The man who laughed at Corium, radioactive man-made lava

January 29, 2016 11:45 AM

It has been created outside of the lab at least five times -- once at the Three Mile Island reactor in 1979, once in Chernobyl in 1986, and three separate times during the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in 2011. It's made by melting fuel pellets or rods in nuclear reactors, which then assimilate concrete and whatever else they touch, making radioactive "lava." It's called corium, and it remains radioactive for centuries. Artur Korneyev, a dark-humored Kazakhstani nuclear inspector, has a lot of experience with it, especially the "elephant foot" in the Chernobyl sarcophagus.

Artur Korneyev, also credited as Viktor Korneev, has guided reporters in Chernobyl, with a focus on the Sarcophagus.

"It's been working around the clock without a break since 1986." His bleak wisecracking suggested he'd been telling the same jokes for years. "Don't worry," he said, "Soviet radiation is the best in the world. It makes hair thicker and men more potent."

Two years ago, Mr. Korneyev was still making that joke about the superiority of Soviet radiation (New York Times, previously), but

because of his health — he has cataracts and other problems related to his heavy radiation exposure during his first three years — he is no longer allowed inside the plant.

Mr. Korneyev’s job was to locate the fuel within the sarcophagus and determine radiation levels to limit the exposure of other workers.

“We were the trailblazers,” said Mr. Korneyev. “We were always on the front edge.”

posted by filthy light thief (18 comments total)

What would happen if you somehow shoved the corium into regular lava? Explosion? Radioactive volcano?

I assume bad things. But since we can't actually dispose of it by launching it into the sun, I've always wondered.
posted by emjaybee at 12:01 PM on January 29, 2016

Interesting work by Mr. Korneyev, thanks.

I take a bit of issue with some of your links with regard to Fukushima Daiichi, "Japansafety.wordpress.com" is far from a trustworthy source, and " Fact: concrete cannot contain melted nuclear fuel, and therefore, it is quite likely if not obvious that the corium has melted its way through the concrete and earth beneath the reactors" is worse than wrong, it's intentionally so. It's likely that the fuel melted through one or more of the vessels that used to contain it, but nobody knows for sure where the fuel is inside the melted Fukushima reactors yet - it's too hot to go looking yet.

Molten corium is a pretty well studied material post chernobyl. Many Generation 3+ reactor design include "core catchers" designed to spread and cool molten corium post-accident. (Not that anyone wants to get to post-accident, but clearly it can happen).
posted by Popular Ethics at 12:13 PM on January 29, 2016 [11 favorites]

Artur Korneyev, a dark-humored Kazakhstani nuclear inspector

I think, if you're a Kazakhstani nuclear inspector, you must be dark-humored by definition, or risk losing your mind.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:31 PM on January 29, 2016 [10 favorites]

That's at least two of the dreams of medieval alchemy realized by nuclear science: base metal into gold; and corium, the universal solvent, AKA the alkahest.

Too bad our version of the philosopher's stone kills any living creature it comes in contact with rather than making it live forever.
posted by jamjam at 12:37 PM on January 29, 2016 [8 favorites]

I take a bit of issue with some of your links with regard to Fukushima Daiichi, "Japansafety.wordpress.com" is far from a trustworthy source

Yeah, I should have noted "not a trustworthy site" or something of the sort. I had trouble finding anything regarding the creation of corium in the three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, beyond loose theories or comments on news sites. Most coverage is/was on what happened/is happening to individual reactors.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:53 PM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

What would happen if you somehow shoved the corium into regular lava? Explosion? Radioactive volcano?

Considering volcanoes are known mainly for expelling, rather than ingesting, material this is probably a bad idea. But, since this stuff is radioactive on the order of geological timescales there's a logic to burying it deep in the crust at a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate slides under another. This would, in time, drive the radioactive materials deeper into the earth.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:01 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Which will piss off the Mole People and instigate them to war against us inconsiderate Surfacers.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:04 PM on January 29, 2016 [7 favorites]

Is Korneyev playing a red Tele by the Elephant's Foot? 'Cos that would be pretty dang rock 'n roll.
posted by scruss at 1:23 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

The chernobylgallery.com link in the FPP has an interesting video at the very bottom - drone footage (taken December 2015) of the New Safe Confinement project estimated to be completed in 2017.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 1:27 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I learn at least a dozen, interesting things here daily.

Today seems extra interesting all 'round.
posted by Oyéah at 1:28 PM on January 29, 2016

I think, if you're a Kazakhstani nuclear inspector, you must be dark-humored by definition, or risk losing your mind.

Indeed. Such a person probably considers Dr. Strangelove to be light-hearted romp.
posted by JHarris at 1:46 PM on January 29, 2016

The man who laughed at Corium.

Sadly for this awesome dude, though, I suspect that in Soviet Russia corium has last laugh on you.
posted by The Bellman at 2:02 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

All of the fire fighters and people who worked in building the sarcophagus died around a year or so after the event.

Wow.
posted by persona au gratin at 2:12 PM on January 29, 2016

there's a logic to burying it deep in the crust at a subduction zone

OK, let's just grab it and throw it in the back of a pick-up truck and drive it to ... oh wait.

Which is to say, sure, burying it deep at the right place would take care of it over the course of a geologic time scale. But you first have to get the material to the right place in order to do that. And unless your subduction zone is deep under international waters, the local residents of your place might like to speak with you.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:13 PM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

> Is Korneyev playing a red Tele by the Elephant's Foot? 'Cos that would be pretty dang rock 'n roll.

Obviously he was playing...
(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
heavy metal.
posted by ardgedee at 3:07 PM on January 29, 2016 [9 favorites]

So a little story:
For a couple of summers in college, when I was back home, I worked for this guy (The fact that he's still going amazes me, although he really needs to get someone to clean up his webpage again.) He's one of the people who's seen the elephant foot in Chernobyl. He figured out a reasonable dose, timed himself and went and took a look.

He also told me that right after the disaster happened (one of the linked sites is saying there was 10000 Roentgen right after the meltdown), they were trying to figure out how to get an image of the melted core. Given the amount of radiation coming off of it, the camera would have to be essentially a closed circuit camera, as film would not survive. So they grabbed a TV camera and attached a cable to it. But every probe/robot they tried to send in died due to intense radiation frying the electronics. The one that the found that worked in the end was an RC car. Simple enough in design that the radiation did not fry it immediately.

(He also gave me a little bit of the graphite from Chicago Pile 1. Which I think is massively cool, even if there was 400 tons of the stuff.)
posted by Hactar at 3:53 PM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

He also gave me a little bit of the graphite from Chicago Pile 1.

I'm very jealous.
posted by kiltedtaco at 4:30 PM on January 29, 2016

 → (⌐■_■)
  heavy metal.

You're welcome. The skill is in the setup, after all.

… which is also why — despite training to be a nuclear pressure vessel designer — I decided to do something much safer instead.
posted by scruss at 5:16 AM on January 30, 2016