Tag Archives: Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants

Chernobyl Radiation Surge ‘Cause for Concern,’ Say Scientists

One nuclear scientist said the situation is “like the embers in a barbecue pit.”

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-13-2021

The New Safe Confinement arch over what was once Reactor Four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine is the world’s largest mobile steel structure. (Photo: Clay Gilliland/Flickr/cc)

Scientists monitoring the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine are detecting increased fission reactions inside an inaccessible chamber built around the radioactive ruins of a reactor that suffered a catastrophic meltdown in 1986—and they aren’t sure why.

New Scientist reported this week that since 2016, researchers have detected a 40% surge in neutron emissions from a sealed room containing large amounts of corium, a highly radioactive and hardened lava-like material containing much of the uranium fuel from Reactor Four of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, the site of history’s worst nuclear disaster. Continue reading

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