Just so you’re up to speed: Sources in the nuclear field tell us there is an incident underway at a Russian nuclear power station near St. Petersburg, Russia.
From the initial reports circulating in the industry, it seems to have been a failure Friday on the secondary side of the reactor, not the primary side. Our initial input seems to suggest that it may not amount to much and while there may be some minor radioactivity release, it is not likely to be the kind of event to require evacuations.
As with Fukushima, or to a lesser degree, Three Miles Island back in the day here, the big challenge for these older plant designs is keep the core cooled even when shut down, which appears to be going on now.
We understand the plant involved to be the Leningrad Power Plant in Sosnovy Bor which is 43 miles (80 clicks) west of St. Petersburg.
But what puts this on our radar is that the plant involved consists of four of the RMBK-1000 reactors which is of the same type as Chernobyl.
There was been some tracking in media (Russian) (example here) but no play here in the West yet.
A Wikipedia page exists on the plant here.
In a “chalk it up as strange” the last time we got a blip out of the Leningrad Oblast area was in September when a “Mysterious deal create [was] found near the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant.”
For now, looks like the Russian response and been fast and effective, but whenever a Chernobyl-type reactor is involved, U.S. and multinational experts pay really close attention. Because, as one of our sources tells us…”..as long as the core is cool, things are cool…”
“Mysterious deal create” link leads to story entitled “Mysterious dead creature found near the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant”, in case anyone was wondering if this was a financial story rather than an X-Files story. You might want to turn off the automatic autocorrect that comes with your wordprocessing program or have it simply suggest — not automatically make — “corrections”. You can then build your own autocorrect dictionary and be less likely later to see something strange pop up in an article you type.
Well there’s a nice holiday topic – NOT!
Here in the Pacific Northwest not much is mentioned about ‘radioactivity’; don’t know if we are ‘whistling in the dark’ or what . . .
The ‘accident that shall not be named in Japan’ hardly rates a mention anymore . . . watch for the problem in Russia to go away.
All that makes people nervous ‘don’tcha know’.
Perhaps your better half, Panama or Zeus could proofread your blogs before posting. :~) Merry Christmas!
Amazing how we blab about the Russian Plant. And never about the Indian River Plant which shut down for the 5th time this year.
Central New Mexico rad counts are normal for this area. I’m sure that there is serious concern in the PNW, west coast, Japan, and now Russia, but here it’s normal.
Everyone needs their own radiation detector for peace of mind, if nothing else. Ideally a gamma spectrometer, but a decent geiger counter is OK. There’s too many words out there and not enough real and honest public data.
George, as a reader of Mary Summer Rain’s material, then you know she predicted a 2nd meltdown….which I am ass-uming is Fukeshema (sp)…but what if it is going to be stateside? She recommends no one live within a certain radius of a nuclear power plant. I wish this country would go non-nuclear, but it appears as if it will never happen. Too many ignorant trough feeders….all up in ‘arms’ over the global warming hoax…we in Austin MIGHT break a 1947 record of 84 degrees….was there global warming in 1947????? Really now? Um, hmmmmmmm…..hmm. I remember in 1982, it was 75 degrees in Dallas at Thanksgiving….no global warming then! I also remember in 1984, the earliest snowfall on record in Denver, no global warming then!
Can you do a column on MSR’s predictions and correlate that with your research? That might be a good educator to your readers – a mind opening experience, instead of mind bending or who hoo….
fine idea, as time permits