Inside a Russian Nuclear Power Plant
This power plant is situated near Smolensk city. Its power generation potential is 3 Megawatt and it was build for 8 years, from 1982 to 1990. There were planned to be four nuclear reactors, but because of the panic after the Chernobyl accident the forth block has not been completed, so there are three of them for now.
Let’s go inside.
In Russia there are now 10 active power plants. This one produces 1/7 of the overral electricity outcome of Russian nuclear powerplants, so it is a big one.
Because this powerplant was completed after the Chernobyl, they paid a special attention to secure it from alike accidents. There is even a saying that “The sci-fi writers are on the second place by richness of imagination, the first place is occupied by the nuclear plant security engineers”, meaning that they need to make it safe just for some unimaginable events that not very likely to happen, but still the security system should be ready for them.
The outside structure that secures reactors themselves can stand the blast that exceeds ten times the power of atomic bomb blast, just imagine.
There is a 30km (18 miles) security zone around the plant itself. It’s literary filled with all sorts of sensors and monitoring devices that measure the condition of the environment and should report any smallest deviation from normal radiation doses. There is also a water pound, the normal thing on such an object, that stores strategic reserve of water, which is said to be very clean and is fishing there is the big dream for every local – it doesn’t freezes in winter and has plenty of different fish species.
The entrance to the station has a few protection levels, including palm scan, checking weight (it shouldn’t) differ from the number on profile.
Everyone should be dressed into uniform.
Everyone gets personal radiation checker.
The main reactor hall, the reactor itself is in the concrete reactor cavity
The nuclear fuel used is Uranium255
It is placed in those green tubes.
One can see the blue glow at 2.5 meteres (8 feet) deep. It is because of Cerenkov effect “electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through an insulator at a speed greater than the speed of light in that medium”.
The main control point.
photo credit: Ilya Varlamov
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“Its power generation potential is 3 Megawatt”
That’s need to be 3 Gigawatt. 3 megawatt is 2 windplant.
The fuel should read as Uranium 235, not 255. Amazing pictures though, great photography and looks like an awesome experience.
All this for 3 Megawatts? That has to be a typo.
You need to correct the power output. I don’t know about this facility specifically but the average nuclear plant makes about 1000 megawatts, so this one surely makes more than 3. Perhaps you meant 3 gigawatts.
Everything is white for a hi-tech look. The hardware and machining of parts is still sub-standard soviet quality. Look at the tubing and railings.. 1920’s tolerance standards. The metering and control switches are old and untrustworthy. The workers are underpaid and hung-over. (Ya znayu, Ya Russki) The result is a good cosmetic look with a very high propensity for a hardware or human failure. Then add the legacy of 20,000 years of safe radioactive waste containment. Let’s see, 1 Chernobyl and one Three mile island in 40 years so far. Then we have to keep the waste secured for 4 times as long as recorded human history. Solar has no possible accident or failure modes, yet we shun it like the plague and embrace a guaranteed catastrophe like this. Let’s say we exterminate ourselves and the human population re-surfaces 15, 000 years from now. They mistakenly dig up a containment site and life on earth is once again completely exterminated. Now that’s a legacy! That- is arrogance beyond
measure. Wake up- buck vested interests- Go Solar.
Herp derp на Чернобыльской АЭС.
Sheesh… this looks to be right out of a Chernobyl documentary that I’ve seen.
“power generation potential is 3 Megawatt” …. I hope that’s Gigawatts.
Amazing photographs!!
what’s with that hate, Bob?
Again, thanks to Ilya Varlamov for the Photographs! I’m in love with the photo of the woman handing out gloves.
This is so cool! It’s amazing to think about the crazy technologies employed in a place like that.
What is “modern” about this plant? It’s one of these outdated and risky Cernobyl-RBMK-Plants!
read my name.
I think Bob is a retard. Take off those rose-colored sunglasses and realize that sun/wind cannot supply the vast amounts of energy that we need. Just 100g of enriched uranium can supply electricity to 1000+ homes for a year. How many solar panels would be needed for that (which ultimately end up in our landfills – not to mention all the environmental consequences of manufacturing them). We need to focus on improving our nuclear energy technologies to make them more efficient and possibly find a way to harness to energy emitted by the spent fuel.
After looking at these photos I’m still looking for this robust concrete housing that should be protecting the core. Is it just me or does it seem completely open and therefore prone to the same type of catastrophic failure as chernobyl. The control room gages seem very dated, not very reassuring… the way this article touts the safety systems at the plant suggests complacency in the work going on there. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to shovel concrete onto the reactor core when it melts down, but that’s just me…