hello there just before we kick off today's video i want to give a quick plug to a brand
new channel from me called into the shadows if the name doesn't give it away the channel is very
much focused on the darker side of everything early episodes have covered things such as how
we fight the world's deadliest diseases how the congo suffered the worst of colonialism and how
the nazis escaped europe to south america so if you'd like to explore the darker side of history
science and a lot else please check out into the shadows there is a link below and now
today's video enrico fermi set the groundwork for nuclear power back in the 1930s by the 1940s we
had all the horrible evidence we needed of the awesome power that splitting an atom can produce
today there are almost 14 000 nuclear warheads in the world down from an all-time high of over
70 000 in the 1980s around the world there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 30 different
countries there have also been multiple major nuclear accidents in history with
all that going on it's no wonder there are quite a number of interesting nucleus sites out there
10. chernobyl the chernobyl nuclear power plant may be the most famous nuclear site and accident
in history located at a town called prippet in the north of ukraine the plant exploded on the 26th of
april 1986 an excessive amount of steam built up after plant operators shut off safety systems that
prevent proper cooling against regulation power surged in a reactor and they couldn't shut it
down two workers died in the initial explosion but many more would die in the coming days after being
exposed to high levels of radiation it took 10 days to get the fire put out and the work of 250
firefighters the nearby town of prippett was also not evacuated until 36 hours later but by that
point many residents were already showing signs of acute radiation poisoning 28 noble workers died
within the first four months after the accident many of these workers willingly exposed themselves
to radiation knowing full well what would happen as they attempted to fix the problem by 2015 there
was evidence that as many as 20 000 people who were still children when the plant exploded had
come down with thyroid conditions currently the area around chernobyl is still heavily irradiated
they sealed the reactor in a concrete sarcophagus which they reinforced in 2017. there's a thousand
square mile exclusion zone around the plant in which no unauthorized personnel are supposed to
enter although many people return to their homes and they still allow tourists to go in 9. world's
largest plant with over 400 nuclear power plants in the world it should come as no surprise that
they're not all built the same way and some are larger than others the largest plant in the world
is the cachawazi kariwa power station located in japan the plant features seven reactors and
generates 8 212 megawatts of power that provides electricity to 16 million homes an earthquake hit
the plant in 2007 but officials determined that no significant damage took place three years later a
6.9 earthquake struck the area and the reactors continued working the entire time with only one
shutting down later when an aftershock tripped an alert briefly four stories of the plants
foundation are fixed underwater into bedrock and sand to help reinforce the structure this
is because japan sits on four tectonic plates and is extremely earthquake prone number eight oldest
plants in december 2019 florida power and light company made a request to the federal government
to keep two nuclear reactors in operation for another 20 years past the end of their license
they were granted permission which would mean the turkey point nuclear power plants would
be the oldest operating nuclear power plant in the world by the time its license ended in fact
the two reactors at the site will be 80 years old there has been some concern that the government is
interested in extending the lifespan of nuclear plants that were never meant to operate for so
long especially under such harsh conditions around the world most other countries are scaling back
nuclear power in favor of more renewable and safe energy sources experts pointed out that the older
nuclear power plant gets the less safe it becomes even the safety features inside of it become
brittle from years of nuclear bombardment and if something goes wrong it can be harder to contain
the problem the older the plant gets 7. natural reactor although a lot of thought and technology
went into the creation of nuclear power plants the basic idea is not one that relies on technology
in fact if you head to gabon in western africa you could find the site of 17 natural nuclear
fission reactors these formed spontaneously two billion years ago and produced enough power to
light up a thousand light bulbs these natural reactors were likely producing power for upwards
of a million years and nuclear by-products were safely contained at the site as well
this had some significant repercussions for us in the modern ages it proves that geological storage
is something that can happen safely and securely the natural reactors produce nuclear reactions
in a nearly identical way to man-made reactors uranium atoms break part releasing energy which
was slowed down by the presence of water in a way that maintains the reaction for extended periods
6. the polygon aside from having a cool mysterious nickname the polygon also has a terrifying and
dangerous history covering an 18 500 square kilometer chunk of land in kazakhstan the
testing grounds known as the polygon is where the soviet union tested their nuclear weapons program
between 1949 and 1963 the soviets conducted 110 above-ground nuclear tests in this area
as horrifying as that sounds it becomes even worse when you realize this was a populated area
kazakhstani officials believe about 1.5 million people were exposed to fallout in the area
and this doesn't take into account the underground testing which continued until 1989.
research on the health of the people who lived in the area during the testing as well as their
children and grandchildren has shown patterns of cancer as well as some preliminary evidence that
cardiovascular health might suffer and be passed down genetically at least one test at the polygon
conducted in 1953 dropped a nuclear bomb that was 25 times more powerful than the one exploded at
hiroshima none of the residents in the area were warned that the tests were happening or evacuated
to prevent exposure when kazakhstan gained independence from the soviet union officials
from moscow removed medical records from the area 5. marshall islands while most people are likely
to list chernobyl at the top of the places they wouldn't want to visit for fear of being exposed
to radiation the marshall islands is a place that you definitely don't want to go anywhere near over
60 years later the site where the united states tested their nuclear weapons is still about 10
times more radioactive than chernobyl the first bomb detonated at the marshall islands was set
off on the 25th of july 1946 on bikini atoll five years later they tested the first hydrogen
bomb there three years after that they tested a bomb a thousand times more powerful than the one
detonated over hiroshima 67 different nuclear weapons were tested on the marshall islands and
the devastation is visible from space one of the islands features something called the dome
which is a giant crater filled with 85 000 cubic meters of radioactive waste covering concrete
if sea levels continue to rise the area will flood and radioactive waste will probably escape number
four goyania brazil one of the most bizarre and dangerous nuclear incidents in history took place
in goyania in brazil and most people have never heard of it before there was no nuclear reactor
in goyania nor was there a weapon tested there and waste wasn't stored there either but there
was a hospital and they had abandoned it in 1987 scavengers entered the abandoned hospital in town
and discovered an old teletherapy unit used for cancer treatment the machine had a cesium-137
nuclear core which nobody realized thieves took the old unit and began to disassemble it in the
hopes of selling it for scrap metal they released the radioactive core and immediately exposed
themselves to high levels of radiation because it glowed blue one of the men was fascinated by it
and shared it with friends and family in total 112 000 people have been exposed to radiation and 249
had been hit with significant doses evidence of radiation was detected 100 miles away
one of the men who first discovered it got so badly sick that he had to have his arm amputated
they brought in experts from both the united states and the soviet union once officials
determined that there was a radiation leak somewhere four people ended up dying from
exposure and 40 homes had to be demolished because it irradiated the buildings themselves aside from
the physical effects of radiation that thousands of others suffered the entire town was shunned and
the brazilian government overhauled laws relating to the storage of radioactive materials 3. hanford
washington if you were to look at old photos of hanford washington it would look like any other
quaint little american town that changed in the year 1943 when the war department told residents
they needed to relocate because the manhattan project was moving in hanford is where the united
states produced plutonium for their nuclear weapons program during the second world war
in 1947 the program picked up steam to meet the demands of the cold war and continued all the
way until 1987 when they finally closed down the reactor as a result of the processing and refining
of nuclear materials on the site the area around hanford became something of a nuclear wasteland
solid and liquid waste polluted the area including the columbia river number two yucca mountain the
yucca mountain nuclear waste repository isn't like any other nuclear site in the world because
it's not actually a nuclear site at all despite the fact that the project was approved in the
year 2002 and was funded all the way through 2011 there's just short of nothing at the location now
and there's no plan for anything to be developed there in the future either yucca mountain was
designed to be a storage facility for nuclear waste materials including spent nuclear fuel
and other high-level radioactive waste a five-mile long tunnel was dug into the mountain and the plan
was for the facility to be able to store 77 000 metric tons of waste in 40 miles worth of tunnels
the u.s government invested about 9 billion in geological surveys and other research in the area
they halted all work in 2009 when the obama administration began the process of closing it
down although the trump administration requested funding to begin licensing activity on the site
again the senate refused the proposal and it went nowhere today the facility is nothing more than a
boarded-up tunnel 1. waste isolation pilot plant nuclear power produces nuclear waste this is one
of the big drawbacks of the power source which is otherwise not as dangerous to the environment as
burning fossil fuels the problem with high-level nuclear waste is that it stays radioactive for
just shy of forever it needs to be stored safely for years upon years upon years other less
dangerous waste is actually reprocessed back into nuclear plants or can be stored safely until it
becomes less dangerous the radioactivity of quite a bit of nuclear waste will decrease to 1 1000th
of the level it started at after just 40 years in storage so while nuclear waste can actually
become easier to manage after several decades the fact is that it needs to be managed somewhere and
that's where the waste isolation pilot plant comes in located deep in assault formation in new mexico
the site is licensed to hold spent nuclear waste from america's nuclear weapons program
for 10 000 years the facility currently contains over 2.7 million cubic feet of nuclear waste
sometime between 2025 and 2035 it's set to be closed the walls will be collapsed and the idea
is that salt and water will flood through the area creating a natural tomb for the waste material
knowing that the facility needs to stay safe for ten thousand years the government has worked with
linguists and others to develop a warning system to keep future humans away from the site a massive
wall with pillars and warnings written in seven different languages will hopefully do the trick
so i really hope you found today's video interesting if you did please do hit that
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