Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of ...
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The reactor accident began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the ...
Study of the environmental impact of war focuses on the modernization of warfare and its increasing effects on the environment. Scorched earth methods have been used for much of recorded history. However, the methods of modern warfare cause far greater devastation on the environment. The progression of warfare from chemical weapons to nuclear ...
The Rocky Flats Plant, a former United States nuclear weapons production facility located about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Denver, caused radioactive (primarily plutonium, americium, and uranium) contamination within and outside its boundaries. [1] The contamination primarily resulted from two major plutonium fires in 1957 and 1969 ...
e. Since the mid-20th century, plutonium in the environment has been primarily produced by human activity. The first plants to produce plutonium for use in Cold War atomic bombs were the Hanford nuclear site, in Washington, and Mayak nuclear plant, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. Over a period of four decades, [1] "both released more than 200 ...
The German environmental minister was given the authority over reactor safety as well, a responsibility the current minister still holds today. The Chernobyl disaster is also credited with strengthening the anti-nuclear movement in Germany , which culminated in the decision to end the use of nuclear power made by the 1998–2005 Schröder ...
Downwinders were individuals and communities in the intermountain West between the Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges primarily in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah but also in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho who were exposed to radioactive contamination or nuclear fallout from atmospheric or underground nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear accidents.
Nuclear reactor accidents continued into the 1960s with a small test reactor exploding at the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One in Idaho Falls in January 1961 resulting in three deaths which were the first fatalities in the history of U.S. nuclear reactor operations. [6] There was also a partial meltdown at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear ...