There are multiple steps in recovery from a nuclear accident or bomb. First and most important, the need to get rid of the nuclear waste and sanitize the area from anything that poses a potential threat to health. The second the need to clean up the damages and begin reconstruction. Or in rare situations, the first reaction is to abandon everything, and get out of the contaminated area. The second step to this is to find a new place to inhabit.
In both of these situations there is a large concern to avoid as much radiation as possible. Nuclear irradiation is in in way one of the worst jobs ever. Once you have been exposed to radiation, there is no getting rid of this excess energy. This excess energy know as nuclear energy which is so called because of how unstable it is carries radioactive (active, non stable radio waves) waves. What actually happens is the radio waves destroy cells by knocking electrons out of orbit and depending on the amount of radiation, may or may not be recoverable. This process is called ionizing radiation. Ionization includes the natural process of a nucleus of an atom undergoing nuclear decay and becoming a more stable atom over time. Modern day ionization also includes the process in which we must store or isolate this waste until the decay process of decay is complete. This decay process can take anywhere from seconds to thousands of years.
Stowing away waste has changed and been improved in many ways. Scientist were not always aware of how to protect people cleaning up this waste. The level of awareness for such waste has also increased. Radiation sickness is much more of a common knowledge than most people realize. The most common form of radiation sickness is mutation. As mutation is commonly thought of on a large scale, most people do not realize that cancer is a form of this mutation. Cancer is mutation on a microscopic scale. The one thing that has not changed in waste management as far as nuclear waste is the way in which burring or covering the waste is one of the safest methods to quickly dispose of it.
All of this gives reason as to why the job of cleaning up the hazard zone becomes difficult. Even with some of the most advanced radiation suits there is still some radiation that comes into the suit. Not only does the cleanup crew have to hurry, but they also have to be careful of the physical integrity of the structure (or whats left of it). While radiation is harmful to living things, it does do damage to non-living things. An example is a microwave, microwaves heat up food and may cause it to become soft. On the grand scale of a nuclear reactor with massive loads of energy that are distributed, the surrounding area and materials are destroyed by this energy as the unstable nucleons can knock electrons out of orbit, and change the chemical structure of the atoms composing the material, usually making them weaker, but in all cases making them irregular, or to some form which is unexpected.
The greatest example of this cleanup is by far Chernobyl. Even today, this city is forbidden as the decay process is not yet complete for an estimated 1,000 years. The amazing thing to image is that this incident happened 20 years ago, and is about 200 times less radioactive then it was during the time of the accident. The children of the "liquidators" even face problems due to this radiation, as their parents had received genetic damages, these were passed on to the children. The change in chemical structure of materials in Chernobyl is so dramatic that the protective shelter built around the reactor which exloded 20 years ago is still undergoing mutation.
Riley, Peter D..Nuclear Waste: Law, Policy, and Pragmatism. Ashgate Publishing. 2004
Medvedev. Žores Aleksandrovič. The Legacy of Chernobyl. W.W. Norton & Company. 1992
In both of these situations there is a large concern to avoid as much radiation as possible. Nuclear irradiation is in in way one of the worst jobs ever. Once you have been exposed to radiation, there is no getting rid of this excess energy. This excess energy know as nuclear energy which is so called because of how unstable it is carries radioactive (active, non stable radio waves) waves. What actually happens is the radio waves destroy cells by knocking electrons out of orbit and depending on the amount of radiation, may or may not be recoverable. This process is called ionizing radiation. Ionization includes the natural process of a nucleus of an atom undergoing nuclear decay and becoming a more stable atom over time. Modern day ionization also includes the process in which we must store or isolate this waste until the decay process of decay is complete. This decay process can take anywhere from seconds to thousands of years.
Stowing away waste has changed and been improved in many ways. Scientist were not always aware of how to protect people cleaning up this waste. The level of awareness for such waste has also increased. Radiation sickness is much more of a common knowledge than most people realize. The most common form of radiation sickness is mutation. As mutation is commonly thought of on a large scale, most people do not realize that cancer is a form of this mutation. Cancer is mutation on a microscopic scale. The one thing that has not changed in waste management as far as nuclear waste is the way in which burring or covering the waste is one of the safest methods to quickly dispose of it.
All of this gives reason as to why the job of cleaning up the hazard zone becomes difficult. Even with some of the most advanced radiation suits there is still some radiation that comes into the suit. Not only does the cleanup crew have to hurry, but they also have to be careful of the physical integrity of the structure (or whats left of it). While radiation is harmful to living things, it does do damage to non-living things. An example is a microwave, microwaves heat up food and may cause it to become soft. On the grand scale of a nuclear reactor with massive loads of energy that are distributed, the surrounding area and materials are destroyed by this energy as the unstable nucleons can knock electrons out of orbit, and change the chemical structure of the atoms composing the material, usually making them weaker, but in all cases making them irregular, or to some form which is unexpected.
The greatest example of this cleanup is by far Chernobyl. Even today, this city is forbidden as the decay process is not yet complete for an estimated 1,000 years. The amazing thing to image is that this incident happened 20 years ago, and is about 200 times less radioactive then it was during the time of the accident. The children of the "liquidators" even face problems due to this radiation, as their parents had received genetic damages, these were passed on to the children. The change in chemical structure of materials in Chernobyl is so dramatic that the protective shelter built around the reactor which exloded 20 years ago is still undergoing mutation.
Riley, Peter D..Nuclear Waste: Law, Policy, and Pragmatism. Ashgate Publishing. 2004
Medvedev. Žores Aleksandrovič. The Legacy of Chernobyl. W.W. Norton & Company. 1992
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