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Lake Karachay
Lake Karachay (russian: Карача́й), sometimes spelled Karachai or Karachaj, was a small lake in the southern Ural mountains in central Russia. Starting in 1951, the Soviet Union used Karachay as a dumping site for radioactive waste from Mayak, the nearby nuclear waste storage and reprocessing facility, located near the town of Ozyorsk (then called Chelyabinsk-40). Today the lake is completely infilled, acting as "a near-surface permanent and dry nuclear waste storage facility." The radioactivity of the lake is comparable to the Chernobyl disaster, the worst nuclear accident of all time. Background The name '' karachay'' means "black water" or "black creek" in several Northwestern Turkic languages, including Tatar. Built in total secrecy between 1946 and 1948, the Mayak plant was the first reactor used to create plutonium for the Soviet atomic bomb project. In accordance with Stalinist procedure and supervised by NKVD Chief Lavrenti Beria, it was the utmost priority to p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA World Wind
NASA WorldWind is an open-source (released under the NOSA license and the Apache 2.0 license) virtual globe. According to the website (https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/), "WorldWind is an open source virtual globe API. WorldWind allows developers to quickly and easily create interactive visualizations of 3D globe, map and geographical information. Organizations around the world use WorldWind to monitor weather patterns, visualize cities and terrain, track vehicle movement, analyze geospatial data and educate humanity about the Earth." It was first developed by NASA in 2003 for use on personal computers and then further developed in concert with the open source community since 2004. As of 2017, a web-based version of WorldWind is available online. An Android version is also available. The original version relied on .NET Framework, which ran only on Microsoft Windows. The more recent Java version, WorldWind Java, is cross platform, a software development kit (SDK) a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lavrenti Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik and Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security, and chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during the Second World War, and promoted to deputy premier under Stalin in 1941. He officially joined the Politburo in 1946. Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after the war. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was responsible for organizing purges such as the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and officials. He would later also orchestrate the forced upheaval of minorities from the Caucasus as head of the NKVD, an act t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roentgen (unit)
The roentgen or röntgen (; symbol R) is a legacy unit of measurement for the exposure of X-rays and gamma rays, and is defined as the electric charge freed by such radiation in a specified volume of air divided by the mass of that air ( statcoulomb per kilogram). In 1928, it was adopted as the first international measurement quantity for ionising radiation to be defined for radiation protection, as it was then the most easily replicated method of measuring air ionization by using ion chambers. It is named after the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered X-rays and was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery. However, although this was a major step forward in standardising radiation measurement, the roentgen has the disadvantage that it is only a measure of air ionisation, and not a direct measure of radiation absorption in other materials, such as different forms of human tissue. For instance, one roentgen deposits of absorbed dose in dry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Level Radioactive Waste
High-level waste (HLW) is a type of nuclear waste created by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. It exists in two main forms: * First and second cycle raffinate and other waste streams created by nuclear reprocessing. * Waste formed by vitrification of liquid high-level waste. Liquid high-level waste is typically held temporarily in underground tanks pending vitrification. Most of the high-level waste created by the Manhattan Project and the weapons programs of the cold war exists in this form because funding for further processing was typically not part of the original weapons programs. Both spent nuclear fuel and vitrified waste are considered as suitable forms for long term disposal, after a period of temporary storage in the case of spent nuclear fuel. HLW contains many of the fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core and is the type of nuclear waste with the highest activity. HLW accounts for over 95% of the total radioactivity produce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strontium-90
Strontium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and industry and is an isotope of concern in fallout from nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear accidents. Radioactivity Naturally occurring strontium is nonradioactive and nontoxic at levels normally found in the environment, but 90Sr is a radiation hazard. 90Sr undergoes β− decay with a half-life of 28.79 years and a decay energy of 0.546 MeV distributed to an electron, an antineutrino, and the yttrium isotope 90Y, which in turn undergoes β− decay with a half-life of 64 hours and a decay energy of 2.28 MeV distributed to an electron, an antineutrino, and 90Zr (zirconium), which is stable. Note that 90Sr/Y is almost a pure beta particle source; the gamma photon emission from the decay of 90Y is so infrequent t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caesium-137
Caesium-137 (), cesium-137 (US), or radiocaesium, is a radioactive isotope of caesium that is formed as one of the more common fission products by the nuclear fission of uranium-235 and other fissionable isotopes in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Trace quantities also originate from spontaneous fission of uranium-238. It is among the most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products. Caesium-137 has a relatively low boiling point of and is volatilized easily when released suddenly at high temperature, as in the case of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and with atomic explosions, and can travel very long distances in the air. After being deposited onto the soil as radioactive fallout, it moves and spreads easily in the environment because of the high water solubility of caesium's most common chemical compounds, which are salts. Caesium-137 was discovered by Glenn T. Seaborg and Margaret Melhase. Decay Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30.05 year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Becquerel
The becquerel (; symbol: Bq) is the unit of radioactivity in the International System of Units (SI). One becquerel is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. For applications relating to human health this is a small quantity, and SI multiples of the unit are commonly used. The becquerel is named after Henri Becquerel, who shared a Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Skłodowska Curie in 1903 for their work in discovering radioactivity. Definition 1 Bq = 1 s−1 A special name was introduced for the reciprocal second (s−1) to represent radioactivity to avoid potentially dangerous mistakes with prefixes. For example, 1 µs−1 would mean 106 disintegrations per second: 1·(10−6 s)−1 = 106 s−1, whereas 1 µBq would mean 1 disintegration per 1 million seconds. Other names considered were hertz (Hz), a special name already in use for the reciprocal second, and Four ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Although environmental pollution can be caused by natural events, the word pollution generally implies that the contaminants have an anthropogenic source – that is, a source created by human activities. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution. In 2015, pollution killed nine million people worldwide (one in six deaths). This remained unchanged in 2019, with little real progress against pollution being identifiable. Air pollution accounted for of these earlier deaths. Major forms of pollution include air pollution, light pollution, litter, noise pollution, plastic pollution, soil contamination, rad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Waste
Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons reprocessing. The storage and disposal of radioactive waste is regulated by government agencies in order to protect human health and the environment. Radioactive waste is broadly classified into low-level waste (LLW), such as paper, rags, tools, clothing, which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity, intermediate-level waste (ILW), which contains higher amounts of radioactivity and requires some shielding, and high-level waste (HLW), which is highly radioactive and hot due to decay heat, so requires cooling and shielding. In nuclear reprocessing plants about 96% of spent nuclear fuel is recycled back into uranium-based and mixed-oxide (MOX) fuels. The residual 4% is minor actinides and fission products the latter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worldwatch Institute
The Worldwatch Institute was a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by Lester R. Brown. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Survey of Sustainability Experts. Brown left to found the Earth Policy Institute in 2000. The institute terminated in 2017, after publication of its last '' State of the World Report''. Worldwatch.org was unreachable from mid 2019. Mission The mission of the Institute read: "Through research and outreach that inspire action, the Worldwatch Institute works to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world that meets human needs. The Institute's top mission objectives are universal access to renewable energy and nutritious food, expansion of environmentally sound jobs and development, transformation of cultures from consumerism to sustainability, and an early end to population growth through healthy and intentional childbearing." The Worldw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curie (unit)
The curie (symbol Ci) is a non- SI unit of radioactivity originally defined in 1910. According to a notice in ''Nature'' at the time, it was to be named in honour of Pierre Curie, but was considered at least by some to be in honour of Marie Curie as well, and is in later literature considered to be named for both. It was originally defined as "the quantity or mass of radium emanation in equilibrium with one gram of radium (element)", but is currently defined as 1 Ci = decays per second after more accurate measurements of the activity of 226Ra (which has a specific activity of ). In 1975 the General Conference on Weights and Measures gave the becquerel (Bq), defined as one nuclear decay per second, official status as the SI unit of activity. Therefore: : 1 Ci = = 37 GBq and : 1 Bq ≅ ≅ 27 pCi While its continued use is discouraged by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other bodies, the curie is still widely used througho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Becquerel
The becquerel (; symbol: Bq) is the unit of radioactivity in the International System of Units (SI). One becquerel is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. For applications relating to human health this is a small quantity, and SI multiples of the unit are commonly used. The becquerel is named after Henri Becquerel, who shared a Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Marie Skłodowska Curie in 1903 for their work in discovering radioactivity. Definition 1 Bq = 1 s−1 A special name was introduced for the reciprocal second (s−1) to represent radioactivity to avoid potentially dangerous mistakes with prefixes. For example, 1 µs−1 would mean 106 disintegrations per second: 1·(10−6 s)−1 = 106 s−1, whereas 1 µBq would mean 1 disintegration per 1 million seconds. Other names considered were hertz (Hz), a special name already in use for the reciprocal second, and Four ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
