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Mayak Nuclear Station
The Mayak Production Association (russian: Производственное объединение «Маяк», , from 'lighthouse') is one of the biggest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, housing a reprocessing plant. The closest settlements are Ozyorsk to the northwest and Novogornyi to the south. Lavrentiy Beria led the Soviet atomic bomb project. He directed the construction of the Mayak Plutonium plant in the Southern Urals between 1945–48, in a great hurry and secrecy as part of the Soviet Union's atomic bomb project. Over 40,000 Gulag prisoners and POWs built the factory and the closed nuclear city of Ozersk, called at the time by its classified postal code "Forty". Five (today closed) nuclear reactors were built to produce plutonium which was refined and machined for weapons. Later the plant came to specialise in reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors and plutonium from decommissioned weapons. Once production began, engineers quickl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal State Unitary Enterprise
A unitary enterprise (russian: унитарное предприятие) is a government-owned corporation in Russia and some other post-Soviet states. Unitary enterprises are business entities that have no ownership rights to the assets that they use in their operations. This form is possible only for state and municipal enterprises, which respectively operate state or municipal property. The owners of the property of a unitary enterprise have no responsibility for its operation and vice versa. Russia Federal Law No. 161-ФЗ "''On State and Municipal Unitary Enterprises''" (amended July 13, 2015), defines the legal status of unitary enterprises in Russia. The State Duma passed this law on October 11, 2002, and President Putin signed it on November 14, 2002. The assets of unitary enterprises belong to the federal government, to a Russian federal subject, or to a municipality. A unitary enterprise holds assets under economic management (for both state and municipal unitary e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruthenium-106
Naturally occurring ruthenium (44Ru) is composed of seven stable isotopes. Additionally, 27 radioactive isotopes have been discovered. Of these radioisotopes, the most stable are 106Ru, with a half-life of 373.59 days; 103Ru, with a half-life of 39.26 days and 97Ru, with a half-life of 2.9 days. Twenty-four other radioisotopes have been characterized with atomic weights ranging from 86.95 u (87Ru) to 119.95 u (120Ru). Most of these have half-lives that are less than five minutes, except 94Ru (half-life: 51.8 minutes), 95Ru (half-life: 1.643 hours), and 105Ru (half-life: 4.44 hours). The primary decay mode before the most abundant isotope, 102Ru, is electron capture and the primary mode after is beta emission. The primary decay product before 102Ru is technetium and the primary product after is rhodium. Because of the very high volatility of ruthenium tetroxide () ruthenium radioactive isotopes with their relative short half-life are considered as the second mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airborne Radioactivity Increase In Europe In Autumn 2017
Airborne radioactivity was detected in Europe during autumn 2017, starting from the last days of September. The source is widely suspected to be in Russia; the Russian government, however, denies that any nuclear mishaps occurred that could have caused the radiation spike. The radioactive isotope detected was ruthenium-106; across Europe, it was found to be in small quantities (from microbecquerels to a few millibecquerels per cubic metre of air), not significant for the health of the population far away from the source. It is estimated, however, that the radiation released posed a danger to any employees or residents within several kilometers of the currently unknown source. Radioactivity detected European monitoring networks declared increased radioactivity levels in Europe, coming from Eastern Europe, in the first days of October: * the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) reported increase of radioactive particles of ruthenium-106 from 25 September * The Institute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radioisotope
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferred to one of its electrons to release it as a conversion electron; or used to create and emit a new particle (alpha particle or beta particle) from the nucleus. During those processes, the radionuclide is said to undergo radioactive decay. These emissions are considered ionizing radiation because they are energetic enough to liberate an electron from another atom. The radioactive decay can produce a stable nuclide or will sometimes produce a new unstable radionuclide which may undergo further decay. Radioactive decay is a random process at the level of single atoms: it is impossible to predict when one particular atom will decay. However, for a collection of atoms of a single nuclide the decay rate, and thus the half-life (''t''1/2) for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tritium
Tritium ( or , ) or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life about 12 years. The nucleus of tritium (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the common isotope hydrogen-1 (''protium'') contains one proton and zero neutrons, and that of hydrogen-2 (''deuterium'') contains one proton and one neutron. Naturally occurring tritium is extremely rare on Earth. The atmosphere has only trace amounts, formed by the interaction of its gases with cosmic rays. It can be produced artificially by irradiating lithium metal or lithium-bearing ceramic pebbles in a nuclear reactor and is a low-abundance byproduct in normal operations of nuclear reactors. Tritium is used as the energy source in radioluminescent lights for watches, gun sights, numerous instruments and tools, and even novelty items such as self-illuminating key chains. It is used in a medical and scientific setting as a radioacti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster
The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan. The earthquake triggered a powerful tsunami, with 13–14-meter-high waves damaging the nuclear power plant's emergency diesel generators, leading to a loss of electric power. The result was the most severe nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, classified as level seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) after initially being classified as level five, and thus joining Chernobyl as the only other accident to receive such classification. While the 1957 explosion at the Mayak facility was the second worst by radioactivity released, the INES ranks incidents by impact on population, so Chernobyl (335,000 people evacuated) and Fukushima (154,000 evacuate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Nuclear Event Scale
The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was introduced in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of safety significant information in case of nuclear accidents. The scale is intended to be logarithmic, similar to the moment magnitude scale that is used to describe the comparative magnitude of earthquakes. Each increasing level represents an accident approximately ten times as severe as the previous level. Compared to earthquakes, where the event intensity can be quantitatively evaluated, the level of severity of a man-made disaster, such as a nuclear accident, is more subject to interpretation. Because of this subjectivity the INES level of an incident is assigned well after the fact. The scale is therefore intended to assist in disaster-aid deployment. Details A number of criteria and indicators are defined to assure coherent reporting of nuclear events by different official authorities. There ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Level Waste
High-level waste (HLW) is a type of nuclear waste created by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. It exists in two main forms: * First and second cycle raffinate and other waste streams created by nuclear reprocessing. * Waste formed by vitrification of liquid high-level waste. Liquid high-level waste is typically held temporarily in underground tanks pending vitrification. Most of the high-level waste created by the Manhattan Project and the weapons programs of the cold war exists in this form because funding for further processing was typically not part of the original weapons programs. Both spent nuclear fuel and vitrified waste are considered as suitable forms for long term disposal, after a period of temporary storage in the case of spent nuclear fuel. HLW contains many of the fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core and is the type of nuclear waste with the highest activity. HLW accounts for over 95% of the total radioactivity produced i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Becquerel
The becquerel (; symbol: Bq) is the unit of radioactivity in the International System of Units (SI). One becquerel is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. For applications relating to human health this is a small quantity, and SI multiples of the unit are commonly used. The becquerel is named after Henri Becquerel, who shared a Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Skłodowska Curie in 1903 for their work in discovering radioactivity. Definition 1 Bq = 1 s−1 A special name was introduced for the reciprocal second (s−1) to represent radioactivity to avoid potentially dangerous mistakes with prefixes. For example, 1 µs−1 would mean 106 disintegrations per second: 1·(10−6 s)−1 = 106 s−1, whereas 1 µBq would mean 1 disintegration per 1 million seconds. Other names considered were hertz (Hz), a special name already in use for the reciprocal second, and Fourier ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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