The explosion of a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The station that provoked the apocalypse. Chernobyl and Hiroshima

For almost eight centuries, Chernobyl was just a small Ukrainian town, but after April 26, 1986, this name began to denote the most terrible man-made disaster throughout the history of mankind. The very word "Chernobyl" bears the sign of radioactivity, the imprint of human tragedy and mystery. Chernobyl scares and attracts, and for many decades it will remain in the center of attention of the whole world.

Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986 is the beginning of a new period in the relationship between man and atomic nucleus. A period full of fear, caution and distrust.

An object: Power unit No. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the city of Pripyat, Ukraine.

Victims: 2 people died during the disaster, 31 people died in the following months, about 80 in the next 15 years. 134 people developed radiation sickness, resulting in death in 28 cases. About 60,000 people (mostly liquidators) received high doses of radiation.

Causes of the disaster

An unusual situation has developed around the Chernobyl disaster: the course of events of that fateful night on April 26, 1986 is known literally to seconds, all possible reasons the occurrence of an emergency, but it is still unknown what exactly led to the explosion of the reactor. There are several versions of the causes of the accident, and over the past three decades, the disaster has acquired a lot of speculation, fantastic and frankly delusional versions.

The first months after the accident, the main blame for it was placed on the operators, who made a lot of mistakes that led to the explosion. But since 1991, the situation has changed, and almost all charges against nuclear power plant personnel have been dropped. Yes, people made several mistakes, but they all corresponded to the reactor operation regulations in force at that time, and none of them were fatal. So, the low quality of regulations and safety requirements was recognized as one of the causes of the accident.

The main causes of the disaster lay in the technical plane. Many volumes of investigations into the causes of the disaster boil down to one thing: the exploded RBMK-1000 reactor had a number of design flaws, which under certain (rather rare!) conditions turn out to be dangerous. In addition, the reactor simply did not comply with many nuclear safety regulations, although it is believed that this did not play a special role.

The two main causes of the disaster are considered to be a positive vapor reactivity coefficient and the so-called "end effect". The first effect boils down to the fact that when water boils in the reactor, its power increases sharply, that is, it starts to go more actively nuclear reactions. This is due to the fact that steam absorbs neutrons worse than water, and the more neutrons, the more active the uranium fission reactions are.

And the "end effect" is caused by the design features of the control and protection rods used in the RBMK-1000 reactors. These rods consist of two halves: the upper one (7 meters long) is made of neutron-absorbing material, the lower one (5 meters long) is made of graphite. The graphite part is necessary so that when the rod is pulled out, its channel in the reactor is not occupied by water, which absorbs neutrons well, and therefore can worsen the course of nuclear reactions. However, the graphite rod did not displace water from the entire canal - approximately 2 meters of the lower part of the canal were left without a displacing rod, and therefore filled with water.

It is known that graphite absorbs neutrons much worse than water, and therefore, when completely pulled out rods are lowered in the lower part of the channels, nuclear reactions do not slow down due to the sharp displacement of water by graphite, but, on the contrary, sharply accelerate. That is, due to the “end effect” in the first moments of lowering the rods, the reactor is not shut down, as it should be, but on the contrary, its power increases abruptly.

How could all this lead to disaster? It is believed that the positive steam reactivity coefficient played a fatal role at the moment when the power of the reactor was reduced, and at the same time the speed of the circulation pumps was also reduced - because of this, the water inside the reactor began to flow more slowly and began to evaporate rapidly, which caused an acceleration of the flow of nuclear reactions. In the first seconds, the increase in power was controlled, but then it acquired an avalanche-like character, and the operator was forced to press the button for the emergency lowering of the rods. At that moment, the “end effect” worked, in a fraction of a second the power of the reactor increased abruptly, and ... And an explosion thundered, almost putting an end to not all nuclear energy, and leaving an indelible mark on the face of the Earth and in the hearts of people.

Chronicle of events

The accident at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred so rapidly that until the last seconds all control devices remained operational, thanks to which the entire course of the disaster is known literally to fractions of seconds.

The shutdown of the reactor was scheduled for April 24-26 to carry out scheduled preventive maintenance - this is, in general, a common practice for nuclear power plants. However, very often during such shutdowns, various experiments are carried out that cannot be carried out with the reactor running. Just one of these experiments was scheduled for April 25 - testing the “turbine generator rotor run-down” mode, which in principle could become one of the reactor protection systems during emergencies.

This experiment is very simple. Turbogenerators of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are units consisting of a steam turbine and a generator that generates electricity. The rotors of these units are combined, and their total mass reaches 200 tons - such a colossus, accelerated to a speed of 3000 rpm, after the steam supply is stopped, can rotate for a long time by inertia, only due to the acquired kinetic inertia. This is the “run-out” mode, and theoretically, it can be used to generate electricity and power circulation pumps when regular power sources are turned off.

The experiment was to show whether the turbogenerator was able to supply power to the pumps in the "coast" mode until the emergency diesel generators returned to normal operation.

From April 24, the reactor power gradually began to decrease, and by 0.28 on April 26, it was possible to bring it to the required level. But at that moment, the reactor power dropped to almost zero, which required the immediate lifting of the control rods. Finally, by 1:00 a.m., the reactor power reached the required value, and at 1:23:04, with a delay of several hours, the experiment was officially launched. This is where the problems started.

The turbogenerator in the "runaway" mode stopped faster than expected, which caused the speed of the circulation pumps connected to it to drop. This led to the fact that the water began to pass more slowly through the reactor, boil faster, and a positive vapor coefficient of reactivity intervened. So the power of the reactor began to gradually increase.

After some time - at 1:23:39 - the instrument readings reached critical values, and the operator pressed the emergency protection button AZ-5. The completely withdrawn rods began to sink into the reactor, and at that moment the “end effect” worked - the reactor power increased many times, and after a few seconds an explosion occurred (more precisely, at least two powerful explosions).

The explosion completely destroyed the reactor and damaged the building of the power unit, a fire started. Firefighters quickly arrived at the scene of the accident, who by 6 o'clock in the morning completely coped with the fire. And in the first two hours, no one imagined the scale of the catastrophe and the degree of radiation contamination. Already an hour after the start of the extinguishing, many firefighters began to show symptoms of radiation damage. People received large doses of radiation, and 28 of the firefighters died of radiation sickness in the following weeks.

Only at 3.30 am on April 26, the radiation background at the crash site was measured (because at the time of the accident, the standard control devices were out of order, and compact individual dosimeters simply went off scale), and an understanding came of what actually happened.

From the first days after the explosion, measures began to eliminate the consequences of the disaster, the active phase of which lasted several months, and in fact lasted until 1994. During this time, over 600,000 people took part in the liquidation work.

Despite the powerful explosion, the bulk of the contents of the nuclear reactor remained at the site of the destroyed fourth power unit, so it was decided to build a protective structure around it, which later became known as the Sarcophagus. The construction of the shelter was completed by November 1986. The construction of the "sarcophagus" took over 400 thousand cubic meters of concrete, several thousand tons of weakening radiation mixtures and 7000 tons of steel structures.

Explosion

Until now, disputes have not stopped about the nature of the explosion of the reactor at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Many experts agree that the explosion was similar to a nuclear one. That is, an uncontrolled chain reaction began in the reactor, similar to what happens when a nuclear bomb is detonated. These reactions lasted a fraction of a second, and did not turn into a full-fledged nuclear explosion, since the entire contents of the reactor were ejected from the mine, and the nuclear fuel dissipated.

However, the main explosion of the reactor was facilitated by an explosion of a different nature - steam. It is believed that due to the avalanche-like growth of steam generation inside the reactor, the pressure increased many times (in fact, by 70 times), which ripped off the multi-ton plate covering the reactor from above, like a lid on a pan. As a result, the reactor was completely dehydrated, uncontrolled nuclear reactions began in it, and an explosion.

A different version of what happened was proposed by Konstantin Pavlovich Checherov, a man who devoted more than 10 years to analyzing the causes of the Chernobyl disaster, during which he personally examined virtually every meter of the reactor shaft and the reactor hall of the fourth power unit. In his opinion, due to an emergency shutdown of the pumps, the temperature in the lower part of the reactor rose sharply, the pipelines (the water pressure in them reached 70 atmospheres) broke, and as a result, the entire reactor, like a colossal jet engine, was thrown out of the shaft up into the reactor hall . And already there, under the roof of the hall, there was an explosion that had a nuclear nature, but a relatively small power - about 0.01 kilotons. This explosion destroyed the roof and walls of the reactor hall. That is why virtually all the fuel (90-95%) was ejected from the reactor shaft. Checherov's version for a long time contradicted the official position and therefore remained (and remains) practically unknown to a wide circle.

To imagine the scale of the disaster, you need to understand what the RBMK-1000 reactor is. The basis of the reactor is a concrete shaft with dimensions of 21.6 × 21.6 × 25.5 m, at the bottom of which lies a steel sheet 2 m thick and 14.5 m in diameter. On this slab rests a graphite stack of cylindrical shape, pierced by channels for fuel elements, coolant and rods - in fact, this is the reactor. The diameter of the masonry reaches 11.8 m, the height is 7 m, it is surrounded by a shell with water, which serves as additional biological protection. From above, the reactor is covered with a metal plate with a diameter of 17.5 m and a thickness of 3 m.

The total mass of the reactor reaches 5000 tons, and all this mass was simply thrown out of the mine by the explosion.

Consequences of the Chernobyl accident

The Chernobyl disaster is in the forefront of the most serious man-made accidents in the history of mankind. She had so disastrous consequences that even now - almost 30 years later - the situation remains very difficult.

The explosion of the reactor led to monstrous radiation contamination of the area. At the time of the accident, there were about 180 tons of nuclear fuel in the reactor, of which from 9 to 60 tons were released into the atmosphere in the form of aerosols - a huge radioactive cloud rose above the nuclear power plant and settled over a large area. As a result, significant territories of Ukraine, Belarus and some regions of Russia were subjected to pollution.

It should be noted that the main danger is not uranium itself, but highly active isotopes of its fission - cesium, iodine, strontium, as well as plutonium and other transuranium elements.

In the first hours after the accident, its scale remained unknown, but already on the afternoon of April 27, the entire population of the city of Pripyat was hastily evacuated, in the following days people were taken out first from the 10-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and then from the 30-kilometer one. To this day, the exact number of people evacuated is unknown, but according to rough estimates, about 115,000 people were evacuated from more than a hundred settlements in the whole of 1986, and in subsequent years more than 220,000 people were resettled.

Subsequently, around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in a 30-kilometer zone, the so-called "exclusion zone" was created, in which a ban on any economic activity, and in order to prevent the return of people, almost all settlements were literally destroyed.

Interestingly, even now in some contaminated areas, there are over-permissible levels of radioactive isotopes in the soil, plants and, as a result, in cow's milk. This situation will be observed for several more decades, since the half-life of cesium-137 is 30 years, and that of strontium-90 is 29 years.

Over time, the radioactive background in the contaminated areas generally decreases, but this effect has unexpected manifestations. It is known that during the decay of radioactive elements, others are formed, and they can be either less or more active. So, during the decay of plutonium, ameretium is formed, which has a higher radioactivity, therefore, over time, the radioactive background in some areas only grows! It is believed that in the contaminated territories of Belarus, due to the increase in the amount of ameretium, by 2086 the background will be 2.5 times greater than immediately after the accident! The only reassurance is that the bulk of this background is alpha radiation, from which it is relatively easy to protect yourself.

The terrible consequences of the accident caused mass dissatisfaction with nuclear energy, people simply became afraid of nuclear power plants! This led to the fact that in the period from 1986 to 2002 not a single new nuclear power plant was built, and the construction of new power units at existing plants was either frozen or completely stopped. And only the last ten years there has been an increase in nuclear energy, but this applies more to Russia - the accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima-1 dealt a new blow, and a number of countries have already announced the abandonment of nuclear energy (for example, Germany wants to completely abandon nuclear power plants by the 2030s).

The Chernobyl disaster also had some very surprising consequences. The exclusion zone has long been the subject of dark jokes about mutations and other scary things caused by radiation. But in fact, the situation in those areas is quite different. Almost 30 years ago, people left the 30-kilometer zone, and since then no one has lived there (with the exception of several hundred "self-settlers" - people who returned here, despite all the prohibitions), did not plow and did not sow, did not pollute environment and did not dump waste. As a result radioactive forests and the fields have almost completely recovered, the populations of animals, including rare ones, have increased many times over, and the ecological situation has generally improved. Paradoxical as it may seem, but the radiation catastrophe was not an evil, but rather a boon for nature!

And, finally, Chernobyl brought to life a new socio-cultural phenomenon - stalking. The exclusion zone perfectly embodies the Zone created by the Strugatsky brothers in the novel Roadside Picnic. Since the beginning of the 90s, hundreds of “stalkers” have been drawn to the closure of the territory, dragging everything that is bad, visiting abandoned cities and striving for the stalker “Mecca” - the post-apocalyptic city of Pripyat, forever frozen in the Soviet past. And no one knows what doses of radiation these unfortunate stalkers received, and what dangerous things they brought home.

Stalkerism acquired such proportions that the government of Ukraine was forced to adopt special legislative acts restricting people's access to the Exclusion Zone. But despite the increased control of the zone's borders and all the prohibitions, the newly-minted stalkers do not give up trying to get into the most mysterious region of the planet, covered with myths and legends.

The current situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Despite the disaster Chernobyl nuclear power plant since the autumn of 1986, it resumed its work: already on October 1, power unit No. 1 was launched, and on November 5, power unit No. 2. The launch of the third power unit was difficult because it was located in close proximity to the emergency fourth, so it began work only on November 24, 1987 .

On the evening of October 11, 1991, a serious fire occurred at the second power unit, which actually put an end to the work of the station. On this day, the reactor of power unit No. 2 was shut down, later work began on its restoration, but they were never completed, and since 1997 the reactor has been officially shut down. The reactor of power unit No. 1 was shut down on November 30, 1996. The shutdown of the reactor of power unit No. 3 was carried out by the President of Ukraine on December 15, 2000 - this event was staged like a show and broadcast live.

So today, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not functioning, but work is being done on it to replace the “sarcophagus” (which is starting to collapse) with a new protective structure. In this regard, about 750 people continue to work on the territory of the station. The progress of work is broadcast around the clock on the official website of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant http://www.chnpp.gov.ua/.

On November 14, 2016, the process of moving the assembled new shelter began - in 4 days it should take its place above the destroyed power unit.

What has been done to prevent a disaster from happening again?

It is believed that the main causes of the Chernobyl disaster were the design flaws of the RBMK-1000 nuclear reactor. But these reactors were not only at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but also at several other stations - Leningrad, Smolensk and Kursk. Millions of people are in potential danger!

After the disaster, the question arose of modernizing all these reactors, which was done in subsequent years. Now 11 more RBMK-1000 reactors remain in operation, which no longer pose a danger, however, due to physical wear and tear and moral obsolescence, most of them will be decommissioned in 5-10 years.

Also, the Chernobyl disaster made it necessary to revise the regulations for the operation of reactors and tighten nuclear safety requirements. So, really serious safety measures at nuclear power plants were introduced only after 1986 - before that, it was believed that many accident scenarios were simply unthinkable, and fears were far-fetched.

To date, the global nuclear power industry has become one of the most high-tech industries in which special attention is paid to safety, equipment reliability and personnel training. And this was largely due to the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which showed that the fission of the atomic nucleus is much more complicated and dangerous than the simple burning of coal.

04/26/1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in the 4th power unit, there was a huge explosion, as a result of which the nuclear reactor was completely destroyed. This sad event went down in the history of mankind forever as the "accident of the century".

Explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Year 1986, April 26 - a black date in history

The most powerful nuclear power plant of the USSR became a source of extremely dangerous pollutants released into the environment, due to which 31 people died within the first 3 months, and the number of deaths over the next 15 years exceeded 80. The most severe consequences of radiation sickness were recorded in 134 people due to powerful radioactive contamination. A terrible "cocktail" consisted of a large list of elements of the periodic table, such as plutonium, cesium, uranium, iodine, strontium. Deadly substances mixed with radioactive dust covered a huge territory with a mud plume: the European part of the Soviet Union, the eastern part of Europe and Scandinavia. Belarus has suffered greatly from the polluted precipitation. The explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was compared with the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

How the explosion happened

During the investigation, numerous commissions analyzed this event more than once, trying to find out what exactly caused the disaster and how it happened. However, there is no consensus on this matter. A force capable of destroying all life in its path broke out of the 4th power unit. The accident was classified: the Soviet media kept deathly silence for the first days, but the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (year 1986) was recorded abroad due to a colossal radiation leak and raised the alarm. It became impossible to keep silent about the accident. The energy of a peaceful atom was intended to move civilization forward, towards progress, but it changed its trajectory and caused an invisible war of man with radiation.

The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the date of which will be remembered by mankind for centuries, began with a fire in power unit No. 4, the signal of which was received by the control panel at 1.24 am. The fire brigade promptly started extinguishing, having successfully coped with the fire by 6 o'clock in the morning, thanks to which the fire could not spread to block No. 3. The level of radiation in the territory of the halls of the power unit and near the station at that time was unknown to anyone. What happened in those hours and minutes with the nuclear reactor itself was also unknown.

Reasons and official versions

Analyzing the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the causes of which were inexplicable at first glance, experts put forward many versions. Summing up the results of the investigation, the scientists settled on several options:

1. Violation and disruption of the operation of circular pumps due to cavitation (the formation of a shock wave as a result of chemical reaction) and, as a result, a pipeline break.
2. Power surge inside the reactor.
3. Low level enterprise security - version INSAG.
4. Emergency acceleration - after pressing the "AZ-5" button.

The latter version, according to many experts in the industry, is the most plausible. In their opinion, the control and protection rods were activated by active work precisely by pressing this ill-fated button, which led to an emergency runaway of the reactor.

This course of events is completely refuted by experts from the Gospromatomnadzor commission. Employees put forward their versions of the causes of the tragedy back in 1986, insisting that the positive reactivity was caused by the emergency protection that worked, which caused the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Certain technical calculations that prove the cause of the explosion due to cavitation on the anti-aircraft missile system refute other versions. According to the chief designer of the Chernobyl NPP, the steam at the reactor inlet, as a result of the boiling of the coolant in the air defense system, got into the core and distorted the energy-releasing fields. This happened due to the fact that the temperature of the coolant in the most dangerous period reached the boiling point. Emergency acceleration began precisely with active vaporization.

The explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Other causes of the tragedy

In addition, opinions were often heard about such a cause of the explosion as a sabotage action, which was planned by the United States and carefully hidden by the Soviet government. This version is supported by photographs of an exploded power unit from an American military satellite, which miraculously ended up in the right place exactly when the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred. It is very difficult to refute or confirm this theory, and therefore this version remains a guess. It remains only to confirm that in 1986 the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant actually resulted in the disabling of secret facilities (Over-the-horizon radar station Duga-1, Chernobyl-2).

Among the causes of the tragedy are also called the earthquake that occurred at that moment. Indeed, shortly before the explosion, seismographs recorded a certain shock in the immediate vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It is the vibration that could provoke an accident that the adherents of this version call the reason for the launch of irreversible processes. In this situation, the fact that the neighboring power unit No. 3 for some reason did not suffer in any way and did not receive information about seismic tremors looks strange in this situation. But it hasn't been tested yet...

The most fantastic cause of the explosion was also put forward - this is a possible ball lightning, formed during the bold experiments of scientists. It was she, if we imagine such a course of events, that could well disrupt the operation in the reactor zone.

The consequences of the tragedy in numbers

At the time of the explosion itself, only 1 person died at the station. The very next morning, another employee died from very serious injuries. However, the worst began later, when 28 more people died literally within a month. They and 106 other employees of the station were at work at the time of the disaster and received the maximum dose of radiation.

Fire suppression

To extinguish the fire, when a fire was announced in the Chernobyl power unit No. 4, 69 employees of the fire brigade, as well as 14 vehicles, were involved. People extinguished the fire, having no idea about the highest level of pollution. The fact is that the metering devices radiation background it was impossible to look: one was faulty, the second remained out of reach, under the rubble. That is why no one could even imagine the real consequences of the explosion at that time.

Year of death and sorrow

At about 2 am, some firefighters developed the first symptoms of radiation sickness (vomiting, weakness, and an incomparable "nuclear tan" on the body). After the first medical aid, the patients were taken to the city of Pripyat. The next day, 28 people were urgently sent to Moscow (6th Radiological Hospital). All the efforts of the doctors were in vain: the fire tamers received such a large infection that they died within a month. From a huge release radioactive substances during the catastrophe, trees on an area of almost 10 square meters were also lost into the atmosphere. km. The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the consequences of which were felt not only by the direct participants, but also by the inhabitants of the three republics Soviet Union forced to take unprecedented security measures at all similar installations.

Explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Year 1986, April 26 - a black date in history

How the explosion happened

Reasons and official versions

1. Violation and disruption of the operation of circular pumps due to cavitation (the formation of a shock wave as a result of a chemical reaction) and, as a result, a pipeline breakthrough.
2. Power surge inside the reactor.
3. Low level of security in the enterprise - version INSAG.
4. Emergency acceleration - after pressing the "AZ-5" button.

The explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Other causes of the tragedy

The consequences of the tragedy in numbers

Fire suppression

To extinguish the fire, when a fire was announced in the Chernobyl power unit No. 4, 69 employees of the fire brigade, as well as 14 vehicles, were involved. People extinguished the fire, having no idea about the highest level of pollution. The fact is that it was impossible to look at the radiation background metering devices: one was faulty, the second remained out of reach, under the rubble. That is why no one could even imagine the real consequences of the explosion at that time.

Year of death and sorrow

At about 2 am, some firefighters developed the first symptoms of radiation sickness (vomiting, weakness, and an incomparable "nuclear tan" on the body). After the first medical aid, the patients were taken to the city of Pripyat. The next day, 28 people were urgently sent to Moscow (6th Radiological Hospital). All the efforts of the doctors were in vain: the fire tamers received such a large infection that they died within a month. From the huge release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere during the catastrophe, trees also died on an area of almost 10 square meters. km. The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the consequences of which were felt not only by the direct participants, but also by the inhabitants of the three republics of the Soviet Union, forced unprecedented security measures to be taken at all similar installations.

30 years ago, on April 26, 1986, the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant(ChNPP). Now, 30 years after the tragedy, the attention of politicians, ecologists and engineers is riveted to an unprecedented construction project - the construction of the New Safe Confinement (NSC) instead of the Shelter object, which for the next hundred years should solve the problem of radiation safety around the destroyed 4- th reactor. Funds for this project, which should be completed in 2017, were raised by the whole world.

Close the station without donors

Meanwhile, another most difficult task remains in the shadows, with which Ukraine found itself face to face. The decommissioning of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is a complex and costly process. Its total cost is estimated at four billion dollars. However, due to insufficient funding, the process is delayed.

"Last year we received more than 700 million hryvnia (27.5 million euros) from the state budget. Every year, we are given about 60 percent of the funds that we ask for in order to carry out decommissioning work in accordance with the schedule," - Viktor Kuchinsky, head of the strategic planning service at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, told DW.

He, as one of the most experienced specialists at the plant, manages the decommissioning process. In conditions of a chronic shortage of funds, it is possible to fulfill the work schedule by more than 80 percent and fully ensure safety for the population, Kuchinsky assures.

The last - the third - power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant ceased to produce electricity in December 2000. More than 15 years passed before the specialists completed the removal of spent nuclear fuel from all power units of the station. “There are only a few dozen builds left, we will unload them in the first half of this year,” Kuchinsky says. According to him, we are talking about damaged assemblies, for the extraction of which it was necessary to look for a special technical solution and develop a separate technology.

The next step is preservation.

Now Nuclear Power Plant finally proceeds to the main stage of decommissioning it. With the completion of the extraction of fuel, the power units will lose the status of nuclear installations and will be recognized as objects intended for radioactive waste management. “Last year, we received permission from state regulatory authorities to begin the main stage of decommissioning the plant. It is called the “final closure and conservation stage,” Viktor Kuchinsky explains.

The main task of this stage is to reliably mothball the first, second and third reactors with the most contaminated equipment. This stage, however, will drag on for more than ten years. There are a number of reasons for this, lack of funds is not the only one. There are still many technical problems.

One of them is typical for RBMK type reactors: it is the handling of the graphite lining of the reactor core. Scientists still haven't found a way to safely extract graphite from a reactor. "We hope that before 2045, when it is planned to start dismantling the reactors, a technology for handling graphite will be found," Chernobyl Deputy General Director Valery Seyda told DW.

Viktor Kuchinsky adds that another key issue that significantly affects the duration of the decommissioning process is the lack of necessary infrastructure, in particular secure temporary and permanent storage facilities for nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.

The new storage facility will be built by the end of 2016.

Spent fuel from the Chernobyl reactors was delivered to the one built back in Soviet time wet storage. Several tens of thousands of fuel assemblies are stored here. "The water in which the fuel assemblies are located is a neutron moderator. The assemblies are located at a safe distance from each other. But in the event of, for example, an earthquake, there may be problems. Therefore, all over the world they are switching to" dry "storage of spent fuel," explained Valery Seyda.

A "dry" storage near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was planned to be built back in 2004. However, the contract with the French contracting company was terminated due to its failure to comply with the conditions and the non-compliance of the proposed technology with safety requirements. The American company Holtek was entrusted with completing the construction of the facility.

Context

The lion's share of construction costs is financed by international donors. Work was previously promised to be completed by 2015. However, the commissioning date has recently been postponed again - to the end of 2016. According to the optimistic scenario, all the fuel from "wet" to a more reliable "dry" storage will be transported no earlier than in ten years.

Process for decades

The next generations of specialists will complete the process of decommissioning the plant. According to the schedule, this should happen in 2064. Until then, the reactors will remain mothballed until their radioactivity decreases. Thus, closing the station will take three times as long as it was in operation.

More than two thousand people still work at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This is three times less than twenty years ago. But this is still a lot for a plant that has not produced electricity for more than 15 years. A sharp reduction in staff is not expected in the coming years - there is still a lot of work ahead.

In 10-12 years, when, as planned, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be transferred to the long-term conservation mode, it will be necessary to start other works in parallel. Namely: the creation of safe storage facilities, in which the used equipment of the station will subsequently be placed. But all these works can be done only under one condition: if during the period of conservation it will be possible to accumulate sufficient funds for the costly process of dismantling the blocks.

See also:

Exclusion Zone

After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it became necessary to control the territories that were subjected to the greatest radioactive contamination - these are the cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat. The 30-kilometer zone around the station was closed to free access. Today, an enterprise for the management of the exclusion zone is located in Chernobyl, and up to 2,800 employees of enterprises building an arch for the sarcophagus also live there.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

In the 1970s, the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Ukraine began in the Chernobyl region. Chernobyl is located 3 km from the city of Pripyat and 18 km from the city of Chernobyl. It produced a tenth of the electricity in the Ukrainian SSR. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was completely stopped only at the end of 2000. Currently, work continues on the construction of a new insulating structure above the fourth power unit.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

Chernobyl - the administrative center of the exclusion zone

Before the accident, 12.5 thousand people lived in Chernobyl, all of them were evacuated a few days after the tragedy. At the moment, the city is included in the 30-kilometer exclusion zone, being its administrative center. The personnel of the enterprises located here live in abandoned apartment buildings. When crossing the boundaries of the exclusion zone, everyone is required to undergo dosimetric control.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

Arch - a new shelter for the sarcophagus

More than 600 thousand people took part in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident. Their main task was the construction of a concrete sarcophagus for the 4th power unit. Under the influence of external factors and radiation, the old shelter began to collapse, which is dangerous - about 200 tons of radioactive substances are still stored there. The new arched structure should cover the sarcophagus and allow its partial dismantling to begin.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

"Samosely" in the exclusion zone

Until now, the concentration of radionuclides in the exclusion zone is high, which does not allow lifting restrictions on living there. However, soon after the accident and evacuation, local residents began to return to their homes under various pretexts. These people were called "self-settlers". To date, there are about 180 of them in the zone: 80 in Chernobyl and about 100 more in villages located within a 30-kilometer zone.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

Grocery store twice a month

Mostly "self-settlers" are elderly people. They now live in four villages of the 30-kilometer exclusion zone. "Samosely" grow vegetables and fruits, pick mushrooms in the forest and drink water from wells. Of the benefits of civilization, they have only electricity. A grocery truck with bread and cereals comes twice a month, and once a month the postman delivers pensions.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

Pripyat - a ghost town

The city of Pripyat is located on the banks of the river of the same name, 3 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was he who was subjected to the greatest radioactive contamination. The population of the city of Pripyat was 47.5 thousand people, the day after the accident they were all evacuated. Even after the decontamination works, the radiation level is too high, so the city is uninhabitable.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

Secret object "Duga-1"

Secret object Duga-1 is a Soviet-era radar station designed to detect launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. "Duga-1" never fully took up combat duty. The size of the structure of many antennas is 700 m in length and 150 m in height. After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the facility was mothballed, later its main elements were dismantled and taken away.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

"Death Bucket"

The so-called "death bucket" is one of the current attractions of the city of Pripyat. The bucket was used during the liquidation of the consequences of the accident directly at the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Radiation from the ladle (even a few meters from it) exceeds the norm by ten thousand times. It is forbidden to touch him.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

The city of Pripyat was built as an exemplary one; during its construction, innovative architectural solutions for those years were used. At the time of the evacuation in 1986, Pripyat had 15 kindergartens, 5 schools, swimming pools, canteens, sports complexes, clinics, a cinema and a palace of culture. Now there is almost nothing left of the city: the roads are overgrown, in many buildings the internal partitions have collapsed.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

Dead ground

Pripyat was to become the most beautiful, exemplary city of Soviet Ukraine. But it went down in history as a city-monument to the most terrible nuclear disaster in the world. At the moment, in Pripyat there is only a special laundry, a water fluoridation and iron removal station and a garage for Chernobyl special equipment. Not a single person lives in the city.

Chernobyl zone 30 years after the tragedy

Extreme tourism zone

Every year, the exclusion zone is visited by several thousand extreme tourists. Before the start of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, citizens of Russia were in the lead among foreign tourists. Today, most of the guests are from Poland, the Czech Republic and the USA.

Women and children were the first to be evacuated. In this corner of the former Soviet Union, there was a shortage of buses. Buses from other regions of the country came here to take 50 thousand people out of the city. The length of the bus column was 20 kilometers, which meant that when the first bus left Pripyat, the pipes of the power plant were no longer visible to the last one. In less than three hours, the city was completely empty. And so it will remain forever. In early May, the evacuation of people living in the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl was organized. Decontamination work was carried out in 1840 settlements. However, the Chernobyl exclusion zone was not developed until 1994, when the last inhabitants of the villages in its western part were moved to new apartments in the Kiev and Zhytomyr regions.

Today Pripyat is a city of ghosts. Despite the fact that no one lives there, the city has its own elegance and atmosphere. It did not cease to exist, unlike the neighboring villages, which were buried in the ground by excavators. They are marked only on road signs and maps of the countryside. Pripyat, as well as the entire 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, is guarded by the police and patrol service. Despite their constant watch, the city was repeatedly subjected to robbery and looting. The whole city has been looted. There was not a single apartment left, no matter where the thieves who took away all the jewelry would visit. In 1987, residents had the opportunity to return to collect a small portion of their belongings. The military plant "Jupiter" worked until 1997; the famous swimming pool "Azure" operated until 1998. At the moment, they are looted and destroyed even more than the apartments and schools in the city combined. There are three other parts of the city that are still in operation: a laundry room (for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), garages for trucks, and a deep well with a pumping station that supplies water to the power plant.

The city is full of 1980s graffiti, signs, books, and images mostly associated with Lenin. His slogans and portraits are everywhere - in the Palace of Culture, a hotel, a hospital, a police station, as well as in schools and kindergartens. Walking around the city is like going back in time, the only difference is that there is no one here, not even birds in the sky. One can only imagine a picture of the era when the city flourished, during the tour we will show you historical photos. To give you a vivid idea of the times of the Soviet Union, we offer a Soviet form, a retro walk in our RETRO TOUR. Everything was built from concrete. All buildings are of the same type, as in other cities built under the Soviet Union. Some houses are overgrown with trees so that they are barely visible from the road, and some buildings are so worn out that they collapse from a large number drunk snow. Chernobyl is a life example of how Mother Nature takes her toll over the efforts of many people. In a few decades, only ruins will remain from the city. There is not a single place like this in the world.