I was inside RBMK 1500, and have a few questions :)

[Astronuc]

Also I've never actually fully understood the exact way some fission reactor cores are constructed one of which is the RBMK.I looked through the CANDU papers you gave earlier and there were some good pictures of the core assembly.In the BWR I now see that the core assembly if we can call it that way simply sits inside a water filled and sealed vessel which is under pressure as the water starts to heat up and boil.
Now for the RBMK , when I was at the reactor hall I walked around quite a bit while talking to the station scientists and operators about the way everything works there and I saw the fuel rod assemblies (spare ones) hanging down from the reactor hall ceiling right nest to the wall were the automatic crane operates and takes them one by one and inserts into the core while taking the used ones out.They seemed like long (about 14m in length) tubes of some grey colored metal alloy (probably zircalloy)
yet still I didn't get the chance to fully understand them up close.
the way I see the RBMK is this, and please correct my view , it has this big graphite core some 7m in height and it has holes in it running vertically , some 1600 of them each hole through the core carries a fuel assembly some carry control rods , each fuel assembly consists of multiple fuel rods which are zirconium alloy tubes in each of which U235 pellets stacked one upon another roughly 7 m long , if I understand only 7m is the pellet stack height in each fuel tube/rod since 7m is also the height of the core active zone and the above 7m is for apparatus moving the controls rods and other things also the upper steel reinforced concrete biological shield plate.
now the part that I don't get is were does the water flow by , since the water to my understanding should flow by the very fuel assembly tubes in which the U235 fuel is since those probably are the hottest in the core and graphite not so much because as much as I know graphite conducts heat less than metal.
Does the graphite touch the water at all or is the water flowing by in each fuel assembly inside, pass each of the multiple fuel rods in that assembly?

http://www.world-nuclear.org/inform...-power-reactors/appendices/rbmk-reactors.aspx
Fission reactors come in a variety of designs according to fuel form, moderator and coolant.

Graphite-moderated reactors can be water-cooled or gas-cooled, or even liquid/molten salt, if the fuel form happens to be a solution of U or Pu salt in some solution. Normally, in water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors, the water coolant is separated from the graphite moderator. The water is in a pressure tube, as shown in the diagram in the link from world-nuclear.org. The fuel resides in the pressure tube, and the water coolant flows through a lattice or array of fuel rods, which comprises the fuel assembly. The fuel rod is a hermetically sealed metal tube, usually welded to endplugs formed from barstock of the same alloy. The cooling water flows through to array of fuel rods to carry heat out of the core to a heat exchanger and is then recirculated to the fuel rods. The coolant is circulated in the 'primary' cooling system. The core is the plurality of fuel assemblies surrounded by the moderator and coolant, which are the same in an LWR.

In the CANDU system, the fuel is located in horizontal pressure tubes through which the coolant passes. The moderator, heavy water, is located on the outside of the pressure tubes inside a calandria vessel.

 

[Salvador]

Well I guess those of you who follow nuclear stuff more closely will probably be aware of this supposedly German woman by the nickname "bionerd23" I actually want to make a thread were I want to ask some of your opinion on what she does and the levels of radioactivity she puts herself through and what do you think about it but as for now and this thread I just found a picture on her flickr account of a piece of graphite that seems like from a RBMK , although to be honest I'm not sure since I've never had the chance to go deep enough in an actual reactor or to see it's parts outside of it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bionerd/8196527482/

I must say over the years watching her youtube channel I have learned quite a bit about radiation's real life nature than any textbook or theory could tell.She's like somekind of a weird modern Marie Curie.

Also , in the RBMK 1500 plant that I was they had pipes running from the reactor to the local city and when the reactor was running they heated the city in winter entirely out from the reactors so called waste heat , the one which after the turbines couldn't be used for any more electricity generation due to it being not hot enough and condensed back to water , much like a modern cogeneration station does.
this way the reactor heat was used to it's fullest potential , I wonder why don't other NPP around the world don't use similar practices ?
Like for example many reactor designs use the large cooling towers and we can see fog which is I assume condensed water rising from the tops but I assume those towers are there to waste some leftover heat so the water in the primary cycle could go back to the reactor at the neede level, why they don't use that heat somewhere else instead of pushing it into the atmosphere?

 

[etudiant]

Hi Salvador,
The direct use of waste heat requires the reactor to be close by the city to be heated. Siting rules in the US and Europe precluded that. But here in Manhattan there are steam pipes under many streets, distributing waste heat from fossil fuel plants to nearby apartments and offices.
One consequence is that the US and European reactors need either a large body of water or an expensive cooling tower installation to dump the waste heat.
In Florida, the manatees flock in winter to the warm pools created that way. On the other hand, reactors here have been curtailed because of the lack of river flow for cooling water in a drought.

 

[Salvador]

yes soviets built these special cities for workers near every RBMK or VVER reactor , they were on average about 3km from the very reactor so the accident in Chernobyl meant the city had to be evacuated.

 

[nikkkom]

Also , in the RBMK 1500 plant that I was they had pipes running from the reactor to the local city and when the reactor was running they heated the city in winter entirely out from the reactors so called waste heat , the one which after the turbines couldn't be used for any more electricity generation due to it being not hot enough and condensed back to water , much like a modern cogeneration station does.
this way the reactor heat was used to it's fullest potential , I wonder why don't other NPP around the world don't use similar practices?

Because this requires certain level of trust in what nuclear people are doing at the plant. I am not at all thrilled to have a possibility to learn one fine day that someone "made a small mistake" and my heating radiator was also emitting some gammas. Thank you very much.

 

[nikkkom]

So as I'm interested in nuclear physics , I and a few other friends that work in the tech field we went to a now shutdown and in the process of decommissioning NPP. For various reasons I won't mention the stations name or location but those of you who know much about reactor types etc will probably have a clue where it was.

Why the secrecy? That clearly matches Lithuania's Ignalina NPP.

 

[nikkkom]

now a purely theoretical question if for example there was the same core meltdown and explosions etc but somehow nothing turned to dust and no dust or no radiation source big or small went anywhere outside the reactor , I wonder what would then the radiation levels be say 1km from the site , 5km and so on?

I can give you one data point. French have a reprocessing plant, they dissolve "aged" spent fuel in nitric acid, extract U and Pu, dry the rest (which is the most radioactive part) and pour it with some borosilicate glass into 5mm thick steel canisters:

http://www.wmsym.org/archives/2003/pdfs/194.pdf

So, this stuff comes from about 5-year old fuel. Meaning that it is not as radioactive as freshly burned one. Go to page 8.

"Gamma Dose rate at 0 m (contact): 14000 Gy/h"

That's 1.4 million roentgen per hour in "old" units. Or about a thousand roentgen in 2-3 seconds.

I leave it to you to estimate how far you need to be from this canister to be relatively safe for a few minutes look at it. It's probably some hundreds of meters.

Freshly unloaded spent nuclear fuel is worse than this stuff.

 

[nikkkom]

1) In the active zone I spent about 1 hour and that gave me about 2 uSv of dosage

You weren't "in" active zone. You probably stood on top of the reactor, some 7-10 meters above the place where reactor fuel used to be.

 

[Salvador]

Well there is not much secrecy , just that those who are keen to know the place and also know google can look up because the RBMK 1500 was the most powerful reactor in the world and still is quite a beast in terms of single unit's electrical output but such was built only one the rest were the RBMK 1000 types.

Well purely theoretically yes the active zone is behind the thick reinforced concrete , metal, sand etc shield were the reactions take place but atleast in the RBMK they also call among themselves the active zone the whole reactor hall were all the primary circuits are located , and when refueling is done since they refuel while at normal running conditions the reactor hall becomes quite " active"

Why do you think any gammas would emit from your radiators a few km away given the fact that it's a long metal pipe travel for them and not to mention the fact that the city's heating water wasn't taken from the primary loop after all rather I think from the secondary loop which cools the primary leftover heat after it has passed through the turbine blades and given off it's power.Although I won't bet on that since I'm not fully sure but that would seem reasonable.

 

[nikkkom]

Why do you think any gammas would emit from your radiators a few km away given the fact that it's a long metal pipe travel for them and not to mention the fact that the city's heating water wasn't taken from the primary loop after all rather I think from the secondary loop which cools the primary leftover heat after it has passed through the turbine blades and given off it's power. Although I won't bet on that since I'm not fully sure but that would seem reasonable.

Heat exchanger tubes are not immune to damage. They can be damaged and leak water from one loop to another; and they *have been* damaged in operation on many NPP. Heat exchangers are even designed with spare heat exchange pipes, so that damaged pipes can be plugged, and station can continue to operate at rated power.

Now, if this water is used for district heating, it is expected that leaking pipes are detected and repaired at once, so that radioactive water doesn't go into heating loop. That's the theory.

The practice may deviate from this rosy picture (shock! unbelievable! we all know that nuclear power stations never do anything wrong! LOL). Imagine that station personnel ignores a small leak for days on end...

 

[Salvador]

well ofcorse the practice is always somewhat cloudy , after all Chernobyl accident was first broadcasted in the USSR as a small electrical fire two days after it happened :D But then again you can understand why they don't tell everything like it is because that would create panic and shock which would only worsen the already tragic situation and probably many of the heroes that destroyed their health serving their country as the immediate aftermath liquidators would have rather fled the scene if they had the chance.although lying just to keep the situation under control is still lying.the USSR government was notoriously genius at telling like it's not.

speaking of accidents , Chernobyl had one before the main event and the news about this one came out much later than the main one in the 4th reactor , the 1st unit went through a partial core meltdown , why nobody knows.

Ok, I'm not that much of an engineer to determine how much of a danger a leak in the primary loop to the secondary would be apart from the primary loop loosing pressure which directly affects the core behavior and before the RBMK's were retrofitted was also a danger since less pressure created more steam and increased the chain reaction in the core of these reactors.

Well in reality they are now dismantling the turbine hall and before all the hundreds of thousands tons of steel can be sent to recycling yards they have to go through all of them and check for any contamination , so far the results have been quite good given the fact that an RBMK runs it's primary coolant directly from the reactor into the turbine through piping and many parts which are all located at the turbine hall.
I assume that even with somewhat dangerous and unsafe technology you can have quite safe results in the end it all comes down to good personnel training and their moral and also some luck since one cannot account for all things that can go wrong.

 

[nikkkom]

I assume that even with somewhat dangerous and unsafe technology you can have quite safe results in the end it all comes down to good personnel training and their moral and also some luck since one cannot account for all things that can go wrong.

If not having my house heating "heat" me with gammas too depends on "good personnel training and their moral" and "also some luck" (?!) in an organization I have no control over, I'd very much rather NOT have that sort of heating system.

 

[Salvador]

no offense nikkkom but I feel you are a bit paranoid about this whole thing although I say that myself with caution since as I said I'm not the all star expert here maybe Astronuc or somebody else will come by and say something about such heating systems.

P.S. also a nuclear reactor is a place were extensive measurements are being taken especially after Chernobyl so all the outgoing water is checked with a dosimeter at the output since they have this facility were they clean any contamination both from the water used in the reactor and other products that evolve dangerous throughout the years.

 

[nikkkom]

P.S. also a nuclear reactor is a place were extensive measurements are being taken especially after Chernobyl so all the outgoing water is checked with a dosimeter at the output since they have this facility were they clean any contamination both from the water used in the reactor and other products that evolve dangerous throughout the years.

I take it "especially after Chernobyl" nuclear reactors are places where they have means of not letting their fuel melt and vent to atmosphere?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of dosimeters and in an accident workers won't have to run around not knowing what radiation levels are?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of battery-powered lights and in a power outage workers won't have to run around in the darkness?

In case you wonder what the answers are: No to all three questions. In Fukushima, all three things happened again.

Based on past performance, I have to assume that in the next disaster, we are likely to see it again.

"All the outgoing water is checked with a dosimeter" *if* station personnel is doing their job properly. *IF*. That "if" has proven to be not always true.

 

[jim hardy]

Nikkom's position is perfectly logical ,
the disagreement is over how much risk we accept .

I spent a lifetime working in a PWR, never studied RMBK's.
When the post - Chernobyl reports circulated around the industry
my initial reaction was
"What ?
Somebody built a reactor with $4 of positive void coefficient ? Now there's a genuine hair trigger...
AND they actually turned it over to Civilians to run ? "
I immediately wrote my congressman urging him to GIVE Castro a PWR and train his people if he'd stop construction of that RMBK on Cuba's south coast, because Miami is downwind. He never replied...

I finally came to understand that RMBK design is a scaled up version of our WW2 1940-ish plutonium production reactors, a design only briefly mentioned in my Reactor Physics course as an antiquarian curiosity.

As much as I respect Nikkom's concerns;
My life experience is built around highly concentrated energy and steam power
so i cannot conceive of heating the water for 300 million hot showers every morning
(figure how many miles of coal train that takes , 100Klbs of 10,000 BTU/lb coal per car, 100 cars to the mile)
with diffuse , flimsy , whimsical sources like windmills and solar panels
so for me civilization's route forward is to do nuclear well.

So i guess I've really said nothing
except that civilization will paint itself into a corner
if it does not reduce its numbers before abandoning its sources of energy.

old jim

 

[mheslep]

...leak water from one loop to another...

Leaks happen in a loop, shortly rendering the loop inoperable. How do you imagine one leaks into the other? A common heat exchange mechanism uses toxic ethylene glycol (antifreeze) in one loop to heat residential tap water. Is that system also unsafe?

http://energy.gov/energysaver/heat-exchangers-solar-water-heating-systems

 

[nikkkom]

i cannot conceive of heating the water for 300 million hot showers every morning
(figure how many miles of coal train that takes , 100Klbs of 10,000 BTU/lb coal per car, 100 cars to the mile)
with diffuse , flimsy , whimsical sources like windmills and solar panels

Then you have a problem with simple math. 150x150 square miles of solar arrays plus some 10x10 miles of space for battery storage buildings is enough to power entire US from solar power alone, all the time.

Theoretically, we *can* run entire US purely from solar power.

We should not go that far, but it is possible - US has that much suitable empty arid lands (in fact several times more). It is possible even with todays' technology.

 

[mheslep]

Backing up a future US for a conservative 7 days all by battery, with all energy needs made electric at load 2 TW, is 336 TWh. Such a battery ...

...occupies a volume of 4.4 billion cubic meters, equivalent to a cube 1.6 km (one mile) on a side. The size in itself is not a problem: we’d naturally break up the battery and distribute it around the country. This battery would demand 5 trillion kg (5 billion tons) of lead...

To be replaced every 10 years or so, at a cost of $13 trillion just for the lead at today's prices. Worldwide lead reserves are ~80 million tons per the same source.

See more at: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/#sthash.FfpiEaLN.dpuf

Any reference to lithium should also have "temperature control" of a cubic mile in the same sentence.

 

[mfb]

Leaks happen in a loop, shortly rendering the loop inoperable. How do you imagine one leaks into the other? A common heat exchange mechanism uses toxic ethylene glycol (antifreeze) in one loop to heat residential tap water. Is that system also unsafe?

Try to explain that to the public. Many will hear "nuclear" and completely ignore all rational arguments.

I take it "especially after Chernobyl" nuclear reactors are places where they have means of not letting their fuel melt and vent to atmosphere?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of dosimeters and in an accident workers won't have to run around not knowing what radiation levels are?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of battery-powered lights and in a power outage workers won't have to run around in the darkness?

They had all those (even after one of the strongest earthquake in recent history), until a ridiculously high tsunami destroyed most of it.

 

[nikkkom]

I take it "especially after Chernobyl" nuclear reactors are places where they have means of not letting their fuel melt and vent to atmosphere?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of dosimeters and in an accident workers won't have to run around not knowing what radiation levels are?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of battery-powered lights and in a power outage workers won't have to run around in the darkness?

They had all those (even after one of the strongest earthquake in recent history), until a ridiculously high tsunami destroyed most of it.

Tsunami was not "ridiculously high". It was within historical record for Japan. Examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Sanriku_earthquake[/PLAIN]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Sanriku_earthquake[/URL]

More importantly. Tsunami did not significantly flood the interior of the station - the most crippling damage was done in the basements to power lines and switchboards.

You seem to claim that it destroyed dosimeters and battery powered lights. ? Where did you read such nonsense?

 

[jim hardy]

Then you have a problem with simple math. 150x150 square miles of solar arrays

Maybe.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/capacity/

a thousand gigawatts X 24 hours/day = 24X10^12 wh/day =2.4 E10kwh/day

I take that 150 X150 miles as roughly 241 km X 241 km
which = 5.81E10m^2http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/1961-1990/redbook/atlas/

Let's take 5kwh/m^2/day in southern Arizona & New Mexico
5kwh/day/m^2 X 5.81E10m^2 = 2.90E11 kwh/day is what falls on the collectors
Efficiency = output(electric kwh) / input(solar kwh)
2.4E10/ 2.90E11 = 0.082

If you can collect, store and distribute it at >8.2 % efficiency your numbers are right.

Looks like the solar cells themselves will not much longer be the limiting factor.
Be sure to see original at http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/ click "Latest Chart"

There'll be some splendiferous grid crashes and battery explosions along the way -
but i say to your generation : Go for it. We ought to leave some fossil fuel near the Earth's surface for whatever species replaces us.

My run is over, it's you young folks turn.
As my childhood hero said "Hi - Yo Silver, Away !"
(Exit stage left to William Tell Overture...)

old jim

 

[nikkkom]

Backing up a future US for a conservative 7 days all by battery, with all energy needs made electric at load 2 TW, is 336 TWh. Such a battery ...

Total installed capacity of US today is 1 TW, not 2. Average consumption is, naturally, much less that 1 TW.

 

[nikkkom]

I already had solar power discussion, and I saved the salient numeric data:

***************************************************
Insolation: ~1kW/m^2
PV efficiency: growing by the day, but let's assume conservatively
that it will never exceed 10% for economically viable multi-km^2
installations.
Losses due to night / clouds / rain: 4/5, but let's assume higher losses: 9/10.

Thus, 1 m^2 can produce only 10W on average. 1 km^2 can produce 10 MW.

Mostly desert and dry US states:

Arizona: 295254 km^2
Nevada: 286367 km^2
New Mexico: 315194 km^2

Sum: 896815 km^2

If we would tile only 10% of this land with PV panels we'd generate
897 GW (on average). And then there are dry, inhospitable areas in
Utah, Colorado and Texas if we would ever need more.

Total installed electricity generation capacity in the United States
today is a bit above 1000 GW.
******************************************
Someone replied to me with:

That's low by 2 or 3X. The one km^2 insolation is 1 GW, peak, as you say.
Conversion minimum now is 15%, 20% on the expensive side,
so 150 MW per km^2. Capacity factor in Arizona is 25% (6 kWh insolation
per m^2 per day). Resulting daily average power is then 30 MW/km^2.
Call it 20 MW/km^2 with wasted land. US average power load
is ~430 GWe, which is supplied then by ~22000 km^2 of PV,
or 150 km on a side, a tiny parcel of what's called the US southwest.

 

[mfb]

Tsunami was not "ridiculously high". It was within historical record for Japan. Examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Sanriku_earthquake[/PLAIN]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Sanriku_earthquake[/URL][/quote]Okay, so we combine the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan ever with one of the highest tsunamis recorded.

More importantly. Tsunami did not significantly flood the interior of the station - the most crippling damage was done in the basements to power lines and switchboards.

What do you need to cool the reactor? Electricity.

You seem to claim that it destroyed dosimeters and battery powered lights. ? Where did you read such nonsense?

Those things wouldn't have been a problem without the tsunami.

Total installed capacity of US today is 1 TW, not 2.

If you want to go all solar, you have to consider total energy consumption, which is about 3 TW.

Losses due to night / clouds / rain: 4/5, but let's assume higher losses: 9/10.

1/5 is unrealistic. 1/10 works for the US I guess, in Europe you still need the best places to get 1/10 of the installed capacity as average power.

The US has a low overall population density and large deserts, it would still work. You would have some non-negligible losses to deliver power to the east coast, which makes the whole thing even more expensive than the solar cells and their installation alone.

Can we continue this discussion in a different thread?

 

[jim hardy]

Can we continue this discussion in a different thread?

I opened one in Electrical Engineering

https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...enerate-all-us-power-by-arizona-solar.869100/

 

[Salvador]

Ok , I see a lively discussion going on here, that's nice , now please don't dislike me but I would like to point out some corrections needed here.

as to @nikkkom , in real life things are not exactly star wars and even discovery channel documentaries at many cases do a very poor job in terms of truth or details mainly because the average person doesn't care.
In Chernobyl right after the blast which were many by the way , there was no darkness , the lights were still on except for those who were in places that had blown up or collapsed due to the enormous explosion force which ruptured thick reinforced walls and the mainframe steel of the building.even after all this obliteration going on at the other side of the same building separated only by a thick concrete wall was the reactor number 3 which was still going full speed even after what happened right next to it and literally destroyed half the building taking some of the common systems with it.
They only decided to shut down reactor 3 some 3 hours after the explosion and not so much because of any danger to it's further operation as to the director of staff at reactor 3 control room finally saw the radiation levels rising so high as it became impossible for humans to continue to operate in the building.

they had dosimeters even before the accident , it's a NPP after all , not having a dosimeter at such a place would be like not having cooking oil in a kitchen.
as for the people at reactor 4 once the explosion happened , given the radiation levels and their position in the building they no longer needed dosimeters nor battery light , their existence now had a timer to it and most of them died in the following days some after a few weeks.
also most dosimeters didn't have radiation levels high enough to measure the aftermath background which was both inside the reactor corridors and outside of it right after the explosion they either went "bananas" or broke altogether.

also for those who say the RBMK doesn't have a containment vessel , yes it's true and a drawback but in Chernobyl it would have made no difference the explosion was so powerful the reactor had to be located deep underground or inside a air tight hill to prevent the shockwave and heat from breaking everything into pieces or escaping into atmosphere , a typical CANDU or PWR vessel couldn't stop such an explosion.

All in all i just want to say that Chernobyl wasn't your typical "things going wrong in a nuclear reactor" situation I think it was one of a kind case which has an extremely low chance of ever happening again at that level.the reactor was pushed into super critical state so it went off sort of like a bomb.this state was achieved mainly due to the operators mistakes and not only one but a whole chain of dangerous and some of them on the border of being criminal activities, that were done that night combined with some very important factors like the positive void feedback of the reactor and the instability at very low power levels and just to add fuel to the fire some key staff at that night shift weren't fully aware of these critical reactor design features.
the guy who by mistake took out all the control rods was only at his third month after finishing university and had no prior experience with this RBMK. which at the time before Chernobyl was even less automated and safe guarded than after and required some skills to operate.
It was like winning a lottery , they just happened to cross all the right numbers that night and won.If just one of the many things gone wrong that night would have been different the accident would have never happened and we probably wouldn't have this discussion.
So once you look at this with attention to detail the whole thing becomes more clear and doesn't seem so dangerous anymore even with the pre update RBMK which I agree was the most dangerous yet powerful reactor at the time.

Also the very reason why the soviets built them was because they were cheap to make , made lots of power , were able to refuel and produce Pu without ever shutting down and their parts could be mass produced on the existing factories without the need to make special exceptions.

one of the main designers of the RBMK the Russian engineer Nikolay Dollezhal knew of the reactor shortcoming right from the start , he even said at one point that they should only build these in the eastern part of Russia with vast "no mans" lands but he was ignored at that moment.
they also made the VVER reactors at the same time they made the RBMK but I guess cost and simplicity was the reason why they built less VVER 's and more RBMK's at that point even though this changed right after Chernobyl.

I would also go as far as to say that even RBMK , the ones still running in Russia are safe , now they added some modern safety systems and changed the positive feedback to almoust zero so if operated correctly they are just as good as any other design to be fair.

 

[Salvador]

@Jim , it's RBMK not RMBK , it goes for, I will translate directly even though it sounds funny , "Reactor Big Power type Channel'
or more classy simply (Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalnyy, "High Power Channel-type Reactor)

In terms of the RBMK design I think it's easy to find the internet is full of it, because due to Chernobyl it's one of the most talked about nuclear things in the world.

If you have any time or interest Jim I suggest you read this
http://www.lei.lt/insc/sourcebook/index.html
It's made by the people who worked with or at the reactor I was in at Ignalina.It has some quite good basics of what the whole thing is about and why the soviets used it , even though they had both the capability to either spy and steal a western design and simply use that and forget any trouble or somewhat make their own version like the VVER design which is a pressurized water type but somewhat different than the PWR used in the US , how and how much I don't know I also don;'t fully know whether it was a spied western design with minor changes or a entirely soviet built design , as much as wikipedia goes it seems the soviets made it themselves.
Anyhow it's a pretty common reactor in eastern and central Europe also in Russia and many of it's neighboring states.
I hope I will be able to visit one like that in Czech Republic or maybe Finland as that is closer to where I live.
Germany also used to have them.

As for civilians , it wasn't exactly civilians running them , if it was so I think we would all need to wear gas masks even while your typing this on your PC to respond to my post. :D
When Ignalina , the most powerful RBMK of them all was built even the reactor was built by a special construction crew , the local ones who offered to build were rejected due to concerns about safety and this was before Chernobyl at 1975.
also the staff all had degree's from Nuclear physics institutes and universities with such specialties.except for people who were doing other things not directly related to the control room or any other serious task which involves controlling the chain reaction.
But just because someone has a diploma doesn't mean he cannot screw up. Also the very test itself was rather dangerous to begin with so it implied the crew had to go through steps which required doing some risky business.Add some pressure from the local authorities to carry out the test successfully , add bad timing due to a delay because of grid demand at day , add some lack of information about the reactor design due to secrecy (god knows why) add some critical mistakes by the newbies in the reactor staff because they had to do stuff they weren't told before since the reactors wasn't designed to be run the way they had to that night.
well you guess were this all goes.as for the solar , we have to take into account many things here , remember that producing all those panels requires energy and material which means more green house gasses because transporting and fabrication involves quite a lot of oil either directly or indirectly.not to even mention the batteries which require toxic metals and their handling , all this pollutes the planet no less than burning coal to produce steam and then electricity , yes you may say ok once the panels are up and running this goes away and clean energy can be harvested and still remember we will run out of most of our fossil fuels (except for coal) somewhere in the middle of this century) so we better think quick as we don't have much time and renewable energy won't cover all our needs once oil is gone for sure.

I wonder why we can't build the fission reactors underground , I mean the active part of the reactor , we can dig a huge well for a missile some of the bigger ones I have seen so deep you can slide a highrise 12 story building into it like it wasn't even there.
build it underground and put some biological shield on top and in case the worst happens like in Chernobyl (highly unlikely) let the reactor dig it's own grave and sit there ,
with today's HVDC lines we can choose a safe location for this which has a lot of bedrock and other absorbing features and simply transport the power back to places with lots of population.
China has some of it's biggest hydro stations more than thousand km's away from the load.

 

[mheslep]

Reactors can be built underground; small modular reactors likely will be.

http://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors

One challenge is the possibility of flooding. Unlike a missile silo in the prairie, current reactor designs require a large nearby water supply which typically means both a high water table and occasional widespread surface floods.

 

[Salvador]

right , I forgot while writing the need for water nearby to cool down the steam after it exits the turbine.
well you definitely would like to avoid building a reactor in a swamp or near one.
a nearby river in a rather high altitude environment would probably suffice , once can then build a channel that passes some of it's water bit around so that it can reach the underground reactor , although the surface cooling water wouldn't need to go underground since the turbine and the steam condenser could be located above ground since they pose no threat.
anyway this definitely complicates and what's more important in a capitalist world - makes the design more expensive.

 

[jim hardy]

@Jim , it's RBMK not RMBK , it goes for, I will translate directly even though it sounds funny , "Reactor Big Power type Channel'

Thanks ! I reverse things a lot...

My Mom subscribed to "Russia Today " magazine. They had a nice article about those reactors with marvelous pictures not very long before the accident, but sadly she didn't keep that issue. Sure wish i had it now.

old jim