Final Project- The Chernobyl Disaster
My project is on the Chernobyl Disaster that took place.
http://saeid91.wix.com/chernobyl-disaster
I chose this topic because I have always been very curious about it and had never dug into it and now I know what happened and that it definitely could have been prevented if it were not for the carelessness of the former USSR and lack of education, knowledge, care and the need for being better than other countries.
The Chernobyl Disaster was the worst nuclear disaster that the world has ever seen since the atomic bombings in Japan. On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Soviet Ukraine exploded which spew radiation across Europe and into the atmosphere. This disaster was the cause of many deaths and also many ongoing deaths and illnesses over the years since exposure to enormous amounts of radiation can cause severe cases of cancer and many other illnesses. The Chernobyl disaster was one the first and biggest reasons that governments looked at their nuclear activities and began to limit their productions and also began to set standards and train employees and staffs the right way with the right education.
The disaster happened in the morning of April 26, 1986. The crew was trying to run tests on the turbines of the reactor to see if sufficient energy is available to keep the coolant pumps running. The testing was going fine until the emergency diesel engine turned on and to stop any interruption to the testing, the safety system of the reactor was turned off. The crew then decided to start back the testing, and in order to do so the power capacity of the system was turned down to 25%, this did not go for long because the power capacity fell to 1%. The crew did not stop the test right then on, and kept increasing the power capacity which led to a massive surge of power which led to the rupture of the fuel elements and a aggressive explosion. The extremely heavy sealing cap of the reactor was then blown off, and the graphite covering the reactor was ignited. The graphite burned for days on and released tremendous amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The explosion combined with the burning of the graphite released more radiation than the dropping of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (greenpeace.org).
Chernobyl was a ticking time bomb according to the KGB, and the “KGB many had criticized the construction of the reactor” because of instability (Daniloff). Because of the terrible construction of the reactor and not fully trained staff the disaster was bound to happen. The KGB knew of issues with the reactor and the construction and because of budget cuts and financial issues they were not able to make changes and also did not want to make changes because they did not want to seem inferior to the United States’ nuclear program. The military had a big part in the disaster because of their hush-hush plan of keeping everything from the public. This caused a stir between powers because even the foreign minister of the time was not notified of the situation and the subject became internationally known because Sweden and Finland detected increased amounts of radiation in the atmosphere (Hughes).
As this disaster happened and time passed, the government tried very hard to cover the issue up, but the issue was now out there and citizens knew fully of what had happened specially since hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated. The government even ordered a concrete covering to be built over the reactor to contain the radiation and fuel and ran a tunnel under the reactor to act as a coolant for the reactor (greenpeace.org). The construction was done so poorly that scientists believe that the next nuclear catastrophe worse than Chernobyl will be Chernobyl itself (greenpeace.org). After all of this the time had come for the nuclear industry of USSR to pay attention to the mess that they had made. After all, this was their mistake since the “nuclear industry had not paid sufficient attention to safety and was woefully unprepared for this crisis” (Daniloff). The government became aware that their inappropriate and untimely actions have consequences, which was hatred of citizens, illnesses, death and criticism of the international community.
After Chernobyl disaster, many of the nuclear reactors of the former USSR and the former USSR territories have been turned off and have not been active for many years. This disaster awoke a huge problem that had been ignored for years by the government and law enforcements. Due to this disaster many innocent citizens were hurt and they had to pay a price that no one had to pay, seeing their children, husbands, wives, families and friends with severe illnesses or dead, and same thing for the next generation. This situation became a lesson not just for the former USSR and its citizens rather for the whole world that a nuclear arms race is not worth innocent people’s lives and health. The ethics of arms race and care for humanity became much more vibrant after this event took place because governments and societies had turned their attention away from morals and had focused their attention on competing and racing to the top.
The way I plan to keep my blog preserved is to check it daily and to make sure it is there, I have also saved all of my work multiple ways, on my computer, external hard drive, blog, and have also sent it to myself in email. For the websites and sources that I have used, I have bookmarked all of them so in the worst case scenario I can access the location of where my information have come from.
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