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UN: Consequences Remain Decades After Chernobyl Disaster:
The United Nations says persistent and serious long-term consequences remain more than 30 years after the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
The world body is marking International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day on April 26, the 34th anniversary of the accident that spread a radioactive cloud over large parts of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
Chernobyl: How did the world's worst nuclear accident happen?:
Efforts to downplay the scale of the disaster began within government itself — infamously exemplified by the Soviet foreign affairs minister's attempt to allay a more senior official's concern for residents' health with the assertion that they were celebrating weddings, gardening, and "fishing in the Pripyat River".
Three days later, the alarm was raised by Sweden, where the radiation was picked up at a nuclear plant.
The Soviet Union denied that an incident had occurred, but with Denmark, Finland and Norway also voicing concerns shortly afterwards, it eventually became impossible to hide the accident from the international community.
However, Moscow continued to downplay the true scale of the catastrophe, failing to tell even its own citizens to stay indoors and allowing the capital's May Day parade to go ahead a week later. The ensuing secrecy surrounding the handling of the disaster in the years that followed, and the reluctance to warn citizens of the scale of the danger they continued to face, means the true toll is continually being revised.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 27 2020, @05:40PM (7 children)
As AC noted above, the half life of the fallout is more than thirty years, so after 30 years, any expectation that the disaster would have just cleaned itself up is preposterous.
So, anyone who is surprised, or even acts surprised, that Chernobyl is still a mess needs to be hammered with a clue bat, until the surprise is gone.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday April 27 2020, @06:02PM (3 children)
I read that anonymous coward as saying that most of the fallout had a half-life well *under* thirty years.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 27 2020, @06:14PM
Wow, so he did. I must have read his post with my eyes crossed - sorry!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @09:39AM (1 child)
Yes, most of what is left away from the plant is around 30 year half life because virtually all of the rest highly radioactive fallout is now gone. There is no more radioactive Iodine, for example.
But then there is "biological half-life" - or how long it takes for the isotopes to clear from the ecosystem. And here, you'll find that while Strontium remains at about 30 years, Cessium is actually opposite and has higher half-life as it keeps getting re-concentrated from the soil. In most other things, "biological half-life" is much shorter than real isotope half-life. For example, Tritium has about 12 year half-life but biological half-life is only few days as your body gets rid of it with water.
Anyway, long story short, it doesn't help us anything that people keep setting fire to Chernobyl exclusion zone or illegally getting radioactive lumber from there to sell, including for fuel. This tends to release the radiation again and again. But you can't fix stupid, even with a fucking clue-bat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2020, @03:35PM
> ...getting radioactive lumber from there to sell, including for fuel...
What idiots would do that? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
(Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Monday April 27 2020, @09:18PM (2 children)
Well, you're a bit wrong. The intense radiation come from isotopes with a short half-life. For those the half-life is well under 30 years. By now, though, the half life of the radioactives is probably well over 30 years. And it will keep getting longer. In a few million years you won't be able to tell it ever happened.
OTOH, the actual danger is probably from things that are bioavailable. Strontium is significant here because it can replace calcium, and thus be quite near your marrow, where the blood is made. Iodine is significant in many places, but especially the thyroid. Etc. Strontium has a half-life of a bit under 30 years. So it's danger (when consumed) is reduced by half. Iodine has a half-life of just over 8 days, so it's now down to unconcern levels. Etc. Each element is separate. And there's also concentration. And Carbon-14 is by now probably spread evenly all over the globe. And, IIRC without looking it up, it has a half-life of around 12 years. So it's down to about 1/4 of the original level. But there are lots of radioactives that have longer half-lives. Many of them are long enough that the radiation supplied is negligible...at least in low concentrations (even u238, with a half life of 4 1/2 billion years, is dangerous in high concentrations).
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2020, @11:37PM
Did not seem right so I looked it up for you. Might as well confirm the rest while I'm at it.
Carbon-14: 5,730 ± 40 years
Strontium-90: 28.79 years
Iodine-131: 8.02 days
Uranium-238: 4.468 billion years (it gives also uranium-235 at 703.8 million years)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Muad'Dave on Tuesday April 28 2020, @12:10PM
That's tritium you're think about. C14 is more like 5,730 years. [uregina.ca]