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Chernobyl disaster and its effects
Chernobyl disaster and its effects
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Leading up to the accident The morning of April 26, 1986 started just like all other mornings in Chernobyl, with just one exception, there was an emergency systems test underway at the near-by nuclear power station. This test was unauthorized, none the less, it was designed to ensure cooling water for the reactor could still be controlled with little or no power to the station. The cold war was in full swing, and Russia was still poised to go to war with the United States at any moment. It was due to this “distrust” that the test was being run that morning. The head nuclear scientist on shift, Anatoli Dyatlov, was from the “old school” and thought that he alone could control the whole reactor process, and he also thought he knew more than the new nuclear engineers straight out of college that was present that morning. It was due to this type of arrogance that this global catastrophe occurred. (Read, 1993) “In Pripyat preparations were under way for a shutdown of a different kind. May was the first major festival of the communist year, and although it would fall on the Thursday of the following week, many meant to take time off and start their holiday on the previous weekend.” (Read p.58) That May was exceptionally warm, and there were a lot of activities going on in the surrounding countryside. The cherry trees were in full bloom, and the air was filled with the scent of pine trees from the forests around Chernobyl and Pripyat. Everyone’s mind was on the upcoming holiday and was restless with the thought of time off. (Read, 1993) The Accident Dyatlov was the head nuclear scientist in charge at the Lenin nuclear power station at Chernobyl, which was just inside of the border of Ukraine. He himself drew up plans fo... ... middle of paper ... ...rn. Retrieved March 15, 2011 from LexisNexis Academic database at http://www.bpcc.edu/bpcclibrary/databases/databasesubjects.html • International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); (2006) Environmental consequences of the Chernobyl accident and their remediation: Twenty years of experience. Retrieved March 26, 2011 from http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1239_web.pdf • Birch, D. (2007) Nature reclaiming Chernobyl zone. Retrieved March 15, 2011 from LexisNexis Academic Database at http://www.bpcc.edu/bpcclibrary/databases/databasesubjects.html • McKie, R. (2011) Chernobyl 25 years on: a poisoned landscape. Retrieved March 28,2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/27/chernobyl-disaster-anniversary-japan • Nuclear energy agency (2002) 2002 update of Chernobyl: ten years on. Retrieved March 28, 2011 from http://www.oecd-nea.org/rp/chernobyl/
The engineers in Visit Sunny Chernobyl created a new frontier past the safety zone because they want to test the limits of the reactor. What the scientists didn’t account for is that fact that the reactors already had the potential of a dangerous chain reaction. (Blackwell 6) Consequently, their boundary destroying led to catastrophic consequences and the total annihilation of a land area because of massive radiation. Blackwell thought Chernobyl was so horrific he expressed that no one should visit without a “working understanding of radiation and how it’s measured” (Blackwell 7). These are some horrific consequences that followed from surpassing the
Imagine working with radioactive materials in a secret camp, and the government not telling you that this material is harmful to your body. In the book Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown, she takes her readers on a journey to expose what happened in the first two cities that started producing plutonium. Brown is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She has won a handful of prizes, such as the American Historical Association’s George Louis Beer Prize for the Best Book in International European History, and was also a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow. Brown wrote this book by looking through hundreds of archives and interviews with people, the evidence she found brought light to how this important history of the Cold War left a nuclear imprint on the world today.
During the post World War I era, many European countries were rebuilding, and the Soviet Union saw this as a chance to catch up. The Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin’s rule, implemented the five-year plan as strategy for rapid industrialization (Hunt, 846). A great example of Stalin’s five-year plan was the construction of Magnitogorsk, a city based around a massive factory. This construction flawlessly captured Stalin’s goals for progression, efficiency, and conquering nature (back cover). The novel Time, Forward! took place in 1932 and described, in detail, the construction of Magnitogorsk. This novel hinted at the spirit of the times. In the novel, one of the engineers, Margulies, decided to push concrete pouring to its limits. His rival, assistant chief of construction, Nalbandov wanted the downfall of Margulies, and decided to write him up. Nalbandov thought of two charges. The first was that Margulies recklessly sacrificed the quality of the cement for more cement production; this recklessness went against the current scientific understanding of concrete, and the quality would not suffice. The second would show Margulies going against Soviet policies of increasing tempos, as he did not allow the next shift to pour an even larger amount of concrete (314). The second charge was less scientific, but it was more in the spirit of the times because those who hindered progress should be punished. One may wonder, what was the spirit of the times? When Joseph Stalin came into power, he instilled in the public sphere that the Soviet Union would no longer accept backwardness (Hunt, 846). The spirit of the times was all about progress, efficiency, and conquering nature; this spirit is what pushed the Soviet Union away form their backw...
Initially the Soviet Government kept the accident at Chernobyl a secret. Because radiation lacks smell or taste, and is invisible, people carried on with their daily lives, all the while inhaling radioactive particles. It took ten days for the Soviet government to evacuate the contaminated areas. Particles fell into the crops and plants of the people. Cows ate grass that had been contaminated by the nuclear particles causing the dairy produ...
The new Bolshevik slogans were "Petrograd is in danger", "Revolution is in danger", "People are in danger"! · On October 21 Lenin returned secretly disguised he participated in
The Chernobyl Nuclear has also affected the environment. Such as the food products in the Forest like mushrooms, berries containing high levels of long-lived radioactive caesium and this pollution is expected to remain high for several decades or so. For example, the accident led to high pollution of caribou meat in Scandinavia. Water bodies and fishes became polluted as well with radioactive materials. The accident has actually affected many animals and plants living within 30-40 km of the . There was an increase in mortality as in increasing of deaths in an area and a decrease in reproduction and some genetic anomalies in plants and animals are still reported
In only a matter of time, the surrounding environment is destroyed, natural sources become contaminated and useless, the temperature drops, and suddenly winter is paying a lingering visit. A nuclear winter. It is a definite possibility in today’s society, a thought that casts shivers down spines. It is the topic that is being addressed by Walter Van Tilburg Clark in his short story, “The Portable Phonograph”, and it is the possible occurrence that is being assessed by James Roberts in the article “How to Survive Nuclear Winter”. In the short story, a group of four men is forced to survive during a nuclear winter, and they have been for a certain period of time. So far, the men have found sources that they can live off of, however, the primary
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich starts off in a Soviet controlled labor camp. People were there against their own will; usually as a form of imprisonment. Soldiers in the camp forced its inhabitants into free labor. “It was that last, short, painfully sweet moment when there was no escape but everybody still pretended that the parade would never come”(Solzhenitsyn 24). The parade marked the end of all short breaks and the beginning of new work duties. This free labor aided the rise of the Soviet’s underdeveloped economy. Exhausted prisoners in these labor camps were not working for themselves, they were working for Stalin. Consequently, this increase in industrial output by forced labor, led to a dramatic decrease in the quality of consumer goods and infrastructure. “If it’s for human beings make sure and do it properly. If it’s for the big man- just make it look good” ( Solzhenitsyn 14). People had lost nearly all encouragement in the work given to them. Therefore, making the work completed decrease in overall quality. This can be seen in the deterrerating appearance of the city. Apart from the industry and economy of Russia, communism had a greater deleterious effect on the individual. In which is the primary focus of
Hopefully, with accurate analysis and innovation, my research will teach the world of its past so this disaster doesn’t occur in the future. B - Summary of Evidence Chernobyl (chrn byl) is an uninhibited city in north Ukraine, near the Belarus boundary, on the Pripyat River. Ten miles to the north, in the town of Pripyat, is the Chernobyl nuclear powerstation, site of the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history ("Chernobyl", Columbia Encyclopedia). To specify, on April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Ukraine, injuring human immune systems and the genetic structure of cells, contaminating soils and waterways. Nearly 7 tons of irradiated reactor fuel was released into the environment—roughly 340 million curies.
Flanary, W. (2008). Environment effects of the Chernobyl accident. Retrieved November 1st, 2013 from /http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/152617
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
4) "First Half of Chernobyl Cover on the Move." Chernobyl. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2014.
One of the most significant environmentally damaging instances in history was the Chernobyl incident. In 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine exploded. It became one of the most significant disasters in the engineering community. There are different factors that contributed to the disaster. The personnel that were tasked with operating the plant were unqualified. The plant’s design was a complex one. The RBMK reactor was Soviet design, and the staff had not be acquainted with this particular design. As the operators performed tests on the reactor, they disabled the automatic shutdown mechanism. After the test, the attempt to shut down the reactor was unsuccessful as it was unstable. This is the immediate cause of the Chernobyl Accident. It later became the most significant nuclear disaster in the history of the
The use of nuclear power in the mid-1980s was not a popular idea on account of all the fears that it had presented. The public seemed to have rejected it because of the fear of radiation. The Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union in April of 1986 reinforced the fears, and gave them an international dimension (Cohen 1). Nevertheless, the public has to come to terms that one of the major requirements for sustaining human progress is an adequate source of energy. The current largest sources of energy are the combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas. Fear of radiation may push nuclear power under the carpet but another fear of the unknown is how costly is this going to be? If we as the public have to overcome the fear of radiation and costly project, we first have to understand the details of nuclear energy. The known is a lot less scary then the unknown. If we could put away all the presumptions we have about this new energy source, then maybe we can understand that this would be a good decision for use in the near future.
On April26, 1986, the nuclear power plant was exploded in Chernobyl, Ukraine. At 1:23 AM, while everyone were sleeping, Reactor #4 exploded, and 40 hours later, all the city residence were forcefully moved to other cities, and they never return to their home. The Chernobyl disaster is ranked the worst nuclear accident. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was ran by the Soviet Union central nuclear energy corporation. (International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA, 2005)