The Chernobyl accident was a nuclear meltdown on April 26 1986 of a nuclear plant in city of Chernobyl in the Ukraine. The cause of the disaster was a sudden power surge, and when an emergency shutoff was attempted, a more vicious spike in power output occurred, which led to a reactor vessel rupture and a series of explosions. These events caused the ignition of the graphite moderator reacting to the reactor to air. The fire sent a collection of highly radioactive smoke fallout into the atmosphere and over large masses of geographical area. From 1986 to 2000, 350,400 people were evacuated and resettled from the most severely contaminated areas. This accident raised concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry, as well as nuclear power in general, slowing its expansion for a number of years and forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive about its procedures.
The purpose of a nuclear power plant is the production of electricity. To produce electricity, a power plant needs a source of heat to boil water which becomes steam. Then the steam then turns a turbine, the turbine turns an electrical generator, and the generator produces electricity. Fossil fuel plants source of heat is usually burning coal, oil, or gas. The source of heat for a nuclear plant is a nuclear reactor. The nuclear reactor is the generator that produces the spark, the turbine that turns it, the jet of steam that turns the turbine and the radioactive uranium bundle that heats water into steam. This is the description of the nuclear reactor core. The water in the reactor also serves as a coolant for the radioactive material, preventing it from overheating and melting down.
This past March 2011, people around the world became well acquainted with this reality as Japanese citizens fled by the thousands from the area surrounding the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear facility after the most powerful earthquake on record and the ensuing tsunami cause major damage on the plant and several of its reactor units. Not only were the units damaged, water drained from the reactor core, which made it impossible to control core temperatures since the water acts as a coolant. This resulted in overheating and a partial nuclear meltdown.
The first signs of radiation poisoning are nausea, vomiting, headache, and some loss of white blood cells. When exposed to higher doses of radiation symptoms can include, temporary hair loss, more significant internal harm, including damage to nerve cells and the cells that line the digestive tract. Severe loss of white blood cells, which makes it hard for the body to fight against infection, that makes radiation victims highly vulnerable to disease. Radiation also reduces production of blood platelets, which aid blood clotting, so victims of radiation sickness are also vulnerable to hemorrhaging. Half of all people exposed to 450 rems die, and doses of 800 rems or more are always fatal. These people also suffer from fever and diarrhea. As of right now, there is no effective treatment, so death occurs within two to fourteen days.
Although the problem at Chernobyl was complex, it can be summarized as a mismanaged electrical engineering experiment which resulted in the reactor exploding. The explosion was chemical, driven by gases and steam generated by the core runaway, not by nuclear reactions. In Japan the disaster was due to the earthquake. So therefore I don’t believe we have anything to worry about unless we have uneducated electrical engineers so some type of serious natural disaster.


Video Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX0Vjar2J_E

 Exposures and effect of the Chernobyl accident, Annex J of Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation,UNSCEAR 200 Report to the General Assembly Vol. 2

Brain, Marshall, and Robert Lamb. "How Stuff Works." Editorial. Discovery 21 Mar. 2011. Web. 6 Apr. 2011.

"Chernobyl: 25 Years after the Nuclear Disaster." HUFFPOST GREEN (2011). Web. 6 Apr. 2011.

"Backgrounder on Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident." Web log post. 30 Apr. 2009. Web. 6 Apr. 2011.

Chernobyl: Assessment of Radiological and Health Impacts - 2002 Update of Chernobyl: Ten Years On, OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (2002).

Works Cited