Mayak
The Mayak Production Association (, , from 'lighthouse') is one of the largest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, housing Production reactor, production reactors (''non'' electricity) and a reprocessing plant. The closest settlements are Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, 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 and 1948, in a great hurry and secrecy as part of the Soviet Union's Soviet atomic bomb project, atomic bomb project. The plant had a similar purpose to the Hanford Site of the Manhattan Project. Over 40,000 gulag prisoners and POWs built the factory and the closed nuclear city of Ozyorsk, called at the time by its classified postal code "Chelyabinsk-40". The first reactor, A-1 (nuclear reactor), A-1, operated from 1948 and fuelled the first nuclear test RDS-1 in 1949. During the Cold War, 10 nuclear reactors ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Soviet Atomic Bomb Project
The Soviet atomic bomb project was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II. Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov suspected that the Allied powers were secretly developing a " superweapon" since 1939. Flyorov urged Stalin to start a nuclear program in 1942. Early efforts mostly consisted of research at Laboratory No. 2 in Moscow, and intelligence gathering of Soviet-sympathizing atomic spies in the US Manhattan Project. Subsequent efforts involved plutonium production at Mayak in Chelyabinsk and weapon research and assembly at KB-11 in Sarov. After Stalin learned of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear program was accelerated through intelligence gathering about the Manhattan Project and German nuclear weapon project. Espionage coups, especially via Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass, included detailed descriptions of the implosion-type Fat Man bomb and plutonium production. In the final mo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Kyshtym Disaster
The Kyshtym disaster, ( Russian: Кыштымская авария), sometimes referred to as the Mayak disaster or Ozyorsk disaster in newer sources, was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a plutonium reprocessing production plant for nuclear weapons located in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozyorsk) in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia in the Soviet Union. The disaster is the second worst nuclear incident by radioactivity released, after the Chernobyl disaster and was regarded as the worst nuclear disaster in history until Chernobyl. It is the only disaster classified as Level 6 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). It is the third worst nuclear disaster by population impact after the two Level 7 events: the Chernobyl disaster, which resulted in the evacuation of 335,000 people, and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, which resulted in the evacuation of 154,000 people. At least 22 villages were exposed to radiation fro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast
Ozyorsk or Ozersk () is a closed city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It had a population of 82,164 as of the 2010 census. History The town was founded on the shores of Lake Irtyash in 1947. Until 1994, it was known as Chelyabinsk-65, and even earlier, as Chelyabinsk-40 (the digits are the last digits of the postal code, and the name is that of the nearest big city, which was a common practice of giving names to closed towns). Codenamed City 40, Ozersk was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons program after the Second World War. In 1994, it was granted town status and renamed Ozyorsk. Administrative and municipal status Within the framework of administrative divisions, it has, together with six rural localities, official status as the Town of Ozyorsk—an administrative unit with a status equal to that of the districts.Resolution #161 As a municipal division, the town of Ozyorsk has the official name Ozyorsky Urban Okrug. Economy Ozyorsk was and remains a closed t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nuclear And Radiation Accidents And Incidents
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, or a reactor core melt. The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. The impact of nuclear accidents has been a topic of debate since the first nuclear reactors were constructed in 1954 and has been a key factor in public concern about nuclear facilities. M.V. Ramana. Nuclear Power: Economic, Safety, Health, and Environmental Issues of Near-Term Technologies, ''Annual Review of Environment and Resources'', 2009, 34, p. 136. Technical measures to reduce the risk of accidents or to minimize the amount of ra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
A-1 (nuclear Reactor)
The A-1 nuclear reactor was the first Soviet Union, Soviet plutonium production reactor, built and operated at the Mayak Production Association from 1948 for the Soviet atomic bomb project. It was affectionately named "Annushka" by project scientists. Design It was designed as a Light-water reactor, light water-cooled, Nuclear graphite, graphite-Neutron moderator, moderated reactor (LWGR), with an initial power level of 100 MWt (megawatts Watt thermal, thermal). Its design and purpose were similar to the B Reactor, the first industrial-scale US plutonium production reactor. The Soviet atomic bomb project, Soviet nuclear program had Atomic spies, extensive espionage on the Manhattan Project, and program chief Lavrentiy Beria pushed for direct replication of Manhattan designs at every step. Due to concerns that the Mayak facility was in range of US Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers, the reactor was to be sheltered underground in a pit, similar to F-1. Unlike the US B reactor, wh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nuclear Reprocessing
Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors. The reprocessed uranium, also known as the spent fuel material, can in principle also be re-used as fuel, but that is only economical when uranium supply is low and prices are high. Nuclear reprocessing may extend beyond fuel and include the reprocessing of other nuclear reactor material, such as Zircaloy cladding. The high radioactivity of spent nuclear material means that reprocessing must be highly controlled and carefully executed in advanced facilities by specialized personnel. Numerous processes exist, with the chemical based PUREX process dominating. Alternatives include heating to drive off volatile elements, burning via oxidation, and fluoride vola ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Techa River
The Techa (, ) is an eastward river on the eastern flank of the southern Ural Mountains noted for its nuclear contamination. It is long, and its basin covers . It begins by the once-secret nuclear processing town of Ozyorsk about northwest of Chelyabinsk and flows east then northeast to the small town of Dalmatovo to flow into the mid-part of the Iset, a tributary of the Tobol. Its basin is close to and north of the Miass, longer than these rivers apart from the Tobol. Water pollution From 1949 to 1956 the Mayak complex dumped an estimated of water into the Techa River, [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Rosatom
State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom (commonly referred to as Rosatom rus, Росатом, p=rosˈatəm}), also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, (), or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian State corporation (Russia), state corporation headquartered in Moscow that specializes in Nuclear power in Russia, nuclear energy, nuclear non-energy goods and high-tech products. It was established in 2007 and comprises more than 350 enterprises, including scientific research organizations, a Nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons complex, and the world's only Nuclear-powered icebreaker, nuclear icebreaker fleet. The organization is the largest electricity generating company in Russia, producing 217.4 TWh of electricity, 20.28% of the country's total electricity production. The corporation ranks first in overseas nuclear power plant construction, responsible for 90% of global nuclear technology exports: 22 nuclear power plant units, at different stages of development, in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
RDS-1
The RDS-1 (), also known as Izdeliye 501 (device 501) and First Lightning (), was the nuclear bomb used in the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test. The United States assigned it the code-name Joe-1, in reference to Joseph Stalin. It was detonated on 29 August 1949 at 7:00 a.m., at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, Kazakh SSR, after top-secret research and development as part of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Etymology There are several explanations for the Soviet code-name of RDS-1, usually an arbitrary designation: a backronym "Special Jet Engine" (, ''Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Spetsialnyi''), or "Stalin's Jet Engine" (, ''Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Stalina''), or "Russia does it herself" (, ''Rossiya Delayet Sama''). Later weapons were also designated RDS but with different model numbers. Description The weapon was designed at the Kurchatov Institute, then at the time officially known as "Laboratory № 2" but designated as the "office" or "base" in internal documents, sta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Poisoning Of Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Litvinenko was an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and its predecessor, the KGB, until he left the service and fled the country in late 2000. In 1998, Litvinenko and several other Russian intelligence officers said they had been ordered to kill Boris Berezovsky, a Russian businessman. After that, the Russian government began to persecute Litvinenko. He fled to the UK, where he criticised the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. In exile, Litvinenko worked with British and Spanish intelligence, sharing information about the Russian mafia in Europe and its connections with the Russian government. On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko was poisoned and later hospitalised. He died on 23 November, becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. Litvinenko's allegations about misdeeds of the FSB and his public deathbed accusations that Putin was behind his poisoning resulted in worldwide med ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Production Reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for commercial electricity, marine propulsion, weapons production and research. Fissile nuclei (primarily uranium-235 or plutonium-239) absorb single neutrons and split, releasing energy and multiple neutrons, which can induce further fission. Reactors stabilize this, regulating neutron absorbers and moderators in the core. Fuel efficiency is exceptionally high; low-enriched uranium is 120,000 times more energy dense than coal. Heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid coolant. In commercial reactors, this drives turbines and electrical generator shafts. Some reactors are used for district heating, and isotope production for medical and industrial use. Following the 1938 discovery of fission, many countries initiated military nuclear research programs. Early subcritical experiments probed neutronics. In 1942, the first artificial critical nu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet Union, it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country by area, extending across Time in Russia, eleven time zones and sharing Geography of the Soviet Union#Borders and neighbors, borders with twelve countries, and the List of countries and dependencies by population, third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of Republics of the Soviet Union, national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, Government of the Soviet Union, its government and Economy of the Soviet Union, economy were Soviet-type economic planning, highly centralized. As a one-party state go ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |