The Briefing Room

General Category => World News => Topic started by: SPQR on January 21, 2014, 04:16:11 am

Title: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: SPQR on January 21, 2014, 04:16:11 am
By World Nuclear News

An old ventilation stack shared by units 3 and 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been dismantled. Its removal will allow a giant protective structure to be installed over the damaged reactor building in Ukraine.Work to remove the 75.5-metre tall stack began on 31 October 2013. Sitting on the roof of the damaged unit 4, the top of the 9-metre diameter stack was 150 metres above ground level. It comprised seven sections weighing a combined 330 tonnes, with each section weighing between 25 and 60 tonnes.

Ukrtransbud Corporation, which was contracted to remove the stack, reported that the final section was removed from the roof on 25 November and that a document confirming completion of the work was signed on 19 December.

The seven sections of the removed stack were placed on a special prepared site where they will be dismantled further, prior to being placed in the turbine hall of unit 3 for temporary storage.

Removal of the old stack, at an estimated cost of UAH94.7 million ($11.5 million), was necessary for the installation of the giant structure that will protect the ruined Chernobyl unit 4. Assembly of the New Safe Confinement - a giant arched structure - on a site adjacent to the reactor is expected to be completed by the end of 2014, while installation of filtering and handling systems will take place during 2014 and 2015. The operation to slide the entire structure over the unit is scheduled before the end of 2015.

A new ventilation stack was commissioned on 22 October 2013 to replace the old stack. This smaller stack - measuring 50 metres in height and 6 metres in diameter - has been built on the eastern wall of the plant building.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-Chernobyl-ventilation-stack-removed-1001144.html
Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: flowers on January 21, 2014, 07:10:37 pm
Interesting. Chernobly will never stop leaking will it? It is still 'burning'?
Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: EC on January 21, 2014, 07:47:03 pm
Interesting. Chernobly will never stop leaking will it? It is still 'burning'?

The core is still hot, though it has melted through three floors. It'll be instantly lethal for the next 20,000 years or so. Not even robots can get close. Their electronics fry.
Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: flowers on January 21, 2014, 07:55:34 pm
The core is still hot, though it has melted through three floors. It'll be instantly lethal for the next 20,000 years or so. Not even robots can get close. Their electronics fry.
Thanks for info.
Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: SPQR on January 22, 2014, 01:01:47 am
The core is still hot, though it has melted through three floors. It'll be instantly lethal for the next 20,000 years or so. Not even robots can get close. Their electronics fry.


24,000 years to be exact
Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: EC on January 22, 2014, 01:35:53 am
 :tongue2:

What is 4000 years between friends  :laugh:
Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: SPQR on January 22, 2014, 01:40:50 am
:tongue2:

What is 4000 years between friends  :laugh:

I am just messing with you.
Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: Chieftain on January 22, 2014, 02:29:38 am
Interesting. Chernobly will never stop leaking will it? It is still 'burning'?

No, the fire is long out.  What was burning was primarily the blocks of solid graphite that the reactor used as a moderator.  Once it burned up the fires were mostly out.  The reactor fuel has mostly burned up or been disbursed through the wreckage in a substance called "corium".  Corium consists of melted fuel rod assemblies, bits of fuel pellets, metal from the reactor structure and even melted concrete and aggregate.  The corium flowed out of the bottom of the reactor vault and into cooling and other pipes beneath the plant, where it eventually cooled and solidified.  It remains highly radioactive and will eventually be removed.

The object of constructing the "New Safe Confinement" structure is to build an environmentally isolated and secure facility over the top of the plant to safely work on cleaning it up, and to prevent another massive discharge of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

Here is a link to the website of the NSC where they have a camera of the ongoing construction.

http://www.chnpp.gov.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=230&Itemid=101&lang=en

Here is another link to an official YouTube video that's about 9 minutes long that provides an excellent animation of how the NSC is being constructed and installed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9URUQvGE9g

Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: Chieftain on January 22, 2014, 02:39:01 am
I will also add that in my view, it will eventually take this level of international intervention to bring Fukashima Daiichi under control.

Title: Re: Chernobyl ventilation stack removed
Post by: flowers on January 22, 2014, 04:39:57 pm
No, the fire is long out.  What was burning was primarily the blocks of solid graphite that the reactor used as a moderator.  Once it burned up the fires were mostly out.  The reactor fuel has mostly burned up or been disbursed through the wreckage in a substance called "corium".  Corium consists of melted fuel rod assemblies, bits of fuel pellets, metal from the reactor structure and even melted concrete and aggregate.  The corium flowed out of the bottom of the reactor vault and into cooling and other pipes beneath the plant, where it eventually cooled and solidified.  It remains highly radioactive and will eventually be removed.

The object of constructing the "New Safe Confinement" structure is to build an environmentally isolated and secure facility over the top of the plant to safely work on cleaning it up, and to prevent another massive discharge of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

Here is a link to the website of the NSC where they have a camera of the ongoing construction.

http://www.chnpp.gov.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=230&Itemid=101&lang=en

Here is another link to an official YouTube video that's about 9 minutes long that provides an excellent animation of how the NSC is being constructed and installed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9URUQvGE9g
Wow wonderful info.......thanks.