Word: reactor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...painstaking and dangerous cleanup operation provided a grim backdrop for the Vienna talks. Throughout the week, the Soviets stuck to the assertion in their written report that the accident could easily have been avoided. In a five-hour presentation, Legasov explained that the operators of the Chernobyl reactor, while testing a turbine generator, had systematically disconnected all safety systems. That left nothing to prevent the accident after a huge power surge shot through the facility, setting off explosions and fires. Said Legasov: "The defect of the system was that the designers did not foresee the awkward and silly actions...
...language was thick and bureaucratic, but there it was in black and white. In an official report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Soviet Union admitted that the men and women operating the Chernobyl atomic- power power plant were responsible for the worst nuclear-reactor accident in history. Said Andronik M. Petrosyants, chairman of the Soviet Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy: "The accident took place as a result of a whole series of gross violations of operating regulations by the workers...
...Chernobyl calamity occurred, ironically, in the course of a safety test. According to the report, workers were trying to determine how long the reactor's turbine generators would continue to operate as a result of inertia in the event of an unforeseen reactor shutdown. To prevent the automatic safety systems from interfering with the experiment, the technicians disconnected them, opening the way for a chain of fatal mishaps. The consequence was an explosion and fire that for more than a week spewed streams of radioactive material into the atmosphere above the Soviet Union and across Eastern and Western Europe...
Some Western experts thought the report downplayed the shortcomings of Soviet equipment. "The accident was mainly due to human error, but the | reactor itself is a very old-fashioned type," said Rudolf Schulten, a West German nuclear scientist. "The safety philosophy of this reactor would never be accepted today by any country in the Western world...
...investigation of the accident is completed, but the cleanup effort at Chernobyl continues. In recent weeks it has been slowed to a crawl by a series of technical troubles. The biggest problem is to encase the reactor, which is still emitting dangerous radioactive particles, in a concrete tomb. The Soviets have run short of cement and have had to install a ventilation system to prevent heat buildup, which might cause new fires and explosions. The Communist Party daily Pravda has criticized the slowness of the effort, pointing out that three other nuclear reactors located on the site cannot resume operation...