Unlimited Nuclear Disaster Updates

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Russia's 'Underwater Chernobyl': Nuclear Submarines Rotting in the Arctic

A Mess No One Wants to Own: Nuclear Decommissioning: One of the most radioactive maritime regions within the former Soviet Union is the Arctic Ocean. In the words of a recent BBC report, "Beneath some of the world's busiest fisheries, radioactive submarines from the Soviet era lie disintegrating on the seafloor. Decades later, Russia is [still] preparing to retrieve them."


For 17 years, Moscow promised that this underwater tomb, which contained two Soviet-era nuclear submarines and four reactor modules, would be cleaned up. But, only in March 2020 did Russian President Vladimir Putin draft a federal decree calling for a project to lift the two boats from the seabed. Doing so would reportedly reduce the amount of radioactive material in the Arctic Ocean by 90 percent.

The same report details how these two nuclear submarines contain one million curies of radiation. This curie level is equivalent to 25 percent of the radiation released in the first month of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster.

It is a small wonder that these two subs were described as Russia's "slow-motion" Chornobyl at sea. But this is a disaster that has been a long time in happening and continues to get worse.


>>>Russia had previously been engaged in efforts to dismantle and secure its aging nuclear submarine fleet and had been doing so with international cooperation due to the steep costs. However, that effort has slowed down in recent years due to the Ukraine conflict.

Western nations were not anxious to fund a program to clean up Russia's outmoded nuclear vessels while, at the same time, Moscow was spending billions upon billions on the war in Ukraine.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/03/russias-underwater-chernobyl-nuclear-submarines-rotting-in-the-arctic/

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Is Savannah, Georgia, the Next Chernobyl?
On this week's podcast, John von Sothen reveals the bizarre story of Savannah and a missing nuclear bomb

If you think things can't possibly get worse, you might want to duck and cover. John von Sothen has the incredible story of how the U.S. Air Force dropped a nuclear bomb off the coast of Savannah, Georgia—and it is still there. Then, there was a time when New York's Waldorf Astoria was the epitome of a great hotel ... until the Chinese Communist Party bought it. What could possibly go wrong? Our writer Ben Ryder Howe reports. And finally, with the arrival of an outpost of one of France's most influential department stores in Lower Manhattan, Christine Muhlke asks: Can Printemps make shopping fun again? Listen by clicking Play below. And be sure to subscribe at Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you don't miss an episode.

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Robots to retrieve radioactive sandbags at Fukushima plant

TOKYO: Robots will begin moving sandbags that were used to absorb radiation-contaminated water after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster as soon as next week, a spokesman for the plant operator said on Friday (Mar 21).

TEPCO, the operator of the stricken Japanese power plant, says the bags on underground floors of two buildings have been left untouched following the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Radiation levels on the sandbags' surface are as high as 4.4 sieverts per hour, which means "humans can die if they approach" them, TEPCO spokesman Tatsuya Matoba told AFP.

Japanese media reports said there were 2,850 bags to be collected, a number which has not been confirmed by TEPCO, which says that they weigh 41.5 tonnes in total.

Two robots developed to collect the bags, one with a moving claw, were on Wednesday placed on the underground floors, Matoba said.

Workers will use them to "carefully" bring the sandbags out in an operation that TEPCO aims to finish by the end of the 2027 fiscal year.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/robots-retrieve-radioactive-sandbags-fukushima-plant-japan-5015511

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TEPCO to Remove Fukushima Nuclear Debris for 2nd Time; Sample to be Taken from Different Spot in No. 2 Reactor

Nuclear fuel debris will be removed from the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in a trial operation for the second time as early as mid-April, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. announced Wednesday.

Sample debris will be collected from a location other than that of the first trial operation last year to gain knowledge that will be useful in selecting a method for larger-scale removal in the future.

TEPCO said it wants to collect up to 3 grams of debris in the next retrieval. As with the first time, a retrieval device resembling a fishing rod that can extend up to 22 meters will be inserted from the side of the reactor, and a claw-like gripper hanging down from a cable will pick up debris at the bottom of the reactor containment vessel.



Debris this time will be collected near the center of the containment vessel, which is about 1 to 2 meters away from the first collection point. The company will compare its composition, hardness and other factors to grasp the conditions inside the reactor, such as debris distribution. However, debris might be collected from the same location as last time depending on the situation inside the reactor.

The core meltdown accident in 2011 generated a total of about 800 tons of debris in the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors as molten nuclear fuel mixed with structures inside the reactors. Removal of the debris is deemed the toughest task of the decommissioning process to be done by 2051 the deadline set by the government and TEPCO.

https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/original/decommissioning-fukushima/20250320-244327/

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How a Cheap Drone Punctured Chernobyl's 40,000-Ton Shield
The steel shell that encloses the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster was built to endure for a century. But war was a scenario its engineers never envisioned.

Eric Schmieman worked for 15 years on the modern engineering equivalent of the Great Pyramid — building a giant protective shield for a damaged reactor at Chernobyl that would protect the world from further fallout from the worst ever nuclear disaster.

The steel shell, slid into place over Reactor No. 4 on railroad tracks in 2016, is the world's largest movable structure. It is as tall as a football field and weighs almost 40,000 tons. More than 45 countries and organizations spent almost $1.7 billion building it.

"We did a lot of safety analysis, considering a lot of bad things that could happen," said Mr. Schmieman, 78, a retired civil engineer from Washington state who was a senior technical adviser on the project. "We considered earthquakes, tornadoes, heavy winds, 100-year snowfalls, all kinds of things. We didn't consider acts of war."

On Feb. 14, a drone with a high-explosive warhead that likely cost as little as $20,000 to produce punched a hole in the steel shell. Ukrainian officials said the Russians deliberately targeted the structure with a Shahed 136 drone. The Kremlin has denied responsibility.

While the initial fire was quickly put out, a waterproof membrane inside the insulation of the arch burned and smoldered for almost three weeks, said Artem Siryi, the head of the operations department for the structure, called the New Safe Confinement. Emergency workers in mountain-climbing equipment had to knock holes into the shield's outer layer, hunting for the fire, and spray water inside a structure designed to stay dry to prevent corrosion, Ukrainian officials and international experts said.

On March 7, Ukraine declared the fire officially extinguished. But by that point, roughly half of the northern section of the shield had been damaged, Ukrainian officials said. The International Atomic Energy Agency said on March 13 that the fires and smoldering had caused "extensive damage, including to the northern side and to a lesser extent to the southern side of its roof," according to an evaluation that Ukraine shared with the agency.

Radiation levels outside Chernobyl are still normal, the I.A.E.A. and Ukrainian nuclear regulators say. But it is unclear how the shield will be fixed, how much it will cost and how long it will take.

Repairs could take years, nuclear experts warn. That could delay a plan to dismantle the damaged reactor and safely dispose of the radioactive waste that was supposed to begin over the next five years. And there are risks that the steel shell starts corroding — or that the temporary "sarcophagus" Soviet engineers built around the reactor almost 40 years ago, which still sits within the shell, deteriorates further.



https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/world/europe/drone-chernobyl-shield-ukraine-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8U4.Hu7g.dGySvUOXLKwk&smid=url-share

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Risks posed by hole in protective shell over Chernobyl

When it was erected in 2019, the giant shell over the damaged nuclear reactor in Chernobyl was one of the biggest structures ever moved by humans. In February a Russian drone put a hole in it.


For weeks, the Ukrainian authorities have been looking for ways to repair a large hole in the protective shell that covers the fourth reactor of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant. On February 14, a Russian drone hit the structure, which is called the New Safe Confinement, or NSC, because it is meant to "confine" the reactor's radioactive remains. The drone started a fire that caused considerable damage and was only extinguished three weeks later on March 7.

"The main mission is to close the hole, which is about 15 square meters [around 162 square feet] in size, but also the more than 200 small holes that the State Emergency Service of Ukraine drilled into the shell during firefighting operations," said Hryhoriy Ishchenko, the head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management, which is responsible for the area around the Chernobyl power plant.

He told DW that experts would soon be arriving on site to examine the structure and that "preliminary recommendations on the repair work should be available within a month."

The NSC was erected over a pre-existing protective shell called the sarcophagus, which is there to prevent the release of radioactive contaminants from the reactor, which exploded in 1986. The NSC was built after 45 donor countries came together and gathered around €1.5 billion for the project. Eventually 10,000 people from 40 countries would play a part in the shell, which took 12 years, from the signing of contracts to the moment the NSC was ready in 2019.

Ishchenko pointed out that there was still no preliminary estimate of the damage caused by the Russian attack. Research institutes involved in the investigation would provide estimates, he added.

"Radiation levels are normal" Ishchenko said. "The staff is still working normally too. Only the pressure regulation system is no longer functioning, and slightly higher humidity levels have been detected. This is because of the impact and the drop in pressure below the shell, which is no longer sealed."

https://www.dw.com/en/risks-posed-by-hole-in-protective-shell-over-chernobyl/a-72078360

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How to repair the damaged shell of the nuclear plant in Chernobyl?

Almost two months ago, a Russian drone broke through the expensive shell of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which had an accident in 1986. The danger is not immediate, but because of the radiation, the sheath needs to be repaired. And that is neither easy nor cheap

>>>The shell was built over the old so-called sarcophagi, temporary protective shells. It is intended to prevent the spread of radioactive radiation from block 4 of the power plant that exploded in 1986.

For the construction of this newer shell, 45 donor countries joined forces with Ukraine and collected more than one and a half billion euros; 10.000 people from 40 countries were involved in the project. From the signing of the contract to the commissioning of the new protective cover in 2019, almost twelve years have passed.

Ishchenko says there is still no preliminary assessment of the damage caused by the Russian attack. Competent research institutes will make an appropriate calculation after the investigation.


>>>"Currently, it is impossible to safely dismantle the old sarcophagus, which was placed over the destroyed block of the power plant in 1986 immediately after the disaster," says Dmytro Humenyuk of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of Ukraine.

A new protective cover was built for this very purpose - because the old sarcophagus had worn out. It still has 18 unstable beams. There are fears that one of the three main cross beams could collapse at any moment.

"If parts of the structure were to collapse under the now-damaged protective cover, there would be a rise in radioactive dust," Humenyuk says. "At the moment, the protective jacket does not fulfill its function, namely the containment of fission products inside the reactor," says the expert.


>>>"It will be impossible to weld and repair the damaged shell on site because the radiation levels there are very high and the workers would be too exposed. The protective shell was placed a little further and slid on rails over the old sarcophagus. Given that the rails are now dismantled, we have to do something else," explains Dmytro Humenyuk.

Jan Vande Putte of Greenpeace Ukraine sees only one way to continue work on the containment: "Due to the high level of radiation above the sarcophagus, the entire Chernobyl containment will probably have to be moved back on rails and then expensive repairs."

According to him, it is still completely unclear how much these works will cost.


https://vreme.com/en/svet/kako-popraviti-osteceni-omotac-nuklearke-u-cernobilju/