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| Fig. 1: After the incident, the country did well keeping people out of hazardous areas. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Chernobyl was one of the world's most remembered nuclear disasters that occurred in the Soviet Union. Many people were harmed from this nuclear disaster. Some died immediately and some suffered consequences of the released radiation. There were approximately 130,000 people within twenty miles of the reactors. The power plant had four RMBK-1000 reactors, with two more under construction at the time of the accident. Reactor four was the reactor that exploded. The other three were shut down shortly thereafter. [1] One of the most crucial causes of the accident is the large positive void coefficient possessed by the nuclear reactor. This means that the development of steam bubbles can cause the neutron production rate, and thus the heat production rate, to rise. Most other reactor designs have a negative coefficient. [2]
Authorities evacuated a large number of people from the vicinity in order to protect them from dangerous radiation. Chernobyl released more radiation into the environment than both the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II. [3] Public areas remain abandoned in Ukraine to this day (see Fig. 1). About 106 employees contracted radiation sickness from the accident. In addition to this, many cases of Thyroid cancer detected were attributed to Chernobyl. Most cases had successful treatments. [4] In the affected areas of the nuclear accident children under the age of 10 were at a higher risk of getting thyroid cancer, because they were more likely to consume dairy products and maternal milk that were contaminated by radioactive iodine. The thyroid gland concentrates iodine. [2] The accumulation of radioactive iodine led to and genomic damage and, ultimately, thyroid camcer. [5]
This terrible accident in 1986 raised awareness of the dangers of nuclear energy and concerns about safety of reactors and radioactive fuels. The accident remains as one of the worst nuclear accidents ever. The wasteland of the power plant campus stays as a reminder. [4]
© Jaiden Delaire. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] M. Caballero, "The Chernobyl Disaster," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2016.
[2] Z.-W. Seh, "Causes of the Chernobyl Accident," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2015.
[3] A. Taylor, "The Chernobyl Disaster: 25 Years Ago," The Atlantic, 23 Mar 11.
[4] B. McLellan, "The Aftermath of Chernobyl," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2018.
[5] J. C. Ricarte-Filho et al., "Identification of Kinase Fusion Oncogenes in Post-Chernobyl Radiation-Induced Thyroid Cancers," J. Clin. Invest. 123, 4935 (2013).
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