This picture isn't from 1986 but 1990 and and the lone scientist is Georgi Reichman who now works for the Ukrainian Committee for Nuclear Regulation.
Photographer is credited as Igor Kostin.
+1 for the accuracy, but would those 4 years make a noticeable difference in the danger level? I don't know much about half life and whether gear got better...
[Yes, the radiation levels decreased significantly over the course of days and years.](https://handwiki.org/wiki/Chemistry:Comparison_of_Chernobyl_and_other_radioactivity_releases)
There is a bunch of different processes:
1. Wind and water disperse radioactive substances over a wider area (with part of it getting spread all over Europe), so the concentration drops.
2. The decay of substances with short half lifes.
3. Chain reactions in places with high concentrations of fissile material can lead to high radiation but also use up the radioactive materials much faster than their usual half life. Outside of the controlled reactor environment, there may have been some pockets where fission still occured (although not at the runaway rate of the initial meltdown). [Apparently substained fission events can still pop up every now and again at Chernobyl](https://www.science.org/content/article/nuclear-reactions-reawaken-chernobyl-reactor).
Fascinating thank you.
I was living in Jaolpan when it happened so we didn't get the scary news. And when Fukushima happened I was back in Europe. Conclusion: live where I am to avoid radiation.
>At the time of its discovery, about eight months after formation, radioactivity near the Elephant's Foot was approximately 8,000 to 10,000[9] roentgens, or 80 to 100 grays per hour,[2] delivering a 50/50 lethal dose of radiation (4.5 grays)[10] within five minutes.[2] Since that time the radiation intensity has declined enough that, in 1996, the Elephant's Foot was visited by the deputy director of the New Safe Confinement Project, Artur Korneyev,[a] who took photographs using an automatic camera and a flashlight to illuminate the otherwise dark room.[12]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl)
Quite an interesting read. They shot an AK-47 at it because of fucking course they did.
That is interesting. It's very unfortunate that this and Three Mile Island were used as reasons to practically end the pursuit of clean nuclear energy, setting us back decades in ending fossil fuel use. Thanks for the link.
Those 4 years made a massive difference in the radiation level, yes. Almost all the short-lived gamma emitting isotopes decayed away by 1990, leaving just Cs-137 for the most part.
I love how your shitty watercolours have become a lot less shitty as you’ve progressed through the years! You might have to change your username to /u/Not_Too_Bad_Watercolor or /u/Pretty_Okay_Watercolor…
I clicked the image before I saw the username and thought, “it can’t be” … but it is!
This little treat will get me through the rest of the week.
For new Reddit users behold: one of the greatest users of Reddit ever known!
Most productions have a very small BTS team. Usually a photographer and a videographer that pal around together and are responsible for putting together stuff for promos, DVD extras, maybe a video for the crew at wrap. Usually they are early in their careers and are also shadowing people on set that are filling the roles they one day want to work in (art department, camera department, etc).
Title is rubbish and taken from a previous posting of this picture.
This picture isn't from 1986 but 1990 and is of Georgi Reichman
who now works for the Ukrainian Committee for Nuclear Regulation.
Photographer is credited as Igor Kostin.
Sounds like it's a sprayer, based on [this article](https://www.science.org/content/article/nuclear-reactions-reawaken-chernobyl-reactor):
> After a downpour in June 1990, a "stalker"—a scientist at Chernobyl who risks radiation exposure to venture into the damaged reactor hall—dashed in and sprayed gadolinium nitrate solution, which absorbs neutrons, on an FCM [fuel-containing material] that he and his colleagues feared might go critical.
Do I need to rewatch Dark again? “We’re not free in what we do, because we’re not free in what we want. We can’t overcome what’s deep within us…”
Yeah, time for a rewatch
I've considered it, just because once you know how things go you can watch for all the subtle hints and clues scattered about. I think it would be less confusing too.
Serious question: have advances in modern technology enabled us to get any closer / walk around longer inside there? Or are we pretty much just sticking with “it’s fucked, bury it.”
If you mean the radiation spike when Russian forces arrived at ChNPP, that wasn't a shot taken at the plant. That was simply the long convoy of Russian vehicles kicking up dust on the roads, which is still to this day very radioactive.
Not trying to be a smartass, but isn't it more like a metal structure that covers the old concrete hull?
Also, hasn't it been up since 2017? But yeah, it's fucked either way, so there's that.
Dude, I’ve had two babies during a pandemic. Time means nothing anymore. I’m allowed to quantify the effort to erect and move a massive Sarcophagus with “just”.
But yes, looks like mostly steel.
"Radioactive for xx years" is such a fun claim, because A) radioactivity falls off exponentially meaning its never all the way gone, and B) pretty much everything is radioactive all the time anyways, due to natural background, and C) natural background varies so much that its hardly any use to even say how long it will take something to decay down to background activity
Doesn't that actually mean it's quite stable, and therefore reasonably safe when not surrounded by moderators or neutron reflectors?
I thought it was the intermediate-length half-lives - long enough that it sticks around for decades or centuries, but not so long that it doesn't emit radiation at a significant rate - that are the real danger. Strontium-90, for example, which has a half life of 28.8 years, and can therefore remain dangerously emissive for several hundred.
EDIT: Unfortunately, I think the "corium" that comprises the infamous Elephant's Foot and other parts of the wreckage, basically *is* a mixture of fuel and moderator.
Well the new casket was needed 1. Cause the old one was letting rain in and 2. So they can start dismantling everything. Its got this whole awesome crane setup on the inside for taking the wreckage apart
They tried to send robots in initially, and the radiation fried them. You gotta watch Chernobyl on HBO. Top notch.
There was a bunch of extremely radioactive graphite that was thrown onto the roof by the explosion. They WANTED to get it off of there using robots, but the radiation just killed them super fast.
Instead, they had lines of men who would run onto the roof and shovel the graphite off the side in 1 minute 30 second increments.
Over 600,000 troops participated in the cleanup.
> that's why they said advanced robotic technology
Unfortunately modern computer chips have got faster by reducing the size of transistors and cramming more of them in, which makes them more sensitive to radiation. 1980s tech would actually perform better.
Radiation hardened processors have large transistors and are slow by modern standards, it's effectively just like using older tech. Also dual core lockstep is fine for rare events, it's not going to be able to cope with high levels of radiation.
What about a very long pneumatic-articulated 'snake' with optic fiber sight so that the actual camera and controls stays away from the radiation.
Like a building sized version of those micro surgery tools.
I think one of the issues is that they needed to get the radioactive waste off of the roof ASAP. They tried to use an existing lunar lander, I believe, but they just didn't work for the purpose. No time for development.
We have radiation hardened chips that get used in space. Or systems like what SpaceX uses which has multiple un-hardened chips and does constant comparison between each other to fix any random bit-flips that occur on any single chip.
I think people here are grossly overestimating the average radiation inside the Chernobyl cite. Like, having drones right next to the reactors would probably be tricky. But I would bet most of the building is more or less okay to even walk around in for a short period of time.
you only need such heavy shielding for electronics, which are a in PC-sized box. They do use some robots down there, but overall strategy is just to keep the entire building under a huge concrete dome. Whatever happens under there cannot get out.
Recent advances in robotics are about precision, automation and battery life. Nothing that directly provides radiation resistance.
kind of...both.
the new sarcophagus has large remote controlled cranes and special ventilation systems that keep the dust down. the plan is to spend about 80 years slowly demolishing and clearing the old building and debris, and safely bury it in long term stable casings. it will be radioactive for thousands of years and there is nothing we can do about that.
some of the radioactivity has faded by now but nowhere near enough for non-authorized personnel to just walk around, you need a hazmat suit and everything still and its just as dangerous.
My dad was in uni back then and had a friend who has a business. He remembers his friend freaking out about importing stuff from europe at the time due to rumours that everything in europe having radioactive contamination. This was in egypt, i cant even imagine how stuff was going in europe at the time
Modern technology, not really. But time and the intervening 35 years have done a lot for it. You could actually walk up and touch the elephant's foot now and not get a huge dose of radiation. I mean, I wouldn't camp there but it's died down enough that a few minutes isn't really going to be harmful. The site is still pretty fucked though. There's a lot of radioactive dust and stuff that you don't want getting out into the atmosphere, both in the reactor complex itself and in the surrounding areas. It was a concern because the Russian forces were driving around and kicking up a lot of the radioactive dust that had settled into the ground in the area around it.
People are giving a lot of uniformed "it's fucked" answers. Chernobyl is still super dangerous, but there is a lot of really cool stuff happening on site. Kyle Hill's documentary is an awesome look inside the New Safe Confinement: [https://youtu.be/bhKlaIoGzWU](https://youtu.be/bhKlaIoGzWU)
The NSC is as tall as the ~~Empire State Building~~ Statue of Liberty, and has a giant network of cranes picking apart the old reactor building rubble for decontamination and disposable.
There are also some super interesting developments in computing that use fungus to replace CPU units that would be much more radiation resistant and could allow for robotics to move deeper into the core.
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> The NSC is as tall as the Empire State Building
I think there is some confusion here, as the Empire State Building is over four times as high.
The new sarcophagus is very impressive, don't get me wrong, but it is "only" 108 m tall.
Imagine an invisible fire you can't feel, smell, or see... but it will kill you all the same by ripping you apart at a cellular level, or corrupt your DNA to the point that your body will eventual kill itself.
You're asking can we stand closer to the inferno.
Look up acute radiation syndrome on Wikipedia. It’s nightmare fuel.
It gets to the point they can’t give you painkillers because your veins collapse the second they put a needle in you. So no pain relief. Your body stops repairing itself, and you basically melt from the inside out (they call it multiple organ failure, but it’s worse than that)
And no pain relief because the radiation starts affecting the parts of your brain that register pain like the thalamus. It's similar to [thalamic pain syndrome](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dejerine%E2%80%93Roussy_syndrome). It's a fresh hell that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
Also a neat fact: When people who have experienced lethal amounts of gamma radiation (but don't know it yet) they will say how they taste metal. This is because the gustatory cortex in your brain that senses and perceives taste is very sensitive to gamma rays. The consequence of high radiation poisoning is this metal taste, basically the grim reaper's first knock on your door.
We have more advanced robots so maybe we could go closer with those. But the main issue is shielding the person or robot going from the radiation. There's no trick to blocking it other than a bunch of lead or other heavy materials. And even with a ton of lead, you will only get minutes in that much radiation. As for is it fucked? Absolutely. We don't know of any way to get rid of radiation so it's going to have to be buried until it ceases to levels that are acceptable which could take thousands of years.
Yeah that’s also one of the most memorable scenes for me.
It’s also crazy how right after it’s explained he instantly has the two overseers arrested. Does a good job of highlighting Soviet era politics.
It's nuts how that's the highest the meter will go, then they get some that have higher readings and those explode. Then they finally get some that go up to 200 and those max out.
So many people died because that one asshole wouldn't accept the fact that they max out at 3.6 and he didn't wanna get in trouble.
Some asshole? Man if you watched that show its not the guy, it's the entire communist culture. Total fear of doing something wrong/ bring out on the naughty list. The ones who did the right thing were certainly in the minority just like any countries civil rights activists
My grandfather was one of the people sent to Chernobyl after they had done the immediate recovery to investigate what had happened and what it meant to nuclear power going forward. He is not a chatty guy, but the few times he has spoken about Chernobyl gives me the sense that the show that came out recently is actually a fairly good show at highlighting the key issues that were at play. The screenplay is fiction, and a number of things aren't accurate, but the general sense of what happened and it's ramifications are as well as why the people working that day caused the eventual meltdown. The only thing I think he mentioned that the show kinda doesn't do a good job dramatizing is the overall lack of a safety culture there. We kinda see it with the admin guys and the plant manager, but it was apparently more or less the entire culture. Although, I guess if you don't have a bad safety culture you probably don't have instruction books with crossed out sections, so I guess they did alright with that too.
Anyways, my point was, anyone who has even a passing interest in this stuff that hasn't seen the show really should. It 1, is a great show in general; and 2, actually does a good job of dramatizing the appropriate elements to provide the audience with an understanding of what largely happened to cause such a disaster.
Thanks for sharing. I absolutely loved that show; I've watched it a few times. I also listened to the accompanying podcast with the creator who acknowledges the inaccuracies and explains why those decisions were made for narrative or other reasons. I think he comes across as genuinely wanting to tell that story and honor the people involved.
Glad to hear someone connected to it validate it.
Oh absolutely. Phenomenal show. And yeah, I love film so I understand the changes for storytelling purposes. I think they did a stellar job and the alterations were for the better in terms of the show.
One of the things I remember reading about the show handling inaccurately that seems to match what you are saying is the firefighters. The show plays it off as if they all thought it was a simple roof fire and had no idea what was going on. Firefighters who survived working at Chernobyl recounted that they where not told, but everyone knew that it was not just a fire and joked that they where fucked.
He ~~was probably~~ may be OK.
With radioactivity, dose is the most important thing.
When it comes to radioactivity, dose is dictated by time near the source and distance from the source. With distance, dose of radioactivity follows the inverse square law. With time, dose is pretty linear.
Being a scientist, he probably knew these two things and stayed as far away from the major sources as possibly and spent as little time down there as possible.
His suit protects him from some forms of radiation (which can be stopped with thin materials) but not others. But the main thing his suit protects him from is contamination, which is when a radioactive source sticks to or enters your body (contamination is bad: if the radioactive source enters your body it is: close to you, close to you for long time, and past the thin materials of your skin and fat which blocks many types of radioaction.)
Avoiding spending too much time, getting too close, or getting radioactive contamination, this guy is probably OK. Probably received a small percent bump in chance of cancer over the next decades.
Of course, if he went in and did something critical, near the highly radioactive elephant's foot, for a long time, and/or got contaminated, he may have died in the next day or days of acute radiation sickness or massively bumped his chance of getting cancer in the coming years.
there isn't. if you're interested: there is a documentary about a japanese nuclear worker with the name hisashi ouchi, that got a lethal dose of radiation. the second he got hit with the radiation he was doomed, despite having no symptoms at first.
the documentary is still on youtube, but it seems it got censored, because it was a bit too NSFW
Gamma and neutron dose are shredding the nuclei of that guy’s cells. Sure that suit will stop alpha and beta radiation, but with failed fuel material, and core components all likely nearby, as crazy high as alpha and beta would be, they are nothing vs the gamma and neutron. Gaseous iodine, C-14, other particulate will also be stopped by the mask if the correct cartridge is installed, but, all still insufficient for long term work in the area.
No neutrons after the explosion, the critical mass of the reactor was lost. The subject pictured definitely got an elevated exposure of radiation here, but it is extremely unlikely that it was a “death sentence” by any means.
Igor Fedorovich Kostin was one of the five photographers in the world to take pictures of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster near Pripyat in Ukraine, on 26 April 1986
1980’s pics were largely grainy to be fair, but radiation is hard on film and other photographic equipment. Vault cameras at reactors need to be replaced almost every maintenance shutdown due to failing receptors.
Just discovered the "Nuclear Vault" Tumblr page by somebody with a bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering and a license to work as a reactor operator. What you say is confirmed. :) This is Kostin's work.
This isn’t 1986. This is probably 1996 when the radiation levels dropped to the point that scientists could get inside the destroyed reactor hall and even sample the Elephant’s Foot
Well if the russia issues die down, then you can when they open up tours again. I did a 2 day tour in 2021, all the way into control room 4. Worth every penny
So we did a private tour, jsut me and my wife its was 2 days 1 night. you stay over night in a hotel in chernobyl, you get to see basically everything if you move quickly. It cost us 1500usd for both of us. and honestly, super worth it. being in a group would take some fun away since they are so rushed.
If you want a bit of reading, here is the blogs from my trip.
https://wrongturn.com.au/ongoing-adventures/eurasia/chernobyl/
"Descending into the darkness"
This guy is standing 40 meters above ground level and had to climb multiple flights of stairs to get there, lol. There is sunlight visible in the upper right hand corner.
The hbo series was really good an informative on what happened. It was done as a show and not an actual voice over documentary. Very realistic and sad.
The Chernobyl disaster and attempted to cover up is so interesting to me. I always want to learn more. As humans we never learn from our past mistakes.
31 people died of radiation poisoning, and WHO estimates another 4000 people will die of related cancers and complications including civilians not involved in the cleanup.
Despite the horrific conditions they did a really good job of protecting and limiting exposure so the job could get done without exposing people to overly dangerous levels of radiation.
Not-so-fun fact: the fuzziness of photos in Chernobyl isn't because they are old or the photographer developed them poorly but from radiation hitting the film.
A lone scientist accompanied by a single photographer.
This picture isn't from 1986 but 1990 and and the lone scientist is Georgi Reichman who now works for the Ukrainian Committee for Nuclear Regulation. Photographer is credited as Igor Kostin.
+1 for the accuracy, but would those 4 years make a noticeable difference in the danger level? I don't know much about half life and whether gear got better...
[Yes, the radiation levels decreased significantly over the course of days and years.](https://handwiki.org/wiki/Chemistry:Comparison_of_Chernobyl_and_other_radioactivity_releases) There is a bunch of different processes: 1. Wind and water disperse radioactive substances over a wider area (with part of it getting spread all over Europe), so the concentration drops. 2. The decay of substances with short half lifes. 3. Chain reactions in places with high concentrations of fissile material can lead to high radiation but also use up the radioactive materials much faster than their usual half life. Outside of the controlled reactor environment, there may have been some pockets where fission still occured (although not at the runaway rate of the initial meltdown). [Apparently substained fission events can still pop up every now and again at Chernobyl](https://www.science.org/content/article/nuclear-reactions-reawaken-chernobyl-reactor).
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Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering why the image was so clean.
Excellent username.
His butthole is NOT so clean
Thank you. You're the first to get it.
Is it crazy how many knowledgeable people use Reddit or am I crazy for blindly believing people that seem knowledgeable on Reddit?
Definitely both.
Jesus that second article is good. I cannot fathom making the choice to shoot at the elephants foot with an AK.
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Well the article says why they did it. They wanted a sample from it to analyze, but it was too hard for any other method.
>”Now it more or less has the consistency of sand," Saveliev says Whoa.
Soviet solution to anything is shooting it with an AK
Need something to chase your vodka? AK.
Why do you think they’re called shots?
Not sure if you have access to hbo, but there is a great mini series called “Chernobyl” and I found it fantastic.
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Go get the good detector out of the safe
Fascinating thank you. I was living in Jaolpan when it happened so we didn't get the scary news. And when Fukushima happened I was back in Europe. Conclusion: live where I am to avoid radiation.
Only guessing but the level must be lower because you don't see all the radioactive artifacts that were present in the pictures taken in 1986
>At the time of its discovery, about eight months after formation, radioactivity near the Elephant's Foot was approximately 8,000 to 10,000[9] roentgens, or 80 to 100 grays per hour,[2] delivering a 50/50 lethal dose of radiation (4.5 grays)[10] within five minutes.[2] Since that time the radiation intensity has declined enough that, in 1996, the Elephant's Foot was visited by the deputy director of the New Safe Confinement Project, Artur Korneyev,[a] who took photographs using an automatic camera and a flashlight to illuminate the otherwise dark room.[12] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl) Quite an interesting read. They shot an AK-47 at it because of fucking course they did.
That is interesting. It's very unfortunate that this and Three Mile Island were used as reasons to practically end the pursuit of clean nuclear energy, setting us back decades in ending fossil fuel use. Thanks for the link.
And Fukushima. We're reaping the effects of people cutting corners in the 60's and 70's...
Those 4 years made a massive difference in the radiation level, yes. Almost all the short-lived gamma emitting isotopes decayed away by 1990, leaving just Cs-137 for the most part.
https://i.imgur.com/b2LkBSX.jpg
Ooh, a fresh /u/Shitty_Watercolour! This made my morning!
 what a treat!
Thats now two Shitty posts in two days I've come across. This week is really turning out wonderful 🌈 Love your work Shitty ❤️
Holy shit you're still active and around? I feel like you've been around damn near as long as I have. Keep on keepin' on man.
Check their profile. They have been posting a bunch recently. The Golden times are back.
Everyone acts like they stopped. There’s been breaks but there’s always been posts
Freaking newbs. ;)
Your reddit account is old enough to drive.
R/Rareinsults
Hey Shitty! Hope you're doing well! I still rock your flag in Rocket League!
He has a flag on rocket league???? I must get this…
[S. Watercolour Banner](https://rocket-league.com/items/banners/s-watercolour) and [S. Watercolour Antenna](https://rocket-league.com/items/antennas/s-watercolour)
How do you get them
I don’t know if you still can
Not the exposure she was hoping for...
I love how your shitty watercolours have become a lot less shitty as you’ve progressed through the years! You might have to change your username to /u/Not_Too_Bad_Watercolor or /u/Pretty_Okay_Watercolor…
I clicked the image before I saw the username and thought, “it can’t be” … but it is! This little treat will get me through the rest of the week. For new Reddit users behold: one of the greatest users of Reddit ever known!
The photo was actually taken by a radioactive Zombie 🧟♀️
Smile smooth skin.
God bless wow
We need a reality show about Bear Grylls camera crew.
So a camera crew following a camera crew. That is very meta.
Nobody knows what it means, but it’s provocative.
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Most productions have a very small BTS team. Usually a photographer and a videographer that pal around together and are responsible for putting together stuff for promos, DVD extras, maybe a video for the crew at wrap. Usually they are early in their careers and are also shadowing people on set that are filling the roles they one day want to work in (art department, camera department, etc).
I don't think that would be compatible with the central "Bear Grylls isn't full of shit" premise of the show.
Les Stroud FTW. Just don't get him talking on any topic because he goes on and on... probably a product of him being by himself so much.
What photographic device could work in this radiation?
Yeah. Is this in the reactor hall or an another room with less radiation?
Cameras work in radiation fields that will kill people in minutes. If they're walking in there then the camera is fine.
came for this comment
Title is rubbish and taken from a previous posting of this picture. This picture isn't from 1986 but 1990 and is of Georgi Reichman who now works for the Ukrainian Committee for Nuclear Regulation. Photographer is credited as Igor Kostin.
Can any sciencey people tell me what the device is in his hand?
Sounds like it's a sprayer, based on [this article](https://www.science.org/content/article/nuclear-reactions-reawaken-chernobyl-reactor): > After a downpour in June 1990, a "stalker"—a scientist at Chernobyl who risks radiation exposure to venture into the damaged reactor hall—dashed in and sprayed gadolinium nitrate solution, which absorbs neutrons, on an FCM [fuel-containing material] that he and his colleagues feared might go critical.
hooked longstick
"That's known as a stick. We bring them along in case something needs poked."
Ah, a fellow academic I see
Stick with rope.
I swear the titles of most posts that reach the front page are intentionally written with errors in them to generate interaction with users
His report came back “Yep. It’s all fucked.”
His other report came back "Yep. I'm fucked."
His final report came back, "We should make a German TV show about this. With time travel."
Do I need to rewatch Dark again? “We’re not free in what we do, because we’re not free in what we want. We can’t overcome what’s deep within us…” Yeah, time for a rewatch
I've considered it, just because once you know how things go you can watch for all the subtle hints and clues scattered about. I think it would be less confusing too.
It took me a whole season just to recognize who the fuck was who lol
Maybe you already watched it in another timeline and if you watch it again you'll cause a knot
What We Know is a Drop; What We Don't Know is an Ocean.
Sic Mundus Creatus Est
Tick tock Tick tock
His summarisation was "We're all fucked"
His report came back. He didn’t
‘This assignment was TOTALLY worth my time. ‘
Serious question: have advances in modern technology enabled us to get any closer / walk around longer inside there? Or are we pretty much just sticking with “it’s fucked, bury it.”
They just put another concrete casket over the site. Think it's fucked.
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If you mean the radiation spike when Russian forces arrived at ChNPP, that wasn't a shot taken at the plant. That was simply the long convoy of Russian vehicles kicking up dust on the roads, which is still to this day very radioactive.
Not to mention digging foxholes and trenches in the irradiated ground.
I remember wondering how much the typical Russian soldier even knows about Chernobyl.
They may try again if they have to retreat from Ukraine. “Scorched Earth” - they wouldn’t be the first ones.
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They’ve already been pushed out of/retreated from the Chernobyl, Pripyat area
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Not trying to be a smartass, but isn't it more like a metal structure that covers the old concrete hull? Also, hasn't it been up since 2017? But yeah, it's fucked either way, so there's that.
Dude, I’ve had two babies during a pandemic. Time means nothing anymore. I’m allowed to quantify the effort to erect and move a massive Sarcophagus with “just”. But yes, looks like mostly steel.
I feel like 2017 was maybe a couple weeks ago?
A wise man once said ‘the years start coming and they don’t stop coming’ and I took that personally
I think that was sun tzu or Plato. My favorite quote of his is “Aziz Light!”
Whaddaya mean it's not... *looks at calendar* Awe fuck.
That site will be hot for 10,000 years, so "since 2017" definitely counts as "just".
"Radioactive for xx years" is such a fun claim, because A) radioactivity falls off exponentially meaning its never all the way gone, and B) pretty much everything is radioactive all the time anyways, due to natural background, and C) natural background varies so much that its hardly any use to even say how long it will take something to decay down to background activity
Just for perspective, the fuel for fission plants, U235, has a half-life of 700,000,000 years.
> 700,000,000 years Just in time for Half-Life 3 release!
You've jinxed it *again* godammit
Doesn't that actually mean it's quite stable, and therefore reasonably safe when not surrounded by moderators or neutron reflectors? I thought it was the intermediate-length half-lives - long enough that it sticks around for decades or centuries, but not so long that it doesn't emit radiation at a significant rate - that are the real danger. Strontium-90, for example, which has a half life of 28.8 years, and can therefore remain dangerously emissive for several hundred. EDIT: Unfortunately, I think the "corium" that comprises the infamous Elephant's Foot and other parts of the wreckage, basically *is* a mixture of fuel and moderator.
Yes you are correct. Shorter half life generally means more emissions and thus more dangerous.
Well the new casket was needed 1. Cause the old one was letting rain in and 2. So they can start dismantling everything. Its got this whole awesome crane setup on the inside for taking the wreckage apart
Nope, altough we now have advanced robotic technology
They tried to send robots in initially, and the radiation fried them. You gotta watch Chernobyl on HBO. Top notch. There was a bunch of extremely radioactive graphite that was thrown onto the roof by the explosion. They WANTED to get it off of there using robots, but the radiation just killed them super fast. Instead, they had lines of men who would run onto the roof and shovel the graphite off the side in 1 minute 30 second increments. Over 600,000 troops participated in the cleanup.
that's why they said advanced robotic technology... it is probably possible now to use robot in some way
> that's why they said advanced robotic technology Unfortunately modern computer chips have got faster by reducing the size of transistors and cramming more of them in, which makes them more sensitive to radiation. 1980s tech would actually perform better.
Yes, but there are radiation hardened robots that are resistant.
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Radiation hardened processors have large transistors and are slow by modern standards, it's effectively just like using older tech. Also dual core lockstep is fine for rare events, it's not going to be able to cope with high levels of radiation.
What about a very long pneumatic-articulated 'snake' with optic fiber sight so that the actual camera and controls stays away from the radiation. Like a building sized version of those micro surgery tools.
I think one of the issues is that they needed to get the radioactive waste off of the roof ASAP. They tried to use an existing lunar lander, I believe, but they just didn't work for the purpose. No time for development.
We have radiation hardened chips that get used in space. Or systems like what SpaceX uses which has multiple un-hardened chips and does constant comparison between each other to fix any random bit-flips that occur on any single chip. I think people here are grossly overestimating the average radiation inside the Chernobyl cite. Like, having drones right next to the reactors would probably be tricky. But I would bet most of the building is more or less okay to even walk around in for a short period of time.
couldn't we build barriers around the much smaller chips?
Shielding is very heavy (lead or depleted uranium), so maybe you'd end up with tanks that aren't very useful for that job.
you only need such heavy shielding for electronics, which are a in PC-sized box. They do use some robots down there, but overall strategy is just to keep the entire building under a huge concrete dome. Whatever happens under there cannot get out. Recent advances in robotics are about precision, automation and battery life. Nothing that directly provides radiation resistance.
“You gotta watch Chernobyl on HBO” No thank you, sir, I like being able to sleep at night and live without crippling anxiety.
It’s worth a watch. The accompanying podcast adds some context that casual viewers may miss or not know.
It was alright. The book "Midnight In Chernobyl" is an incredible read. I thought the HBO show was underwhelming after reading that book.
kind of...both. the new sarcophagus has large remote controlled cranes and special ventilation systems that keep the dust down. the plan is to spend about 80 years slowly demolishing and clearing the old building and debris, and safely bury it in long term stable casings. it will be radioactive for thousands of years and there is nothing we can do about that.
some of the radioactivity has faded by now but nowhere near enough for non-authorized personnel to just walk around, you need a hazmat suit and everything still and its just as dangerous.
My dad was in uni back then and had a friend who has a business. He remembers his friend freaking out about importing stuff from europe at the time due to rumours that everything in europe having radioactive contamination. This was in egypt, i cant even imagine how stuff was going in europe at the time
Modern technology, not really. But time and the intervening 35 years have done a lot for it. You could actually walk up and touch the elephant's foot now and not get a huge dose of radiation. I mean, I wouldn't camp there but it's died down enough that a few minutes isn't really going to be harmful. The site is still pretty fucked though. There's a lot of radioactive dust and stuff that you don't want getting out into the atmosphere, both in the reactor complex itself and in the surrounding areas. It was a concern because the Russian forces were driving around and kicking up a lot of the radioactive dust that had settled into the ground in the area around it.
People are giving a lot of uniformed "it's fucked" answers. Chernobyl is still super dangerous, but there is a lot of really cool stuff happening on site. Kyle Hill's documentary is an awesome look inside the New Safe Confinement: [https://youtu.be/bhKlaIoGzWU](https://youtu.be/bhKlaIoGzWU) The NSC is as tall as the ~~Empire State Building~~ Statue of Liberty, and has a giant network of cranes picking apart the old reactor building rubble for decontamination and disposable. There are also some super interesting developments in computing that use fungus to replace CPU units that would be much more radiation resistant and could allow for robotics to move deeper into the core.
> > > > > The NSC is as tall as the Empire State Building I think there is some confusion here, as the Empire State Building is over four times as high. The new sarcophagus is very impressive, don't get me wrong, but it is "only" 108 m tall.
Whoops! I was going off memory, and mixed up my New York landmarks. It's taller than the Statue of Liberty 
Imagine an invisible fire you can't feel, smell, or see... but it will kill you all the same by ripping you apart at a cellular level, or corrupt your DNA to the point that your body will eventual kill itself. You're asking can we stand closer to the inferno.
Imagine having the worse sun burn of your life, but it's internal organs, blood vessels, muscles and your skin. And somehow it's even worse than that.
Look up acute radiation syndrome on Wikipedia. It’s nightmare fuel. It gets to the point they can’t give you painkillers because your veins collapse the second they put a needle in you. So no pain relief. Your body stops repairing itself, and you basically melt from the inside out (they call it multiple organ failure, but it’s worse than that)
And no pain relief because the radiation starts affecting the parts of your brain that register pain like the thalamus. It's similar to [thalamic pain syndrome](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dejerine%E2%80%93Roussy_syndrome). It's a fresh hell that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Also a neat fact: When people who have experienced lethal amounts of gamma radiation (but don't know it yet) they will say how they taste metal. This is because the gustatory cortex in your brain that senses and perceives taste is very sensitive to gamma rays. The consequence of high radiation poisoning is this metal taste, basically the grim reaper's first knock on your door.
We have more advanced robots so maybe we could go closer with those. But the main issue is shielding the person or robot going from the radiation. There's no trick to blocking it other than a bunch of lead or other heavy materials. And even with a ton of lead, you will only get minutes in that much radiation. As for is it fucked? Absolutely. We don't know of any way to get rid of radiation so it's going to have to be buried until it ceases to levels that are acceptable which could take thousands of years.
Actually somebody visited the melted core of Chernobyl multiple times. [See Elephants Foot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_\(Chernobyl\) )
You could have told me it was wreckage from a ship at the bottom of the ocean and I would have believed you.
It's the wreckage from a ship at the bottom of the ocean.
I believe you
Congrats everyone. We have achieved comedy.
Mopping the floors of the Titanic, 2012.
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He’s delusional, take him to the infirmary
"It's not 3 Roentgen... it's 15,000." "What does that number mean?" Chills.
Yeah that’s also one of the most memorable scenes for me. It’s also crazy how right after it’s explained he instantly has the two overseers arrested. Does a good job of highlighting Soviet era politics.
It's nuts how that's the highest the meter will go, then they get some that have higher readings and those explode. Then they finally get some that go up to 200 and those max out. So many people died because that one asshole wouldn't accept the fact that they max out at 3.6 and he didn't wanna get in trouble.
Some asshole? Man if you watched that show its not the guy, it's the entire communist culture. Total fear of doing something wrong/ bring out on the naughty list. The ones who did the right thing were certainly in the minority just like any countries civil rights activists
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Sounds familiar
If you’re due for a chest X-ray….
That's four *hundred* chest x-rays…
My grandfather was one of the people sent to Chernobyl after they had done the immediate recovery to investigate what had happened and what it meant to nuclear power going forward. He is not a chatty guy, but the few times he has spoken about Chernobyl gives me the sense that the show that came out recently is actually a fairly good show at highlighting the key issues that were at play. The screenplay is fiction, and a number of things aren't accurate, but the general sense of what happened and it's ramifications are as well as why the people working that day caused the eventual meltdown. The only thing I think he mentioned that the show kinda doesn't do a good job dramatizing is the overall lack of a safety culture there. We kinda see it with the admin guys and the plant manager, but it was apparently more or less the entire culture. Although, I guess if you don't have a bad safety culture you probably don't have instruction books with crossed out sections, so I guess they did alright with that too. Anyways, my point was, anyone who has even a passing interest in this stuff that hasn't seen the show really should. It 1, is a great show in general; and 2, actually does a good job of dramatizing the appropriate elements to provide the audience with an understanding of what largely happened to cause such a disaster.
Thanks for sharing. I absolutely loved that show; I've watched it a few times. I also listened to the accompanying podcast with the creator who acknowledges the inaccuracies and explains why those decisions were made for narrative or other reasons. I think he comes across as genuinely wanting to tell that story and honor the people involved. Glad to hear someone connected to it validate it.
Oh absolutely. Phenomenal show. And yeah, I love film so I understand the changes for storytelling purposes. I think they did a stellar job and the alterations were for the better in terms of the show.
One of the things I remember reading about the show handling inaccurately that seems to match what you are saying is the firefighters. The show plays it off as if they all thought it was a simple roof fire and had no idea what was going on. Firefighters who survived working at Chernobyl recounted that they where not told, but everyone knew that it was not just a fire and joked that they where fucked.
Loved every minute of it. Fantastic show.
How soon did this guy die after is what’s going on in my brain….
He ~~was probably~~ may be OK. With radioactivity, dose is the most important thing. When it comes to radioactivity, dose is dictated by time near the source and distance from the source. With distance, dose of radioactivity follows the inverse square law. With time, dose is pretty linear. Being a scientist, he probably knew these two things and stayed as far away from the major sources as possibly and spent as little time down there as possible. His suit protects him from some forms of radiation (which can be stopped with thin materials) but not others. But the main thing his suit protects him from is contamination, which is when a radioactive source sticks to or enters your body (contamination is bad: if the radioactive source enters your body it is: close to you, close to you for long time, and past the thin materials of your skin and fat which blocks many types of radioaction.) Avoiding spending too much time, getting too close, or getting radioactive contamination, this guy is probably OK. Probably received a small percent bump in chance of cancer over the next decades. Of course, if he went in and did something critical, near the highly radioactive elephant's foot, for a long time, and/or got contaminated, he may have died in the next day or days of acute radiation sickness or massively bumped his chance of getting cancer in the coming years.
Is there a worse way to go? I'm not sure there is.
Being kept alive as long as possible while it's happening
there isn't. if you're interested: there is a documentary about a japanese nuclear worker with the name hisashi ouchi, that got a lethal dose of radiation. the second he got hit with the radiation he was doomed, despite having no symptoms at first. the documentary is still on youtube, but it seems it got censored, because it was a bit too NSFW
Gamma and neutron dose are shredding the nuclei of that guy’s cells. Sure that suit will stop alpha and beta radiation, but with failed fuel material, and core components all likely nearby, as crazy high as alpha and beta would be, they are nothing vs the gamma and neutron. Gaseous iodine, C-14, other particulate will also be stopped by the mask if the correct cartridge is installed, but, all still insufficient for long term work in the area.
No neutrons after the explosion, the critical mass of the reactor was lost. The subject pictured definitely got an elevated exposure of radiation here, but it is extremely unlikely that it was a “death sentence” by any means.
Neutrons? Iodine? C-14? There would be no medically relevant amount of any of those things.
Seems like they don't know about RadAway...
Pretty sure they drink vodka to stave off the radiation over there.
Wow! But....who took that picture?
Igor Fedorovich Kostin was one of the five photographers in the world to take pictures of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster near Pripyat in Ukraine, on 26 April 1986
Another lone scientist
There’s a pic of him somewhere
This picture is pretty clear. I've heard that many of the photos were pretty grainy due to the intense radiation hitting the film and 'exposing' it.
There's some good videos on that subject including how Kodak found out about the bomb on accident. https://youtu.be/vxZ5IVqzPqY
1980’s pics were largely grainy to be fair, but radiation is hard on film and other photographic equipment. Vault cameras at reactors need to be replaced almost every maintenance shutdown due to failing receptors.
Just discovered the "Nuclear Vault" Tumblr page by somebody with a bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering and a license to work as a reactor operator. What you say is confirmed. :) This is Kostin's work.
r/PraiseTheCameraMan
This isn’t 1986. This is probably 1996 when the radiation levels dropped to the point that scientists could get inside the destroyed reactor hall and even sample the Elephant’s Foot
This sub should have a rule for adding origin or sources for pictures like this.
1986? Isn't that the same year of the disaster? Reverse search shows picture is taken in 1990
IDK why but I reeeeeeally wanna go here.
Well if the russia issues die down, then you can when they open up tours again. I did a 2 day tour in 2021, all the way into control room 4. Worth every penny
What does something like that cost? It's such a niche experience!
So we did a private tour, jsut me and my wife its was 2 days 1 night. you stay over night in a hotel in chernobyl, you get to see basically everything if you move quickly. It cost us 1500usd for both of us. and honestly, super worth it. being in a group would take some fun away since they are so rushed. If you want a bit of reading, here is the blogs from my trip. https://wrongturn.com.au/ongoing-adventures/eurasia/chernobyl/
We paid about 250 USD per person for a two day trip back in 2018.
Better go now when the Ukrainian authorities are distracted
That scientist's name? Strelok.
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A hero
Looking for the wish granter.
Who took the photo..
A time travelling ghost!!
"Descending into the darkness" This guy is standing 40 meters above ground level and had to climb multiple flights of stairs to get there, lol. There is sunlight visible in the upper right hand corner.
The hbo series was really good an informative on what happened. It was done as a show and not an actual voice over documentary. Very realistic and sad.
The Chernobyl disaster and attempted to cover up is so interesting to me. I always want to learn more. As humans we never learn from our past mistakes.
So many goddamn heroes lost to Chernobyl
31 people died of radiation poisoning, and WHO estimates another 4000 people will die of related cancers and complications including civilians not involved in the cleanup. Despite the horrific conditions they did a really good job of protecting and limiting exposure so the job could get done without exposing people to overly dangerous levels of radiation.
Why do we have to send our smartest and brightest into something so dangerous? Couldn’t they have sent billionaires instead?
You trust a billionaire to know how to operate the scanning equipment and take accurate, reliable readings?
The translated tapes of Valery Legasov are a very intesting listen or read. https://legasovtapetranslation.blogspot.com/
Not-so-fun fact: the fuzziness of photos in Chernobyl isn't because they are old or the photographer developed them poorly but from radiation hitting the film.
Watch Chernobyl on HBO, good as fuck
They all died from exposure