The number of fission in the Chernobyl nuclear reactor is increasing. Experts warn of new accidents involving the nuclear industry.
Ukraine – Even 35 years after the Chernobyl disaster, the remains of the nuclear power plant are still keeping specialists busy. The containment measures around the nuclear reactor are now likely to have a negative effect on the suppression of radiation and complicate the dismantling of the nuclear power plant.
As the US magazine “sciencemag” first reported, a significant increase in signals from the reactor has been observed in recent years. Nuclear fission is said to have increased again, especially in reactor block 4. The chemist Neil Hyatt therefore already warned that “the fission reactions could be accelerated exponentially”. In fact, the data gives the impression that the number of neutrons in this area has almost doubled in the last four years.
Chernobyl nuclear reactor: The reason for the increase in the fission reaction is still unknown
The reason for the increase in cleavage reactions is not clearly understood. However, experts assume that it is related to the several tons of corium that are there drying off. Corium is a lava-like mixture of uranium fuel rods, water, concrete and sand that is created when a core meltdown occurs.
Four years ago, a US $ 1.5 billion enclosure called New Safe Confinement (NSC) was built over the area in question. This concrete jacket prevents further rainwater from entering the contaminated rooms. The corium located there dries, which, in the opinion of experts, causes the increased cleavage reaction.
Another disaster in Chernobyl: It will probably not come to that
Another disaster, like the one that occurred in Chernobyl in 1986, is unlikely to threaten humanity. “But we cannot rule out the possibility of an accident,” warned Maxim Saveliev from the Institute for Safety Problems at Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) to the sciencemag. There are still too many uncertainties.
Findings from Chernobyl: Also of interest for Fukushima (Japan)
But the knowledge that Saveliev and his team are now gathering in Ukraine should also be of great interest to Japan. There, in 2011 in Fukushima, in the wake of a tsunami, there was a core meltdown in a nuclear power plant, where a sarcophagus was also erected over the affected reactor, which was supposed to contain the escaping radiation. “The danger there is very similar” to the situation in Chernobyl, said Hyatt.
In Japan, since Fukushima, several experts have been warning of another disaster in one of the country’s numerous nuclear power plants. Toshio Kimura, a nuclear engineer, had recently sounded the alarm. “There is a very strong possibility that there is another nuclear disaster in Japan,” said Kimura to the US news portal “The Daily Beast”. (Daniel Dillmann)
