Project Eight- The Chernobyle Disaster

THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER

Hi, my project is on the Chernobyl disaster. It happened April 26, 1986, in Pripyat. a nuclear reactor is a structure in which steam becomes energy/electricity and later in a cooling tower the steam becomes water again and used over and over.

 Four reactors had been completed on a site in Ukraine, and reactors #5 and 6 were under construction. Reactor #4 had been operating for two years and was undergoing maintenance checks and monitoring of the process to be used in case of emergency. The monitoring process was incorrect and in the process of testing, there was an explosion at reactor #4 that sent out over 200 times the amount of radiation released at the accidents at Herosheema and Naga-saki. (Both exploded by nuclear in japan at the end of WW11)

FACTS: 600,000 to 800,000 firefighters and emergency workers came from all over the Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus to put out the fire. These people stayed for over two years to put it out!

Over 63,000 square miles of land were affected.

Three years after the accident residents over the age of 48 were allowed to go back and live in Pripyat!

Over 7 million people were affected. The most heavily affected areas were in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Two Chernobyl plant workers died on the night of the accident, and another 28 people died within a few weeks as a result of radiation poisoning.

Pripyat now

Fission

Fission is a way of splitting an atom into two smaller atoms. The two smaller atoms don't need as much energy to hold them together as the larger atom, so the extra energy is released as heat and radiation.

Nuclear power plants use fission to make electricity. By splitting uranium atoms into two smaller atoms, the extra energy is released as heat. Uranium is a mineral rock, a very dense metal, that is found in the ground and is non-renewable, that means we can't make more. It is a cheap and plentiful fuel source. Power plants use the heat given off during fission as fuel to make electricity.

Fission creates heat which is used to boil water into steam inside a reactor. The steam then turns huge turbines that drive generators that make electricity. The steam is then changed back into water and cooled down in a cooling tower. The water can then be used over and over again.