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A nuclear meltdown (core meltdown, core melt accident, meltdown or partial core melt [2]) is a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term nuclear meltdown is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency [ 3 ] or by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission . [ 4 ]
Alternately, an external fire may endanger the core, leading to a meltdown. Large-scale nuclear meltdowns at civilian nuclear power plants include: [13] [62] the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, United States, in 1979. the Chernobyl disaster at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine, USSR, in 1986.
This was followed by a steam explosion that exposed the fuel, a raging fire, and a core meltdown. The fire lasted for days to weeks, and there is controversy over whether it was the fuel burning, nuclear decay heating or whether the graphite moderator that made up most of the core was involved. See Chernobyl Disaster, Note 1, for more discussion.
As Japan prepares to mark the 13th anniversary of its worst-ever nuclear disaster, the man in charge of cleaning it up says his team is fighting to bring a sample out of the heart of the site's ...
The effects of a nuclear explosion on its immediate vicinity are typically much more destructive and multifaceted than those caused by conventional explosives. In most cases, the energy released from a nuclear weapon detonated within the lower atmosphere can be approximately divided into four basic categories: [ 1 ]
"Compared with other nuclear events: The Chernobyl explosion put 400 times more radioactive material into the Earth's atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; atomic weapons tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s all together are estimated to have put some 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than the ...
The plant supplies 6% of California's power, but carries a 1 in 37,000 chance of experiencing a Chernobyl-style nuclear meltdown within five years. Earthquake risks and rising costs: The price of ...
Globally, there have been at least 99 (civilian and military) recorded nuclear power plant accidents from 1952 to 2009 (defined as incidents that either resulted in the loss of human life or more than US$50,000 of property damage, the amount the US federal government uses to define nuclear energy accidents that must be reported), totaling US$20.5 billion in property damages.