Russia Says Small Nuclear Reactor Blew Up in Deadly Accident (1 Viewer)

[Rogue Valley]

Russia Says Small Nuclear Reactor Blew Up in Deadly Accident

Five Rosatom workers who died were ‘elite nuclear scientists’

Massive explosions at a Russian military depot last week in Siberia.

8/12/19
The failed missile test that ended in an explosion killing five scientists last week on Russia’s White Sea involved a small nuclear reactor, according to a top official at the institute where they worked. The institute is working on small-scale power sources that use “radioactive materials, including fissile and radioisotope materials” for the Defense Ministry and civilian uses, Vyacheslav Soloviev, scientific director of the institute, said in a video shown by local TV. The men, who will be buried Monday, were national heroes and the “elite of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center,” institute Director Valentin Kostyukov said in the video, which was also posted on an official website in Sarov, a high-security city devoted to nuclear research less than 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Moscow. The blast occurred Aug. 8 during a test of a missile that used “isotope power sources” on an offshore platform in the Arkhangelsk region, close to the Arctic Circle, Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom said over the weekend. The Defense Ministry initially reported two were killed in the accident, which it said involved testing of a liquid-fueled missile engine. The ministry didn’t mention the nuclear element. Rosatom declined to comment on the incident Monday and a spokeswoman for the Sarov institute couldn’t immediately be reached.

This accident, which occurred at a Russian Navy proving ground on the northern White Sea, was almost certainly another failed test (#6) of the Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall). The Burevestnik is a two-stage cruise missile which utilizes a solid propellant fuel at launch and to attain speed, and then a small nuclear reactor takes over which utilizes the decay of nuclear isotopes to fuel the turbojet engine. Theoretically, such a cruise missile could stay in flight for months. Even 35 years after the Chornobyl catastrophe the Russians are purposefully slow to alert the world to its nuclear accidents. The Kremlin is also developing a nuclear-powered torpedo (Poseidon/Status-6) which will utilize a gas-cooled nuclear reactor for power generation. With theoretically unlimited range, the Russians plan to fit the torpedo with a toxic Cobalt-60 warhead. This very large warhead can be detonated at standoff range but still possess the radioactive coverage (1700x300 kilometers) to contaminate an entire Navy carrier battle group at sea.

Last week a Russian arms depot near the city of Achinsk in eastern Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region was struck by lightening causing fires and cooking off explosives which resulted in massive explosions. This resulted in five dead, 1 injured, 1 missing, and 60,500 people evacuated. In the autumn of 2017 there was a nuclear accident at the Mayak plant located in the southern Urals. This plant supposedly reprocesses nuclear fuel. Aerosols containing ruthenium-106 were detected in countries as far apart as Greece and Norway at the end of September and beginning of October 2017. Moscow denied that Mayak was the source, but scientists in Europe that collected radioactive air samples and ran computerized meteorological weather data in reverse said the Mayak plant is the only location this accident could have occurred at.

Related: Experts point to Russia as source of radioactive ruthenium leak

 

[Rexedgar]

If a “nuclear reactor” explodes, is that not a nuclear explosion?

 

[swing_voter]

If a “nuclear reactor” explodes, is that not a nuclear explosion?

You didn't watch Chernobyl?

It's a good show.

 

[Drawdown]

If a “nuclear reactor” explodes, is that not a nuclear explosion?

Sounds more comparable to a dirty bomb. Surprised they have bodies to bury though.

 

[HumblePi]

Russia Says Small Nuclear Reactor Blew Up in Deadly Accident

Five Rosatom workers who died were ‘elite nuclear scientists’

Massive explosions at a Russian military depot last week in Siberia.



This accident, which occurred at a Russian Navy proving ground on the northern White Sea, was almost certainly another failed test (#6) of the Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall). The Burevestnik is a two-stage cruise missile which utilizes a solid propellant fuel at launch and to attain speed, and then a small nuclear reactor takes over which utilizes the decay of nuclear isotopes to fuel the turbojet engine. Theoretically, such a cruise missile could stay in flight for months. Even 35 years after the Chornobyl catastrophe the Russians are purposefully slow to alert the world to its nuclear accidents. The Kremlin is also developing a nuclear-powered torpedo (Poseidon/Status-6) which will utilize a gas-cooled nuclear reactor for power generation. With theoretically unlimited range, the Russians plan to fit the torpedo with a toxic Cobalt-60 warhead. This very large warhead can be detonated at standoff range but still possess the radioactive coverage (1700x300 kilometers) to contaminate an entire Navy carrier battle group at sea.

Last week a Russian arms depot near the city of Achinsk in eastern Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region was struck by lightening causing fires and cooking off explosives which resulted in massive explosions. This resulted in five dead, 1 injured, 1 missing, and 60,500 people evacuated. In the autumn of 2017 there was a nuclear accident at the Mayak plant located in the southern Urals. This plant supposedly reprocesses nuclear fuel. Aerosols containing ruthenium-106 were detected in countries as far apart as Greece and Norway at the end of September and beginning of October 2017. Moscow denied that Mayak was the source, but scientists in Europe that collected radioactive air samples and ran computerized meteorological weather data in reverse said the Mayak plant is the only location this accident could have occurred at.

Related: Experts point to Russia as source of radioactive ruthenium leak

I don't know how many watched the HBO series 'Chernobyl' but it clearly shows to what extent the Russian government will go to cover up a massive nuclear accident. The majority of the nuclear power plants in Russia were shown during that series to be unsafe and an accident waiting to happen. That event happened more than 30 years ago and whether or not Russia has either closed those power plants that weren't safe or fixed them since that time is anyone's guess.

 

[celticwar17]

If a “nuclear reactor” explodes, is that not a nuclear explosion?

No... Not necessarily.

Nuclear reactors don't cause nuclear explosions... unlike some popular tv series like to suggest.

A nuclear plant can have a meltdown, or explosion of compressed radiated water vapor.

There are a lot of things inside a nuclear plant that can explode that has nothing to do with Nuclear stuff.

 

[Rogue Valley]

I don't know how many watched the HBO series 'Chernobyl' but it clearly shows to what extent the Russian government will go to cover up a massive nuclear accident. The majority of the nuclear power plants in Russia were shown during that series to be unsafe and an accident waiting to happen. That event happened more than 30 years ago and whether or not Russia has either closed those power plants that weren't safe or fixed them since that time is anyone's guess.

Although they are somewhat better, the 35 nuclear power reactors in Russia are still not up to Western design/operating standards.

In Ukraine, each of her 20 nuclear reactors are now of a design in which a Chornobyl type of nuclear accident is impossible. By 2022 all reactor fuel will be supplied by Westinghouse (US), and all nuclear reactors are currently maintained and updated by Westinghouse and Areva (France) and certified by Euratom (the EU atomic agency).

 

[Rogue Valley]

One last word on this.

I believe the Kremlin claims of developing a "nuclear powered" cruise missile that can stay aloft indefinitely and evade interceptor missiles is hokum and propaganda. For certain, exploratory space satellites oftentimes have a small nuclear reactor aboard to power some instruments and provide a modicum of heat in an extremely cold environment, but this is also done in tandem with solar panels and small liquid/solid-fuel maneuver rockets. The notion of utilizing a nuclear reactor within a cruise missile to provide propulsion defies the laws of physics. The size of such a reactor would have to be onerous, and the reactor shielding would make any such cruise missile too heavy to fly and maneuver.

I don't know what happened near the northern White Sea on that day, but the story they are handing out is ridiculous.

 

[beefheart]

We tried to do nuclear rockets back in the sixties, project NERVA. We built a very large test area in Jackass Flats, Nevada, you can still see it on Google Earth. They had an underground control room and a railroad that went out 2 miles to the test stand, basically it was a nuclear reactor powered rocket. I read a book where they claim that the engineers pushed a reactor to its breaking point, it exploded and sent plutonium all around the test stand, took a while to clean that up. JFK visited the site in 1962, it was an exciting concept, however, it proved to be much too dangerous to pursue.

Lots of good information about this program online. NERVA - Wikipedia

 

[Rogue Valley]

We tried to do nuclear rockets back in the sixties, project NERVA. We built a very large test area in Jackass Flats, Nevada, you can still see it on Google Earth. They had an underground control room and a railroad that went out 2 miles to the test stand, basically it was a nuclear reactor powered rocket. I read a book where they claim that the engineers pushed a reactor to its breaking point, it exploded and sent plutonium all around the test stand, took a while to clean that up. JFK visited the site in 1962, it was an exciting concept, however, it proved to be much too dangerous to pursue.

Lots of good information about this program online. NERVA - Wikipedia

Thanks. I was somewhat familiar with that.

A small nuclear reactor for propulsion works just dandy in theory and bench tests, but not so much in real life.

 

[beefheart]

Thanks. I was somewhat familiar with that.

A small nuclear reactor for propulsion works just dandy in theory and bench tests, but not so much in real life.

Yeah, the google earth for Jackass Flats is really good, you can see the train tracks, the test stands, etc.

BTW, don't try to go there, its part of the huge Tonapah Test Range, and is SW of Area 51. A few years ago, my brother did a tour of the nuke bomb test sites out there, hard to get a reservation for it, and you need to undergo some background testing...and no cameras... Lots of nice craters though!

 

[Cardinal]

If a “nuclear reactor” explodes, is that not a nuclear explosion?

Not necessarily. It depends on whether the cause of the explosion itself was fissile. If it was an explosion that happened in proximity to nuclear material, then it's a nuclear disaster. How bad that disaster is depends on how much nuclear material is released. Technically, you could have a nuclear disaster that's actually worse than a nuclear explosion, although the latter is much more likely to spread out the nuclear material over a much larger area since it'll almost certainly get into the atmosphere, making it a global problem.

 

[Cardinal]

I would just like to note that the state of the country is so effed up right now that almost nobody's talking about the giant nuclear disaster that just happened in Russia.

If this had happened three years ago, nobody would be talking about anything else.