The site of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP) remains a unique location, as what’s left of the No. 4 reactor is the only place in the world where you can find significant amounts of what is called corium. An amalgamation of nuclear fuel, fuel rod cladding and whatever materials like concrete that the molten mass came into contact with, Soviet scientists initially struggled to make sense of this material, leading them to even have it shot at to get samples.
In this video documentary by [That Chernobyl Guy] these struggles by scientists both in and outside the USSR to comprehend this wholly new material are detailed. Much like trinitite – created by a US nuclear weapons test – these are amalgamations of material combined under extreme conditions. In the case of the ChNPP accident, the botched turbine spin-up test and disabling of all safeties by the operators allowed the bottom core chain reaction to run unconstrained, producing the massive steam explosion that flipped the biosafety lid of the RBMK reactor, while also fully melting the core material that then melted through the concrete below the reactor.
Although this Elephant’s Foot is only a tiny fraction of the total mass of corium inside the No. 4 reactor, it got rather infamous for supposedly being highly radioactive and lethal. In reality it’s one of the least dangerous parts of the exposed corium, and repeated sampling attempts along with internal degradation due to radioactive decay and weathering before the NSC shelter was installed have led to it mostly turning into slightly radioactive, rusty-looking dust at this point.
Also covered in the video is how the corium in the destroyed reactor is likely to be retrieved for final disposal, with robots cutting into the sides of the reactor building rather than trying to navigate destroyed corridors and staircases. This way it might be possible to remove most of the material without the issues that stymied Soviet engineers in the 1980s during their sampling attempts.
Future safety
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-device-nuclear-material-air-ducts.html
“Chornobyl” sounds like a cutesy chungus way of spelling a word, like birb or doggo or chonker. Just a heckin wholesome chorno elephant footblob clicking away on the gigerino counter
With an ongoing decay of Ukraine’s statehood the most likely outcome is that there won’t be any cleanup happening and the New Safe Confinement will simply remain a stainless roof over the old Shelter Object and tons of corium, which is slowly crumbling itself into a very nasty dust.
To clean up this mess as originally intended, with robotic cranes and whatnot operating under the NSC would be very expensive and difficult even in the most stable countries like Japan or Finland.
This is war-torn Ukraine which in 2 months will be once again struggling to keep its remaining population warm and to prevent water pipes from bursting due to freezing. CHPs (combined heat and power plants) are simply worn as they are at best from 1980s and were not really maintained even before the conflict. Nowdays they are operating at 120% their capacity, which only speeds up their decay and causes ever more frequent faults. Electric infrastructure is now hack upon a hack just to keep it going from all the damage sustained in attacks. Rolling blackouts are the norm and will become even more severe during winter when thousands of people turn to use 1-2 kW electric heaters to warm themselves.
Finally, about 15,000,000 people left the country since 2022, including a large number of teens. For them it’s been 4 years of living abroad already. Many have by now finished our highschools and started studying at our universities. Most are pragmatic and won’t be returning to their failed state homeland if they can earn at least 10 times more in the EU without constant risk of being drafted to die by UAV in some mud-filled trench.
You cannot run decades-long cleanup operation when there is barely any qualified personnel left to maintain and operate all the fancy equipment, storage units blah blah blah.
I’m glad they managed to finish the “Arka” (“arch”, aka the NSC) in its current state, even if the whole cleanup is not happening. If the old shelter object collapses, hopefully the NSC will keep most of the dust… confined and we won’t get any radioactive sheep again.