors 3 and 4; in 1986, pile 4 exploded; and in 1991, a reactor 2 turbine fire led to the permanent closure of the entire reactor. Reactor 1 was shut down in November 1996 and final Reactor 3 was permanently shut down in December 2000.
Reactor No. 1 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
The permanent closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant does not mean that it has since become a safe place, because the dismantled nuclear fuel rods are still stored in one place at the plant. In 2020, a U.S. company built a nuclear waste storage facility at a nuclear power plant, and 21,297 radioactive spent fuel components were packed into about 231 tanks, which were stacked in the storage facility.
It is said that it is spent fuel, but in fact its main components are uranium-235 and uranium-238, as well as other radioactive materials produced after their decay, which are still extremely dangerous.
Storage tank for nuclear waste at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
We know that uranium-235 can be used to make atomic bombs, but the concentration of uranium-235 in atomic bombs needs to exceed 90% before it can explode, which is a "nuclear threshold" that many countries cannot pass. The concentration of uranium in nuclear fuel for power generation is so low that it is unlikely to reach the critical value of explosion, and the purification of weapons-grade uranium requires technology and strong national strength, which only a very few countries can do.
The nuclear waste taken from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is stored in huge boxes on the ground, and the tanks containing spent fuel can be easily removed by simply activating the equipment, and these dangerous nuclear wastes can be made into "dirty bombs".
Dirty bombs cannot produce nuclear explosions, but they are a "weapons of mass destruction" in which even conventional explosions can throw radioactive nuclear material over a very large area, causing illness or even death to those around it.
Nuclear waste is extremely dangerous
Although there are often "dirty bombs" used in anti-terrorist film and television dramas to carry out terrorist attacks, there are only two known actual cases, both of which are related to the Russian Chechen separatist organization. In November 1995, terrorists dropped an explosive containing cesium-137 in Moscow's Izmailovsky Park; in December 1998, another similar explosive device was discovered in Grozny. Fortunately, neither device exploded.
Given the dangers of radioactive nuclear waste and its potentially powerful destructive power, Russian troops, after entering Ukraine, first went straight to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and took control of the area at any cost. On the one hand, because it is very close to Belarus and Kiev, the other is to prevent the destruction of reactor 4, to prevent nuclear waste from being stolen by extremist groups, and to prevent humanitarian disasters.
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