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Mayak Test Site
The Mayak Production Association (, , from 'lighthouse') is one of the largest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, housing production reactors (''non'' electricity) and 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 and 1948, in a great hurry and secrecy as part of the Soviet Union's 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, operated from 1948 and fuelled the first nuclear test RDS-1 in 1949. During the Cold War, 10 nuclear reactors were constructed, with a combined power of 7,333 MWth. Of these, four were used for plutonium pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal State Unitary Enterprise
A unitary enterprise () 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 enterprises) or under operative management (for stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermonuclear Weapons
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material. Its multi-stage design is distinct from the usage of fusion in simpler Boosted fission weapon, boosted fission weapons. The first full-scale thermonuclear test (Ivy Mike) was carried out by the United States in 1952, and the concept has since been employed by at least the five recognized List of states with nuclear weapons#Recognized nuclear-weapon states, nuclear-weapon states and United Nations Security Council, UNSC Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, permanent members: the Nuclear weapons ... [...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] |
Curie (unit)
The curie (symbol Ci) is a non- SI unit of radioactivity originally defined in 1910. According to a notice in ''Nature'' at the time, it was to be named in honour of Pierre Curie, but was considered at least by some to be in honour of Marie Skłodowska-Curie as well, and is in later literature considered to be named for both. It was originally defined as "the quantity or mass of radium emanation in equilibrium with one gram of radium (element)", but is currently defined as 1 Ci = decays per second after more accurate measurements of the activity of Ra (which has a specific activity of ). In 1975 the General Conference on Weights and Measures gave the becquerel (Bq), defined as one nuclear decay per second, official status as the SI unit of activity. Therefore: : 1 Ci = = 37 GBq and : 1 Bq ≅ ≅ 27 pCi While its continued use is discouraged by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other bodies, the curie is still widely used throughout gover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radioactive Contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of Radioactive decay, radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirable (from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) definition). Such contamination presents a hazard because the radioactive decay of the contaminants produces ionizing radiation (namely alpha particle, alpha, beta particle, beta, gamma rays and free neutrons). The degree of hazard is determined by the concentration of the contaminants, the energy of the radiation being emitted, the type of radiation, and the proximity of the contamination to organs of the body. It is important to be clear that the contamination gives rise to the radiation hazard, and the terms "radiation" and "contamination" are not interchangeable. The sources of radioactive pollution can be classified into two groups: natural and man-made. Follo ... [...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] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. 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 its 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. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spent Nuclear Fuel
Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and, depending on its point along the nuclear fuel cycle, it will have different isotopic constituents than when it started. Nuclear fuel rods become progressively more radioactive (and less thermally useful) due to neutron activation as they are fissioned, or "burnt", in the reactor. A fresh rod of low enriched uranium pellets (which can be safely handled with gloved hands) will become a highly lethal gamma emitter after 1–2 years of core irradiation, unsafe to approach unless under many feet of water shielding. This makes their invariable accumulation and safe temporary storage in spent fuel pools a prime source of high level radioactive waste and a major ongoing issue for future permanent disposal. Nature of spent fuel Nanomaterial pro ... [...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] |
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] |
Polonium-210
Polonium-210 (210Po, Po-210, historically radium F) is an isotope of polonium. It undergoes alpha decay to stable 206Pb with a half-life of 138.376 days (about months), the longest half-life of all naturally occurring polonium isotopes (210–218Po). First identified in 1898, and also marking the discovery of the element polonium, 210Po is generated in the decay chain of uranium-238 and radium-226. 210Po is a prominent contaminant in the environment, mostly affecting seafood and tobacco. Its extreme toxicity is attributed to intense radioactivity, mostly due to alpha particles, which easily cause radiation damage, including cancer in surrounding tissue. The specific activity of is 166 TBq/g, i.e., . At the same time, 210Po is not readily detected by common radiation detectors, because its gamma rays have a very low energy. Therefore, can be considered as a quasi-pure alpha emitter. History In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie discovered a strongly radioactive substance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radioisotope
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess numbers of either neutrons or protons, giving it excess nuclear energy, and 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 nuc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
