Alistair Fraser Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
The reason that I am talking about the Chernobyl disaster is because it
is nearly the thirty anniversary of the disaster.
!
At 1:23 am on April 26th 1986 reactor four at
the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in the
Ukraine exploded. Releasing more than a
hundred times the radiation of the bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thirty
one people died shortly after the explosion.
Thousands more are expected to die from the
long term affects of radiation. The Chernobyl
nuclear disaster dramatically changed the worlds opinion about using nuclear
reactors for power. Could this disaster have been averted and could they have
saved the reactor.
A routine maintenance and a test on reactor four
On april the 25th 1986, reactor four was going to be shut down for a routine
maintenance test. Technicians were also going to run a test to determine
weather the turbines should produce enough energy to keep the cooling
system running until the back up generators came online in case of a power
cut. The shut down test began at 1am on April the 25th. To get accurate
results from the test the operators turned off several of the daft systems
(which would turn out to be a disastrous decision) In the middle of the test
the shut down had to be delayed for nine hours because of a high demand for
power in kiev. The shutdown and the test continued again at 11:10 pm on the
night of April the 25th.
!
A Major problem