I saw a video that said that Chernobyl will not be habitable for another 20,000 years. I was curious as to why it takes so long to clean up radioactive contamination? Also for Chernobyl specifically as technology progresses couldn’t we find new methods that significantly reduce the amount it takes for Chernobyl to be habitable again?
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In: Chemistry
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A lot of radiation you just can’t clean up; it’s in the fauna, the ground, the water, everything.
When we give these measures of how long it’ll take for these places to be habitable again, it’s not a measure of how long it’ll take us to clean up, it’s a measure of how long it’ll take for the radioactive material to decay to a negligible degree.
Most radioactive contamination is tiny particles. It’s basically dust and soot. It’s hard to separate from soil and water. It can blow around in the wind and can be even transported on animals. Sometimes it can even be a gas. That said, usually the really dangerous stuff decays very rapidly, so a site is safer months and weeks and especially after decades. The risk is highest soon after the accident.
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Because the contamination is the in form of really small particles. Like they max out at the size of dust. And get all the way down to individual atoms.
There’s simply no practical way to remove those particles without completely destroying everything in the area. Like you would have to scoop up *everything* several feet deep and then somehow remove the radioactive material. Which we have no quick way of doing.
I work as an engineer at a radiation based medical center and deal with low level waste daily. The short answer is that there really isn’t a short answer, there’s a lot of nuance and specifics that prevent blanket answers. That said I’ll do my best.
Essentially the problem with radiation is that it’s invisible and undetectable without a meter. This makes it difficult to find the radiation or to know if you’ve received a dangerous does or not. There is no safe dose so minimizing dose is critical.
The way you use meters is also extremely important because not all meters will pick up all forms of radiation and they’re specific about how they need to be used.
The problem with Chernobyl is not just the scale of the contamination, but the type of contamination. Lots of neutron radiative material was released and that specific form of radiation can activate other materials and turn them radioactive.
It’s incredibly hazardous and frankly it’s easier/cheaper to just call the area a loss and seal it up.
Radioactive contamination is when tiny particles of radioactive elements get stuck on stuff. At Chernobyl, over 50 *tons* of radioactive particles were released into the air and deposited in thin layers over everything in a wide area. The buildings, the sidewalks, the streets, the plants, the soil, groundwater…etc. The only way to get rid of it is to move all of the contaminated stuff to somewhere safe for storage until the radiation naturally decays.
In the case of Chernobyl, that means you have to take apart thousands of buildings, root up and bury millions of trees, and thousands of square kilometers of grass and dirt, do all of that without releasing more radioactive dust into the environment to spread, and then bury all that stuff somewhere far away from people where the radiation can decay.
Now, The Soviet Union did remove large amounts of trees and topsoil and buried it safely, but it’s just not possible to completely do that over the entire contaminated area, and there’s nothing anyone can do about the groundwater. At the end of the day, the only feasible thing is to just isolate the area and let the radiation naturally decay.
In terms of technology, there’s just not really anything that can be done. We’re talking about countless numbers of tiny particles stuck to everything and in everything. There’s just no technology grab them up the rate that the radiation decays can’t be changed, so we just have to wait.
Its not that cleanup will take 20000 years, it is that chernobyl will naturally clean its self up in 20000 years.
We are scheduled to finish clean up by 2065, but certain things are not even planned to be cleaned up because doing so isnt profitable, in other words clean up would cost more than the recovered land would be worth plus the cost of containment. containment is really effective in such accidents and so there just isnt a reason to try to clean up the most dangerous places.
Future tech will probiably make it easier, and it might be cleaned up in the future, but “sci-fi may tip the profit calculations leading to eventual cleanup” isnt as good of headline as “This place will be dangerous for 20000 YEARS!”
Materials are made of chemicals. Chemicals are made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of a nucleus with some electrons floating around it. A nucleus is stuffed full of protons and neutrons. Radioactivity happens when there are too many things stuffed into the nucleus, causing particles to be ejected from the nucleus.
To clean the radioactive material, you have to remove the nuclei. You can’t clean it up with chemical reactions because the atoms are still there. You could break the nuclei apart so they’re no longer too full, but that requires firing particles at them. Good luck hitting them all.
Imagine someone dumped 10 buckets of glitter all over a town. To get rid of it you would have to dig up all the soil and sift it for glitter, wash all the rocks, and find all the plants that absorbed any of the glitter. Not only that, you’d still have to put the glitter somewhere. Might as well just put a fence around the area instead.
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