Chernobyl's Radiation

[Souper]

How many seiverts of radiation / second is found inside Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor at present day?

And how long would a human without radiation suit survive inside?

[PakledHostage]

Try this link:

lmgtfy

[Rus-Evo]

I find Chernobyl fascinating, is it weird that I really want to visit?

[lajoswinkler]

I don't know how true are these readings, but here's a start.

http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation-levels

It' is a known fact that today, the levels around the power plant are only several times above background levels, with exception of some spots and some organisms like fungi and moss which accumulate certain elements.

"Inside #4 reactor" - what does that mean? The reactor is blown apart, it does not exist anymore. I suspect that the levels while standing on the UBS would be few Sv/h, and near the solidified lava in the basement they're probably tens of Sv/h or more. My counter goes to 5 Sv/h, which is insanely high and expected to occur near the blast zone of an atomic attack.

[Souper]

5 sv/h is 'Insanely High?' XD You must be kidding me. I was expecting something along the line of 1 sv PER SECOND, which would kill you in...7-8 seconds.

5 sv/h would take 2 hours to kill you. That's more then enough time to escape.

Come back to the irradiated spitoon when were' talking about SERIOUS Radiation.

(It takes 6-8 sv to kill someone)

[rtxoff]

5 sv/h is 'Insanely High?' XD You must be kidding me. I was expecting something along the line of 1 sv PER SECOND, which would kill you in...7-8 seconds.

5 sv/h would take 2 hours to kill you. That's more then enough time to escape.

Come back to the irradiated spitoon when were' talking about SERIOUS Radiation.

(It takes 6-8 sv to kill someone)

Hmmm that is a matter of perspective, if it takes 6-8 sv to kill someone then i say 5 sv/h is deadly if you are going to have a nap there.

But yes, lajoswinkler is right. Compared to normal background radiation 5sv/h is insane, no wonder the scale of his counter maxes out at this value.

[RuBisCO]

Life finds a way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus

[Souper]

Hmmm that is a matter of perspective, if it takes 6-8 sv to kill someone then i say 5 sv/h is deadly if you are going to have a nap there.

But yes, lajoswinkler is right. Compared to normal background radiation 5sv/h is insane, no wonder the scale of his counter maxes out at this value.

Well of course longterm 5 sv/h is deadly! I was referring to short-term exposure.

[lajoswinkler]

5 sv/h is 'Insanely High?' XD You must be kidding me. I was expecting something along the line of 1 sv PER SECOND, which would kill you in...7-8 seconds.

5 sv/h would take 2 hours to kill you. That's more then enough time to escape.

Come back to the irradiated spitoon when were' talking about SERIOUS Radiation.

(It takes 6-8 sv to kill someone)

I don't think you have a grasp of exponential function...

Yes, 5 Sv/h is insanely high. It will make you sick very, very fast.

Normal values at my place are around 0.2 μSv/h, meaning that 5 Sv/h is 25 million. Hundreds of Sv/h, specifically the quoted 300 Sv/h value, which was present on the roof near the crater, is only 60 times higher than that. The doses would be a higher right above the wreckage or if you sticked the detector in it, obviously.

[xcorps]

I remember an interview with one of the firefighters who died. He said he could feel and taste the radiation, like pins and needles all over his face. That has got to be a horrible experience.

[lajoswinkler]

I remember an interview with one of the firefighters who died. He said he could feel and taste the radiation, like pins and needles all over his face. That has got to be a horrible experience.

The taste was due to the actual chemical substances being released. Small amounts of elemental iodine, salts of caesium, iodine, organoiodine compounds, etc. The aerosol would have a weird taste.

Pins and needles, that was probably a combination of facial nerve dying and severe stress. It's not like their clothes were stopping the rays hitting them, so that only their faces were exposed.

[phoenix_ca]

Radiation suit? What radiation suit? To block gamma radiation effectively you'd need to be wearing a bunch of lead (or tungsten, or some other similarly effective material). Maybe we'll see things in the future that use exoskeleton robotics to allow a human to actually carry all that weight around, but for now...yeah no. Protection from radiation is based on preventing contamination of the squishy human (so filtering air, water, and food for radioactive contaminants, as well as keeping any radioactive elements from actually reaching the squishy meatbag's skin), to prevent the really bad situation of actually having highly radioactive radioisotopes in one's body, and then just limiting the total dose received to acceptable levels.

Edit: Actually there's some word that Japan might be doing this already. Not much surprise there. The nation with one of the most high-tech robotics industries on the planet, and a nuclear disaster in their back yard, making a robotic suit to help protect the people working in that area from radiation.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/07/cyberdyne-turns-its-hal-exoskeleton-into-an-anti-radiation-suit/

http://www.gizmag.com/japanese-first-responders-robotic-exoskeleton/24555/

Edited June 27, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[Souper]

I don't think you have a grasp of exponential function...

Yes, 5 Sv/h is insanely high. It will make you sick very, very fast.

Normal values at my place are around 0.2 μSv/h, meaning that 5 Sv/h is 25 million. Hundreds of Sv/h, specifically the quoted 300 Sv/h value, which was present on the roof near the crater, is only 60 times higher than that. The doses would be a higher right above the wreckage or if you sticked the detector in it, obviously.

5 sv/h, 300 sv/h, that's not enough to kill you in the 15 minutes it takes to get out of there, for sure.

An example: 216,000 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 seconds.

3600 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 minutes.

1 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 hours.

Your 300 sv/h is useless against my body.

You may argue that 300 sv/h is huge in comparison with background radiation? I'm talking about overall radiation. Not just background radiation, foreground radiation as well!

PLEASE can we keep this on a short-term exposure scale?

[ecat]

I don't know how true are these readings, but here's a start.

http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation-levels

It' is a known fact that today, the levels around the power plant are only several times above background levels, with exception of some spots and some organisms like fungi and moss which accumulate certain elements.

"Inside #4 reactor" - what does that mean? The reactor is blown apart, it does not exist anymore. I suspect that the levels while standing on the UBS would be few Sv/h, and near the solidified lava in the basement they're probably tens of Sv/h or more. My counter goes to 5 Sv/h, which is insanely high and expected to occur near the blast zone of an atomic attack.

To add a little more perspective, the naturally occurring background radiation levels in parts of Finland reach 7 mSv a year, about 0.8uSv/h if I'm allowed to scale in a linear fashion. It's worth keeping this in mind when looking at the table of "levels of radiation as measured in 2009" about half way down the linked page.

I also think all topics about nuclear reactors should include this (skip to around 12:12 for the explosions):

and the less sensationalist but even more interesting

Edited June 27, 2014 by ecat

[Tommygun]

It might not kill you in 15 minutes, but 5 or 10 years later, you will probably have a good chance of getting leukemia or cancer.

[Z-Man]

An example: 216,000 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 seconds.

3600 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 minutes.

1 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 hours.

Umm, your math is wonky. short bursts of radiation are not less lethal than longer periods of the same total radiation. If 1 Sv/h kills you in 6-8 hours, and an hour has 60 minutes, then 60 Sv/h kill you in 6-8 minutes, and 3600 Sv/h in 6-8 seconds. 300 Sv/h kills you in a minute.

(Plus, expect a 10% chance to die soonish at 1-2 Sv already. 6-10 Sv is only "needed" if you want to be sure. So don't linger around.)

[78stonewobble]

"Bionerd23" here... Has a series of youtube videos about a trip to the chernobyl exclusion zone and the plant. Finding among other things... radioactive ants (they're not giant like in fallout tho).

[Nibb31]

Animals are less affected by humans because their average lifespan is shorter, therefore they die of natural causes before any cancer or leukemia has time to develop.

[lajoswinkler]

5 sv/h, 300 sv/h, that's not enough to kill you in the 15 minutes it takes to get out of there, for sure.

An example: 216,000 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 seconds.

3600 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 minutes.

1 sv/h will kill you in 6-8 hours.

Your 300 sv/h is useless against my body.

You may argue that 300 sv/h is huge in comparison with background radiation? I'm talking about overall radiation. Not just background radiation, foreground radiation as well!

PLEASE can we keep this on a short-term exposure scale?

Ok, short term exposure scale.

300 Sv/h means you'll get 5 sieverts in one minute. Let's say you wander around that roof for one minute and then you're suddenly somewhere far away from it. Your acute dose - 5 Sv.

That's approximately a LD₅₀ dose and will lead to death of approx. 50% of subjects (medically taken care of) in the following month, so you have 50% chance of dying in the next 30 days.

Acute effects? Yes, it will make you sick in the following minutes. You will vomit and get diarrhea, and your skin will get mild burns. Such dosage is not "useless against your body". It would incapacitate you quickly. It will kill most of your immune system, rendering you vulnerable to fungi, viruses and bacteria. Your total blood count would become severely disrupted later that day.

Edited June 27, 2014 by lajoswinkler

[Redjoker]

Since this discussion seems to have moved on to radiation doses, this might interest some of you: https://xkcd.com/radiation/

It is a chart showing the amount of radiation received from various sources from eating a banana to ten minutes next to reactor 4 shortly after the meltdown.

[Seret]

You will vomit and get diarrhea, and your skin will get mild burns.

I should point out that when lajoswinkler says "mild burns" he means mild as in "first degree". What you'd actually feel is the worst case of sunburn you've had, all over your body. You'd be very ill and in a lot of pain.

[Random Tank]

Radiation suit? What radiation suit? To block gamma radiation effectively you'd need to be wearing a bunch of lead (or tungsten, or some other similarly effective material). Maybe we'll see things in the future that use exoskeleton robotics to allow a human to actually carry all that weight around, but for now...yeah no.

We can very easily protect from Alpha, as skin stop that (just don't open your mouth ), and a body suit *could* protect from Beta (You only need something as dense as aluminium foil isn't it?), but yeah, as you say, Gamma is a completely different story. Good Luck.

It might not kill you in 15 minutes, but 5 or 10 years later, you will probably have a good chance of getting leukemia or cancer.

Yeah, apparently that'll happen to most people anyway. :\

[Jouni]

I find Chernobyl fascinating, is it weird that I really want to visit?

Chernobyl itself is quite boring: a generic industrial complex, a small village with some old people, and a surprisingly white statue of Lenin. The neighboring Pripyat, on the other hand, is much more interesting.

Visiting Chernobyl used to be quite straightforward, but I'm not sure how the current situation in Ukraine has affected it. It's also relatively safe. If you don't do anything too stupid, the radiation dose from a day trip to Chernobyl is roughly equivalent to an intercontinental flight. The detoriated buildings in Pripyat are a much bigger danger.

[lajoswinkler]

I should point out that when lajoswinkler says "mild burns" he means mild as in "first degree". What you'd actually feel is the worst case of sunburn you've had, all over your body. You'd be very ill and in a lot of pain.

Exactly. Total body in first degree burns. Beta rays are the most responsible rays for those burns, and they penetrate into our skin.

We are to gamma rays more like ghosts, they shoot right through us and don't deliver as much energy as one would think.

The pain would be severe, as it was with first responders. Few minutes more and the burns reach second degree, with necrosis, oedema, all leading to the detachment of it from deeper tissues. The skin gets darker and peels away.

Epithelium lining of various cavities inside our bodies sheds, so you vomit your stomach lining (and the acid eats your stomach - painful!), and you poop your colon lining. Bloody tissue in your poop.

Basically, it's a horrible mess that gets worse as your immune system starts failing.

We can very easily protect from Alpha, as skin stop that (just don't open your mouth ), and a body suit *could* protect from Beta (You only need something as dense as aluminium foil isn't it?), but yeah, as you say, Gamma is a completely different story. Good Luck.

Beta is weird. It's best to stop soft beta rays with plastic or glass. Hard beta goes through it and is stopped by something like 1 cm of aluminium plate or a lead foil, but when it hits the metallic surface, it produces brehmstrahlung. Those electrons slow down and release x-rays, so you get bathed in that.

The best thing is a dense, thick layer of plastic doped with heavy metals, and a lead foil beneath it, and that's exactly the stuff being worn by liquidators.

(note the white fog on the film coming from the ground and leaving a shadow where film perforations are)

You can't avoid gamma, but for the reasons mentioned in my reply to Seret, the danger can be avoided by limiting exposure and increasing the distance.

[lajoswinkler]

In case anyone wants to know common values for ionizing radiation (cosmic rays, radon) in Europe, this is the place to look for.

http://eurdepweb.jrc.ec.europa.eu/EurdepMap/Default.aspx

Some stations monitor becquerels of Cs-137 and I-131 in cubic metres of air, too. It's nice to see they're all zero.