Posted on 11/09/2008 4:31:13 AM PST by Virginia Ridgerunner
The fire safety system on a new Russian nuclear-powered submarine malfunctioned on a test run in the Sea of Japan, spewing chemicals that killed at least 20 people and injured 21 others, officials said Sunday.
It was Russia's worst naval accident since torpedo explosions sank another nuclear-powered submarine, the Kursk, in the Barents Sea in 2000, killing all 118 seamen aboard.
The victims died of poisoning from Freon gas that was released Saturday when the fire-extinguishing system accidentally turned on, said Sergei Markin, an official with Russia's top investigative agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
IIRC, Halon managed to get an exception as it is the only extinguishing agent that can be used in a cleanroom or server farm.
It is impossible for a nuclear reactor to have an atomic explosion and therefore, a Russian submarine reactor would not be able to “take out” a large part of our coast.
There is certainly enough uranium mass to make an atomic bomb, but it has to do with geometry which prevents that possibility. Specifically the volume vs surface area.
The world’s worst nuclear accident (Chernobyl reactor 4) was a steam explosion, then hydrogen explosion and graphite fire. There was no atomic bomb like explosion.
After Chernobyl reactor 4 exploded in 1986, reactor 2 ran until 1991, reactor 1 ran until 1996, and reactor 3 ran until December of 2000.
All of the units at Chernobyl had a common turbine room building, and units 3 and 4 (like units 1 and 2) had a shared yet segmented reactor building.
Take a look at this overhead:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Chernobyl&sll=48.858278,2.294662&sspn=0.00288,0.010042&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=51.389204,30.099814&spn=0.002732,0.013561&t=k&om=1
This is post accident. 4 is on the far left, 3 is to the right of the stack. Scroll right to see 1 & 2, which look a bit different. Unit 5 was nearly complete in 1986, but never finished. I think it is directly north where the cranes are.
The picture doesn’t exactly scream worst nuclear accident in history does it?
“Lev Fyodorov, a top Russian chemical expert, said Freon pushed oxygen out, causing those inside to die of suffocation. He also said the scarce official information was making it difficult to understand exactly what happened on the submarine.”
Ya, suffocation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081109/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_submarine
Twas the NERPA. - Akula II class attack sub.
Looks like they may need to beach this class for a bit to work out the fire extinguishing systems.
“Russian news agencies quoted officials at the Amur Shipbuilding Factory as saying the submarine was built there and is called the Nerpa.
Construction of the Nerpa, an Akula II class attack submarine, started in 1991 but was suspended for years because of a shortage of funding, they said. Testing on the submarine began last month and it submerged for the first time last week.”
“Andrei, you’ve lost another sub?”
Precisely.
:-)
Ping to the Steely-Eyed Killers of the Deep
“I’m not sure how you define poison.”
“The dose makes the poison” - Paracelsus, in the 16th century (or so).
This is a point which has always defied the understanding of Al Gore (and most of the enviro-whackos). Even water (if ingested at high enough volumes - and I don’t mean drowning) and oxygen (at high enough concentrations) are toxic to humans.
Interesting. I’ll bet virtually everyone thinks it was an atomic explosion.
So, basically it was a giant “dirty bomb” instead.
Not sure how they do it in thier navy. But in ours, it was an individual’s responsiblity to know where the nearest EAB was at all times.
Dumping Freon into a fire gives a LOT of very noxious extra fumes,, in addition to displacing O2 like you noted.
Must have been Halon and translated wrong (Though Halon is now prohibited (though a life-saver and a ship saver!) by the enviro’s because of the ozone).
If the Russians were using Freon (rather than Halon or even N2) the designers should be sent to a Siberian gold mine, where their talents are needed.
Most likely another fire or explosion in the torpedo room ala Kursk. But this time, the fire suppression system prevented the loss of the sub but killed 1/10 of the crew.
I’d have to say Clinton insider ranks up there.
They had 200 people on board, regular complement is 73. I bet they didn’t have enough masks to go around.
FWIW, 17 of the 20 dead were civilian observers. I’d also bet they had far less training in disaster response than the actual crew.
Haha. Yeah, I guess it was the largest dirty bomb ever made.
And I think you are correct stating virtually everyone thinks it was an atomic explosion. They are usually shocked to hear that only 2 people died in the explosion and around 50 people died from acute radiation exposure while combating the fire. The WHO estimates about 4000 people will die from Chernobyl related cancers.
I live in NYC and for a while there was a movement to close the nearby Indian Point nuclear power plant. Fueled entirely by ignorance. It was always fun when an activist stopped me in street to talk to me about Indian Point being the real WMDs. They always come to a battle of wits unarmed.
For the record, American reactor designs are water moderated and have a negative temperature coefficient, meaning the hotter it gets, the slower the rate of reaction. This is why Three Mile Island did not explode like Chernobyl.
Chernobyl was graphite moderated and due to having a positive void coefficient, it effectively had a positive temperature coefficient when the coolant (water) turned into steam (or a void). This created a runaway reaction which became so hot all the coolant created a steam explosion.
Oh, and it looks like Chernobyl unit 5 is actually a little bit to the south east on the nearly island like peninsula, not to the north like I had initially said. You can see where unit 6 would be too.
When the Kursk sank due to a newly designed torpedo exploding while in its launch tube, the russians tried to claim that it sank because an american submarine rammed into it.
I’m sure they will claim the americans planted the poison or some other crap.
I wish the word Freon would get lost somewhere. Freon is a trade name by DuPont. Refrigerant is a better term. Phosgene {sp} gas is deadly. If it were a fluorocarbon type everyone would have likely died in a sub environment. Phosgene is a chemical reaction of burning Fluorocarbon refrigerants when mixed with certain other chemicals like propane. But even gasoline is actually a refrigerant.
The culprit sounds like Halon to me. Popular on surface ships where you can run to an oxygen source after activation. It's a push the button and you better run type system.
Halogen stops fires by interfering with the electrical transfer between fuel and oxygen, combustion does not occur because oxidation stops. If we breathe it, oxidation stops in our lungs also.
There is plenty of oxygen to breathe, it simply won't transfer to blood and you pass out quickly and will die if the Halon doesn't dissipate to below 5-7% levels within a few minutes.
All halon systems must have substantial evacuation warnings, strobes and horns. Filter-type masks are useless, only oxygen-supplied masks will work. Also, you flood single compartments only, as needed. A manual "deadman switch" has to be provided in each compartment that the operator holds down, preventing discharge, unless released.
The Russians are notorious for cutting corners, saving money, having untrained draftees that won't make critical choices.
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