The Soviet Union's Deadly Abandoned Nuclear Generators
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- Опубліковано 13 гру 2022
- Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, or RTGs (sometimes incorrectly called Nuclear Batteries) are usually utilized in deep space exploration.
But during the 1970s and 1980s, during the height of The Cold War, The Soviet Union manufactured over 2500 terrestrial RTGs to power its unmanned Lighthouses and Radio Navigation Beacons on the Northern Arctic seaboard, or deployed in the USSR's remotest hinterland rural regions.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, all these highly dangerous, intensely radioactive devices were simply abandoned in situ, and left to rot for the next 2 decades.... until they started to kill people in the 21st century, with Acute Radiation Exposure. This finally caused the international community to start to take the hazard they posed seriously.
This 30 min video is a documentary on the reasons the Soviet Engineers chose to use dangerous Radioisotope Thermal Generators to power equipment, the technology and nuclear physics behind them, with the help of Matt Damon in the movie ' The Martian' (2015) .
We explore some Abandoned Places in the Former Soviet Union that are still home to decaying RTGS , such as Aniva Lighthouse, on Russia's Sakhalin Island.
Finally the video tells the story of the Lia, Georgia Radiation Incident of 2001, when 3 Georgian woodsmen, accidentally stumbled upon an abandoned, highly radioactive RTG core. Which sadly killed one man and seriously injured the others.
An incident that needed human radiation clean up techniques not seen since the 'bio-robots' of the 1986 Chernobyl Disaster.
Despite several years of The Russian Federation and the EU/US West cooperating to decommission and make safe many orphan Soviet RTGs after the Lia Incident, since 2014 Vladimir Putin's government has withdrawn this international cooperation, leaving 100s of these highly radioactive and deadly devices unaccounted for across Russia, posing a deadly threat to its unsuspecting rural population.
Chapters:
00:38 Intro
01:02 Space RTGs (featuring Matt Damon)
02:48 Soviet Kerosine Lantern Radios
05:50 Soviet Terrestrial RTG Technology
15:20 The Post Soviet Years
20:15 The Lia, Georgia Radiation Incident - 2001
29:36 The present situation and ominous future
#coldwar #soviet #nuclearphysics #abandonedplaces
This was such an excellent video. The real footage of the 2001 incident was extremely compelling and seeing the actual Strontium-90 heat source being handled very quickly by those men and seeing the snow boil and produce steam from its heat is terrifying. You can hear the beeps of the geiger counters from the videographer standing a good distance away from the action, so you can imagine how much radiation was being put off up close where the disposal team was rushing to contain it.
Yeha the guy with the tongs got a good dose of angry air just because of his closer proximity than the other guys about 1m instead of the aimed 2m and oh man that 0isn't good for the man's health
@@TheLtVoss I thought about that too. However, he also was near it for a much shorter time. Ultimately this wasn't good for any of them, but they did what they had to do. Good for them.
@@TheLtVoss It wasn't good for any of them but at the end of the day they knew that and had the balls to do it!
@@TheLtVoss They should have used a doubled jointed tongs so it could be longer.
First of, we all live in the radiation storm of the Sun, so our organisms are perfect in regeneration from small amounts of radiation. Next, normal radiation counters with audio feedback constantly beep while detecting natural radiation which is EVERYWHERE.
This is the most soviet thing I've seen.
Stories like this one always make me think of the British admiral snarling at the Russian general in the pre-credits scene of... which Bond movie was it? _Tomorrow Never Dies,_ I think. "Can't you people keep anything locked up?!"
Our generators lol
@@ZGryphon of course, comrade! In gulag!
Oh yeah, actually very classically soviet. A state of the art technology abandoned because of the dissolution of the union
It needs a bear riding a unicycle wearing a party hat drinking a bottle of vodka
Watching that team secure the loose source was amazing. I hope those men got the recognition they deserved.
Two loaves of bread and a Soviet toothbrush
@@mikecummings6593 And an extra bottle of vodka.
@@QuasiMonkey No way, they are Georgian. I am sure there was a night of toasts, jokes and stories with good food and Georgian wine for all involved.
@@richardhighsmith "Live well, Laugh often, Love much"... all free things, all that can be shared, or forgotten about.
They don't, and to prove my point, their names remain unspoken, if they are even known and not secret. Even the producer of this video mentioned their names.
The story of the 3 mountaineers always makes me sad... they had no clue what it was, they had no way to know, and they just wanted to keep warm on a horribly frigid winter night while doing their work... one died horrifically, and the other two suffered terribly for months, and probably even years, later... for trying to stay warm...
There was a terrifying incident in which a scapper tore apart a x-ray, machine and took the cessium home, in which his daughter, sprinkled it all over because it glowed, and made her feel pretty, I read that and it is heart breaking en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
@@jimc3708I agree that was incredibly sad for the little girl (and everyone else that died or were injured)
The Goiânia accident. Terrifying.
What a horribly slow way to go man 😞
@DonCarlione973 absolutely!!! Just immense pain. Not sure how the pain from radiation is. I could imagine it's absolutely horrible.
I have a person deep fascination with what I think of as "remote infrastructure" like Dams, Lighthouses, Abandoned places ,etc. This is simply terrifying and amazing.
I've often wished that I could afford to visit some of the more remote DEW line radar sites. I have seen photos and video from others who have explored them and it's as if they have been untouched since they were decommissioned, with vehicles, food, magazines, etc all still in place.
Actually, this is the first that I've ever heard of nuclear lighthouses.
me too if you are stuck in the middle of nowhere and you come up on something like a weather station or lighthouse its amazing cuz its the closest thing to human technology manipulating our enviroment and its what seperates us from the other apes!
I would like to meet your person.
Yeah I have a dream to live in an old lighthouse, do my things and enjoy solitude :)
Those are some really unselfish, brave people who cleaned up the remains of that last generator. They're heroes. I hope it doesn't come back to haunt them.
Basically limiting exposure to them for no more then 30 to 60 seconds
@@leexgx Yep, the effects of radiation are cumulative. Time is really your only protection.
They are true heroes. A minor slip in the snow could have had unimaginable consequences for them as individuals
P.S. Selfless is the opposite of selfish
They had personal counters and if I remember correctly throught they perfect execution and swift action they managed to keep below the level of rafiation that a ct scan would give you
The idea of gas lanterns makes a lot of sense if you consider the climate of the region, we might look at it as a waste of resources in modern standards, but to them it was light,and through the inefficiencies of electrical conversion, heat; so to them (back in the day) this was a triple win.
I must make one! Seems like a good electronics project, would come in handy of the power went out. Heat light and a phone charger that can run off animal fats or alcohol if need be.
Just bolt the thermocouple to the top of a Coleman lantern and you're golden.
If you actually use the heat it isn't inefficient. it becomes inefficient if the heat is a byproduct that you get rid of without using it.
@@zakn3954 They already exist: ua-cam.com/video/IUj034sQBdA/v-deo.html
It is also the principle used by those fans you put on top of wood stoves to blow the heat into the room.
@@zakn3954 It would make a good device for winter camping in areas that are heavily shaded by trees, mountains, etc... making small solar panels not feasible. The thermocouple device can also be used with campfires or wood stoves to recharge mobile devices, GPS units, and batteries.
Seeing the snow boiling off of that cylinder during the Lia recovery was God damned scary.
Plutonium is simply amazing. Just imagine how incredibly crazy this is: you have a little clump of metal just sitting there, and it gives off huge amounts of immediately usable energy, for a lifetime , without any maintenance or energy input. The stuff that the wildest dreams are made of! 🤩
It can do miracles if used properly.
nothing works witout maintenace
Great power comes with a grande price...
If it only gave off energy, it would be amazing.
@@MarvinHartmann452like give you a third thumb
I am Georgian and heard this story multiple times, but this is the most accurate description so far.
The Georgian RTG recover operation is like a Nuclear Olympic game, you can only do it once and everybody get a gold metal.
Kind of like playing a game with the devil.
If I was a participant I would want a lead metal in advance
The whole scene looked like a Monty Python episode
@@irvan36mm very few life and death things go as planned. Even for me in much lower stakes of EMS where I'm not contemplating taking dangerous doses of radiation, having to do things quickly and making split second decisions makes it look very dumb from an outside perspective. What matters is they got their job done and nobody got acute radiation poisoning.
And it is even more healthy than beeing an athelete.
I did my dissertation on RTG's in USSR, it is a VERY unknown story, thanks for doing it justice.
👌
Did you ever hear about Apollo mission on moon? Apollo 13 had RTG it's still on the button of see.
@@damianorbert seems irresponsible but at least the water stops the radiation from traveling super far.
@@duckqueak To be fair, at this place down there no one tampers with it, so it is basically safer than any RTG on land...
Nevertheless, those RTGs seem a fine source of independent, maintenance free power.
If only they hadn't completely neglected safety checks.
Had they only reduced their checks instead of abandoning them they might have been operable and safe for much longer than they were, much like everything the Soviet Union left behind.
Lots of wasted potential in resources and abandoned infrastructure.
That Georgia recovery was amazing!
Their training paid off, less exposure than a CT scan during the recovery
It's just missing Richard O'Brien playing a harmonica in the background!
The term "wild" comes to mind. Kudos to the men for their clearly effective training/ practice and execution!
Indeed.
Man alive, that training and recovery footage brings a whole new meaning to the old saying, "I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole."
RTGs don't inherently pose any risk, but if you're going to remove the radiation source/core then that's when things become a big problem like this incident.
Too many people in the world immediately attribute nuclear energy as tantamount to danger and hazardous, when it's easily the most efficient and clean (using modern standards) energy source we have.
Also the NASA for example, when they use RTGs, encase the radiation source in a suitable case to prevent to much radiation to escape... also they should be able (and are designed) to survive reentry and crashing on the surface without exposing the core.
Its all a matter of thinking of what may go wrong and how much money you want to spend for safety....
I hate money.... it limits safety sometimes and because of safety regulations and the money lost on that, Fission reactors arent very cost effective and become dangerous while not properly checked and maintained for safety.
Also Nuclear reactors have one of the least injury rates among power "generators"
😂🤣Fukushima was / is a state of the art nuclear power plant, we still have no advanced working technology. Molten Salt Reactors are still decades away from being an actually working nuclear power plants. Currently, it looks like nuclear fusion will be useable before MSRs.
And nuclear energy isn't clean if you consider the hole process of from mining the resources to waste management.
@@pogonator1 Based on CDF estimates, modern Gen III+ reactor designs are anywhere from 100-1000x safer than the BWR used at Fukushima. Further, the design of the plant of Fukushima was intended for operation in the US midwest, where tornadoes are a major concern. Thus, redundant safety systems were placed below ground. This was inappropriate for the east coast of Japan, where tsunamis were a concern.
As far as not being clean through the whole process, nuclear creates less waste than either solar or wind power. It requires less land in all three areas of mining, operation, and waste management. These are readily available facts found through 10 seconds of googling.
Yep if the reaction is controlled..fine... proper shielding fine. Anything goes wrong with either .... its China syndrome.
@@pogonator1wrong. Molten salt reactors existed already in the 60's. It's tried and tested technology. But the powers that be didnt want them, as they couldnt be used to make atom bombs. Fusion on the other hand is pure sci-fi as of now.
My first reaction was “what a great idea” , the recovery film was fascinating as well, the bravery and dedication of the civil defence volunteers deserves far greater recognition as well.
I think the idea is great! When controlled correctly
@@iridium8341 tgeyre in the works and being built through government cooperation. Google "Radiant portable nuclear reactor". I can see a million reason why this will never take off and it's not because of safety concerns, but hopefully it'll be viable for remote locations.
Go hiking in the US
Find a large metal object in the woods
Its probably some abandoned logging machinery
Go hiking in Russia
Find a large metal object in the woods
Its a fucking nuclear reactor
If i remember correctly there was actually an Orphan source incident in the US
Go Hiking in the US Northwest in the 50’s.
Find clockwork metal thing covered in string & fabric.
Drag it back to camp & it explodes.
Oh wow Andy, the amount of detail you've put it in this video is practically equivalent to historians work. Great work and props to you!
I had Muscovite neighbors for a decade. A charming, humorous family.
Your cool documentary reminded me of one of my favorite Russian jokes.
A Russian diplomat is on a plane to the USA. The bloke next to him asks "What brings you to our fine country?"
The Russian replies " Our politburo has sent me to study Western Propaganda".
"What propaganda?" Exclaims his co-passenger
"Exactly.." Replies the Russian.
I've read about RTGs and the Lia incident before but had no idea there was footage of the recovery operation. That was fascinating. Thanks for putting this video together, you did a great job
I remember reading about this issue and the Georgia incident many years ago. The men that recovered the canister are extremely brave.
Many bottles of strong alcohol was drunk before and after no doubt
@@noname-wo9yy And just as deadly.
Brave but it looks like they were all careful not to linger around the source for too long due to their training and limits imposed. Hopefully they are all in good health to this day.
@@rixille Exactly they had training and the vodka was definitely saved for later.
Well they certainly had more training and knowledge of the dangers in comparison to the “liquidators”
There is a Russian movie "Как я провёл этим летом"(2010) with an episode, when a man poisoned fish by RTG and fed it to a meteo station worker. Also according to wikipedia there is a list of lncidents with RTG'S, such as "accidentally dropped in the ocean from helicopter" and "found on scrapyard".
Dear goodness, I've read about the Lia incident before, but I've never seen pictures of the poor guys, nor footage of the recovery operation. This was fascinating, thank you!
Video in english and photo in Lia hospital ua-cam.com/video/e3GYg7Y_W7s/v-deo.htmlsi=Au0zfsgw4cCTfYNF
17:06 that is amazing that after all those decades and thousands of visitors, the generators never had an incident and nobody got sick or died. I imagine the radiation warnings had a big role in that, nobody wants to suffer that way for sure. Never seen the full footage of the Georgian recovery operation. Man that is some good stuff thank you for a great video.
We in the west have been consistently sniffy about Russian technology through the years but these RTGs fulfilled a life saving need and were only a danger after the unexpected collapse and only then at the hands of the ignorant and criminally inclined. The west is as paranoid about radiation as the east is complacent.
When the west collapses, I doubt that our reactors will fair any better. These RTG devices, left unmolested, represent little or no danger to anyone. A sheet of paper will stop Alpha radiation from plutonium which is more toxic than radiologically dangerous. Had they used plutonium however, we would be in a lot more trouble now and there would be none left to recover.
@@robinwells8879 I agree with you on this. Especially what will happen when the west collapse. Its not a matter of if, but when. Not only do we have lots of nuclear stuff that will fall into disrepair, but we also have thousands of other things like dams which will fall into disrepair and threaten anyone in their floodplains.
Given that they the Russian unit had significant design and installation flaws and were deployed in great numbers due to their poor economy that theory has significant flaws.
Frankly the fact that relatively few (known at least) incidents have occured, seems mostly down to sheer luck and inaccessibility as they are as proven quite simple to dissasemble, dangerously so even. A better design that can't be taken apart with an average toolbox could be a good choice in such locations, provided they are actually monitored somewhat and not left to rust for decades.
@@Arthion I think that there was an idea that the Soviet Union would last longer than it actually did so there would be enough people out there to service them. The USSR was a superpower on par with the US in terms of their output.
What an incredibly well done video.
Also, people that work to try to clean this up are heros.
This is an astoundingly well put-together document. The explanations are the clearest and most accurately articulate that I have found on UA-cam.
Scary to see the cylinder actually BOILING the snow around it . Scarier still, was the lack of any safety PPE for the removal team.....
They had all the PPE needed: boots, a thick coat and radiation monitors. The only dangers these people faced that could be mitigated with PPE were the cold temperatures and the risk of tripping in the snowy forest.
Radiation safety can be summarised with the concepts of time, distance and shielding.
Time: the less time you spend near a source, the less radiation you are exposed to.
Distance: radiation intensity decreases with the inverse square law (much like light). The more distance you can put between you and the source, the less radiation you are exposed to.
Shielding: many materials absorb radiation, if you can put absorbent material between you and the source, it will lower the dose.
The recovery team used long handled equipment to put more distance between them and the source, they worked in 45 second (iirc) shifts, and when possible they ran behind rocks and other objects to ensure they were shielded from the source wherever possible.
There is simply no material that can absorb radiation that they could have clothing made out of that would not have impaired their mobility significantly.
Say that they did try and make suits out of lead to shield the team from radiation. The increased weight and lack of mobility would have likely lead to people falling over, slowing down the recovery. They would have been far slower running in and out of the recovery area, increasing the time they were exposed significantly, and they may have struggled with the initial manipulation of the source (which happened from a decent distance), potentially forcing them to get closer to the source for sections of the recovery.
It seems very counter intuitive, but for this recovery operation any attempt to give PPE to the workers and increase the shielding they had would have lead to greater compromises in time and potentially distance. This may look like a team building social sports activity at a glance, but it is actually an incredibly well planned and executed source recovery that managed to ensure safety for all involved.
@@q3st1on19 I would assume they might wore a lead-lined jacket like the ones used during x-ray examinations, under their coats.
The source was intact, so there was no need to protect their respiration or eyes etc.. The only real hazard was in the form of intense x-rays from the bremsstrahlung of strontium-90 (and its daughter products) beta decays.
The only real "PPE" when handling sources in the field like that are distance and limiting the time exposed.
@@mrnmrn1 With gamma radiation, wearing heavy protection can actually end up increasing the dose if you have to spend more time near the source or need more time to get close by and away again.
This gives a lot of context and I feel a lot more compassion for the woodsmen victims. I remember reading about this incident when I was younger, thinking they were stupid and careless, when in reality it was the careless construction and placement of these RTGs that was stupid.
I would have known to be suspicious of a nuclear device and not camp next to it, but that's because I've studied nuclear energy extensively. Someone who hasn't......."That's cool. Free heat!"
Had the woodsmen been honest and left it alone, reported the find to the authorities and done so straight away no one would have been hurt or died. Dishonesty has a cost.
@@bartle6168they might have just thought it was hot and probably had some idea but really how would they know. Maybe they thought it was something else. They might not have ever considered they would ever come into contact with anything radioactive.
Глупо винить государство которое не существовало к тому времени как 30 лет . большинству из новых республик было плевать на все это некоторым до сих пор . в РФ например есть программа ликвидации этого радиоактивного мусора.
@@bartle6168 It wasn't the woodsmen who were dishonest. The dishonest ones were the scrappers who stole metal off of the RTG, then ditched the radioactive part alongside the trail. The woodsmen didn't steal anything, they simply brought it to their camp for heat, not knowing the danger.
Excellent video. Thank you for putting this together. Over the years, I've probably watched 3 other UA-cam videos discussing the Lia incident. But, yours is the first time I had seen the video of the recovery efforts. It is quite haunting, and I can't imagine being one of the men standing that close to it, even for 45 seconds. They are very brave individuals.
ua-cam.com/video/e3GYg7Y_W7s/v-deo.htmlsi=Au0zfsgw4cCTfYNF
Interesting video, I heard about this problem a while ago. Currently I live in Ukraine originally I am from Montreal Canada. I love hunting and fishing but when I am doing so in the ex Soviet republics I have a Geiger meter on me. You absolutely never know what you can find there.
Seems a bit pretentious but ok.
@@bldontmatter5319 it's always better to be prepped, than just badly die in unknown location.
It's a real shame such an amazing technology isn't respected and abused like this giving it a bad name, RTG's have the ability to do amazing things on Erath if the technology is properly engineered and treated with respect.
Well, no. It has horrible efficiency and thus only good for space, due to it compactness.
@Hey hoe You are sort of right that the danger outweights the actual usefulness, BUT its not the efficiency. It doesn't mather if the efficiency is 1% if a pellet with the size of a marbel has the energy content of million liters of oil.
Given that many "first world" countries have perhaps hundreds of Nuclear power-plants, making electricity, if the expended nuclear fuel could be "reused" to power RTGs, imagine all that spent fuel in sealed, "idiot-proof" RTGs in every home supplying decades and decades of electric power????? But, the height of human intelligence is only as high as the most stupid of us...
@@heyhoe168 seems like it worked pretty darn well for its intended use…. Show me a solar panel that would work as well as a 8” block of strontium 90.
@@donaldsherman1 any modern solar panel. the rtg could only output 250W thermal energy and even if we assume the maximum amound of scavengable power using modern thermocouples (8%) you would only get 20W usable energy. Assuming maximum output for solar panels (20W/sqf) you would be able to generate the same amount of energy with a singular square foot sized solar panel, which would take less resources and space than the soviet RTG
26:42 The fact that you can see the distortion from the heat coming off of that core is chilling.
Amazing and informative video! Stories such as these don't get told very often and are still relevant to this day. Great subject.
One of the greatest documentary I have ever seen on youtube. You did quite a job to make is so informative, condensed and professional. Subscribed!
Thank you. I had no idea about these. I’m shocked they were all abandoned like that. At least educate the people “if you see this symbol on something, leave it alone and tell the authorities.”
And yet, like that RTG in the rusted shed in the forest if I were a local I’d probably try to protect people myself if the authorities wouldn’t. If it were safe to do so, secure the shed even if it’s just wooden barricades carved with warnings and a contact number for information. “Yeah the shed has an old RTG in it. If you value your life, let it be.”
This assumes there is an authority that will act rationally. Russia hasn't had one for 20 years now.
they don't trust authorities there, as well as a signs. Because Russia is not what one could expect from a regular country. Most of its territories and people are treated only as occupied colonies, especially the poor ones (read: the rural ones). So the population treats the authorities correspondingly.
No wonder many dream of RF breaking, just like USSR did.
@@57thorns some would argue for over 100 years
It's communist how would you be shocked
It would be nice to both have the radiation symbol and the bones and skukk symbol because that is more known to be danger. But that's ofc mostly used for chemical danger
I had no idea such contraptions existed, thanks Andy!
No one in the West does… why it’s such an interesting subject.
I found out about small ones year ago used for light houses and remote weather stations 😊
I suspected they existed. I mean, I knew they were used in unmanned spacecraft, and that means that all it would take is some ambitious, negligent git to envision a terrestrial use. I was thoroughly unsurprised to learn that it was the Soviets, but it totally fits with what we know of the cold war USSR.
@@xaenon The USSR / Russians have a pretty cavalier attitude to nuclear power use, and contaminating things.
Well, voyager 1&2 surely is powered by similar tech, still working out there in space....
RTG's are amazing. You can heat a house with it and continuosly generate 30 Wh by the use of a peltie unit. If its properly designed you can have a unit that just works for hundreds of years. I know its higly ineficient as electricity generation, but it adds up if you have solar and a batery unit, non stop 24/7.
Actually you CAN detect radioactivity with your human senses! I read a paper from around 1900 in which a method is described how you can estimate a the activity of a sample with your eye. You just hold the sample very close to your eye and depending on the activity you might see a blue light. It was actually described as quite a beautiful experience, caused by Cherenkov radiation in your eyeball, as we now know. As you all might have guessed, this method did not catch on.
I think this is more due to scintillation rather than Cherenkov radiation.
What shocks me is how dangerous this stuff can be to people who are foolhardy, yet how safe it can be as soon as you know and you're prudent. The gap in knowledge isn't even that wide...
A very ambivalent impression
And are humans always prudent? Statistical question. That will provide a factual answer about safety of the tech.
There are clever fans for wood stoves that use the Seebeck effect. There's a semiconductor module sandwiched between a heat pipe and heat sink and it is attached to a motor which drives the fan. The heat wicks up to the module, the heat is shed through the heat sink. The gradient produces enough voltage to run the fan which also helps cool the heat sink.
At one time there was a unit built around a standard 6" or 8" flue pipe which was intended to be installed in the flue of a wood stove outside the building. Intent was to provide a small amount of battery charge when cooking in or heating an off-grid cabin. Heat sink was fins on the outside in the ambient outside air. Designed to supplement other means of battery charge.
Epic documentary bud. You showed great footage as well as pictures of what you were describing. You also broke some things down for the layman to understand. Im really looking forward to more content from you, i just luckily stumbled apon your channel and sometimes the algorithm gods are smiling at me and hook me up with great content like this. Have a great weekend and Cheers from Southern California USA!!
I can’t believe this channel puts some much production value into it and has sub million subscribers! Definitely an amazingly thorough production, thank you so much.
Wow, thank you!
You're definitely not the only one who feels that way. I'll be shocked if his channel doesn't blow up
My childhood tree house was built 10x better than those wooden lighthouses 🤣
If you about 17:07 and 18:17 it's not lighthouse as you think. It is a navigation sign. Boards nailed with gap to lessen wind load. From the distance it's looks like billboard painted red with vertical black line. At night time some coded light device or even radio beacon perhaps.
But think how much cooler your childhood tree house would have been with a constant flow of electricity from an on-site thermo-nuclear generator.
@@Microtonal_Cats if you look at a universe level he had multible nuclear generators hooked up his tree house if he had a extension cord to it
"Dad can you go with me in your truck to pick up the thermo-nu-clear® device for unlimited heat and lights for our ice fishing hut on Michigan's U P?"
Standard bolts even on electrical equipment are forbidden in some places, so putting them on radiation equipment is unbelievable. I cannot imagine any reason these devices would've had to be opened up at the site of use.
It was not supposed to fall in hands of any unqualified personal. However here we are.
Safety regulations in Russia. Neyt!
I don't think non-stanard bolts were ever a thing in USSR. Never seen one on soviet equipment ever. And, being an engineer and tech junkie living in post-soviet country, i've mess around with a lot of old soviet crap.
Making non standard would require additional cost and manufacture.. so you can see why they did it. Easy assembly and readily available. Who cares about the safety....
Thinking that the generator would need to have special safety would require the engineer to imagine it would be common for a Soviet Citizen to be just running arround complete bum fuck nowhere, to ignore the warning of radiation, and then to have industrial tool to fuck with the magical box powering a lighthouse or something.
Only way for that to happen would be to imagine engineer imagining that USSR could collapse and all these radiation sources suddenly be left unatended which would be contrary to procedure they were supposed to be used with.
Excellent commentary and highly effective editing...I'm surprised this isn't shown as a training film in certain lines of work.
That made my heart race watching them retrieve that source. What a wild operation.
It’s remarkable what a human being will order others to do when they themselves don’t have to see it, touch it, do it, or be anywhere near it.
I'd totally work with an RTG given I'm given training and resources to do it safely. Probably a lot safer to do a recovery of a lost core once in a lifetime than work a couple decades in forestry.
Despite the danger, it’s an ingenious energy source. If only they used higher quality materials and safety measures they could be running somewhat well to this day for their intended purpose. A key part being remote areas and well constructed installations. Shame it ended up this way.
Some day they will make a generator that’s fueled by an isotope no larger than a pill.
Andy, the USSR also used RTG's in low Earth Orbit in their Upravlyaemy Sputnik Aktivnyy or US-A, AKA RORSAT program with some spectacular failures such as Cosmos 954. Could be an interesting avenue for you.
US-A did not have RTGs, they had nuclear reactors. Compared to RTGs, reactors had a higher power-to-weight ratio, and they also allowed direct control of the power output. The major disadvantage was short operational life, which is why there were so many of them.
This is completely wrong, USAs NASA used RTGs on many space probes like on each of the voyager and pioneer probes and many more. A prominent probe raising global concern because of its close passage to earth after a sling orbit around the sun for gaining speed, was the Cassini Huygens Probe launched in 1997 which had three (3) RTG on board. Esy to research, just check out the Cassini wikipedia page for starters ( and yes, these were all bonafide RTG )
On more than 24 space probes and missions since 1961, including on the moon, NASA used RTG's.
From the horses mouth: science.nasa.gov/mission/cassini/radioisotope-thermoelectric-generator/
( and ironically it was the USSR that focused on using nuclear reactors in space rather than RTGs, according to a wikipedia article)
You really did an excellent job in researching and preparing this video. Thank you for bringing some more history to my attention in such an entertaining way. This was Mark Felton level!
18:42 A winter, so cold, water inside a RTG froze🤯 That is some nasty weather over there.
It is important two note that Sr90 in the RTGs is in compounded form as Strontium titanate, which is water insoluble. So a wide spread environment contamination like with metallic Strontium from reactor accidents is not possible.
But if a terrorist could get a hold of it from an abandoned RTG, he could fashion a very nasty dirty bomb from it.
This was so interesting. I've never heard of these nuclear generators before. The story about the woodsman who stumbled across one of these was sad. But, it was impressive how the crew of workers handled the situation at the end. Subscribed 👍
Excellent video. I doubt many Americans have any idea this occurred.
Something to note with the thermal electric generator you showed on the old kerosene lamps, the electricity the generator made was always passive, or not its primary use. Sadly, it never is good for anything more than passive as the radiator fins you have heat up and need a fan to cool them off to keep it running efficiently enough to produce enough power for a radio to sound clean. Granted, it did help being on the source of light and heat for some families back then to stay warm enough.
It didn't help with heating the room, as you stated, you needed a fan to cool them. Russians would have to open the window instead, so they have to wear warm clothing just to operate the radio.
It is still a cool and relevant to the topic of the nuclear generators. But dose that not mean the nuclear versions also needed a cooling fan? Anyways even with the limitations of the tech it seems like the radio for "news" broadcasts would still be possible no? Remember growing up having anyone that cared gather at the TV for the evening news broadcast. It was at most a 30min broadcast or something. If the kerosene lamp was even able to sustain a understandable radio transmission for 15min it would be better then nothing right? You just have to keep track of time and tune in to the state run information.
And in cold winter weather it would be possible to put the lamp outside in the door entrance? You know if you got a wind brake entrance or something. Like it has to be possible to cool it somehow enough for a bit of radio listening? Music and entertainment like we are used to might not be feasible but that was not the goal to begin with this kerosene lamps.
Like back then you can totally believe that the kerosene lamp was going to heat up and light the cold room. If you get a radio broadcast at the same time then grate! If your running a kerosene lamps someone better be in the room anyways. Since you gather at the light source in the dark winter evenings.
Only thing I was aware a light was able to power is the spinning decoration type. You know the kind of thing you put on top of the air flow of the light heating up the air. The air then pushes fan blades that is powerful enough to make something spin around. Not enough to generate anything worth mentioning in power. More power efficient lamps barely was able to make anything move. And LED lamps are scary. If they get truly hot then your really pushing some power! Or they are without any concept of fire safety and prone to catch on fire being badly designed and built.
This is something I never knew existed! Thanks for taking the time to create and share!
Small ones were very common on space probes / landers, as they produce a lot more energy than solar, particularly if the probe is going to operate far away from the Sun.
Wow. This is one of the best UA-cam videos I have ever seen. I've watched tens of thousands of videos, but I think I'll remember this one for the rest of my life.
I've seen this story recounted many times on YT as a spooky/scary story or a mini doc, but you my good Sir actually bring the goods, you tell the same story but then BANG ! you chuck in the reality of what really happened, A+.
So glad the UA-cam algorithm let me find your channel, thanks for making this video, really great! Subscribed
Awesome, thank you!
Great Video. What a bizarre malicious attitude that someone in Russia decided by stopping the assistance in the recovery of lost RTGs
They simply don't care. That stop was only to piss off the west.
Bizzare and malicious... Kind of sums up the current leadership of the Russian federation
Russia is now an enemy of the US and EU so why on Earth would they want Americans and Europeans traipsing all around their country taking pictures and sending information back home? The first thing you do when you're at war with someone is kick their officials out of your country.
Andy, the quality here is such that I'm happy to be another subscriber. I look forward to more.
When I did stumble upon Kyle Hill's video on the Lia event I was left with the question about why the RTGs were built, what they were used for, and why they became orphaned (installed at remote locations). Your video does add that missing context, which is why I'd like to thank you for adding that background information.
I’ve been interested in these generatorsafter reading about them several years ago. Superb video and research, been looking for something like this channel for years
RTG can be a solution, but it has to be very well planned.
Deploing it outside without any protection is absolute crazy. They need at least a Concrete housing wich is Storm proof and a Stainless Metal shield as corrosive protection.
Brilliant documentary sir! 👏
Thank you for putting something so interesting and informative together.
I love Cold War and nuclear histories.
Now that was interesting, informative and terrifying in equal measures.
Great job, thank you!
the international atomic energy agency IAEA has picked up several of those, that were abandonned, neglected or forgotten after the end of the Soviet Union.
And what do you think Russia’s nuclear arsenal looks like if they couldn’t even dismantle these devices before people started scavenging them. What a mess. Great video by the way.
Wrong assumption. Russia upon recovery from USSR collapse did bring things in order. The pieces that fell from it however struggled. Today you gotta be more concerned with the now failing ex-superpowers - that's the real issue.
@@gustavevilleneuvedehoff-un5459Why do you say that like there are multiple? There were only 2 superpowers in history, the USSR and the USA. The USA is still a superpower
@@gustavevilleneuvedehoff-un5459 What you're talking about... russia is still in a big mess.
@@gustavevilleneuvedehoff-un5459 Yes, "failing ex superpowers" otherwise known as Russia
Very informative, really liked the commentary and pacing, everything was also explained in detail. Thank you for taking the time making this.
25:05 The tools werent improvised at all, they were specifically forged for this operation and to the specification of IAEA experts.
I had never heard of these Russian RTG units deployed along the coast. In addition I don't remember ever hearing about the incident in Georgia back in '01 & '02. This is the kind of story The History Guy would do. It's crazy what the Soviets used during the Cold War. Great, informative video.
have you ever heard about mobile nuclear power plants?
"Caution: Radiation" seems like a pretty casual warning label. Should be more like "Deadly radiation inside. If you open this, it will kill you in the most horrible way imaginable. Nothing inside is worth your life."
And if you are a slow reader that long sentence has just killed you.
@@krashd That's why there's a big-ass trefoil on it.
The radiation trefoil sign should be the first thing you see. That should be enough of a warning.
Excellent Doc, Andy.
Just discovered your channel.
Great production.
You obviously put a lot of work into this.
Greetings from Fife, Scotland !
( Just up the Road from Rosyth. )
I have a morbid fascination with all this nuclear technology and i have been aware of these and a few incidents with abandoned tech for a while. This was a good bit of story telling and it was nice to get some good solid info and nice photos of the real devices for a change, they are a lot bigger than i originally thought, iv been toying with the idea of making my own non-nuclear miniature version of such a device for a while now that could provide power when camping or out in the sticks.
Good video definitely a like from me.
dude who grabs it with the tongs and puts it next to the bucket is a chad. probobly got a big dose being that close, but probobly saved other guys from having to come forward and be around the puck any longer then necessary, or dragging the operation out increasing the dosage and potential for failure as they got tired. he deserves a hero of the soviet union medal or the gorgean equivalent
Nope, wiki states the maximum dosage recorded was slightly over 1mSv, which is 10% the radiation of a full-body CAT scan.
You also need to look at the cesium powered seed irradiator that were "issued" to the collective farms to improve seed fertility, when they proved a fail most were just dumped behind the barn and left to rot
Ugh. I guess company provided irradiators should be accountable for disposal.
@@heyhoe168 Well that "company" would be the Soviet Government which doesn't exist anymore and the successor states to the Soviet Union after it's dissolution have no interest and/or in many cases financial ability to finance the search and dispose of such things so...
That’s wrong. They’re are many many videos on this. They have cleaned these up, well moved and barried. But you are wrong.
The cesium what??
In the US, in the 70s, I was a student nurse caring for a cancer patient being treated with Cesium implants. Other than a radioactive ☢️ sign on door and being told to get in and out of room as quickly as possible there were no precautions taken. I'd grown up during Cuban missile crisis, with bomb shelter signs posted here and there around town, so I knew enough to be troubled by the situation.
It beggars belief that such harmful devices are simply left to rot in the wild and raises significant questions concerning nuclear semiotics for the future. Thank you for sharing this important and considered work.
Great video. I'd like to say that the audio sample of Ade Edmonson describing the dangers of radiation is from a BBC dramatization of the Chernobyl disaster and is excellent. It was made years before the HBO mini series and all the actors do an astounding job, especially Edmonson.
Those early Russian thermal generators for the radios would not have been semiconductor based as the only semi conductor back then was germanium which dose not like heat. They would have been made of dis-similar metals, When I was a teenager I had one of those victorian books aimed at boys on projects to make, one of the projects was a thermo couple generator using copper and iron wire twisted together forming a multi point star shape the inner ring of junctions being heated with a methylated sprit lamp for which building instructions were also given. The thermal generator would just about light a small torch bulb, a candle gave better light but it was a good demonstrator of principles.
I knew of these generators and the concern that was held with the collapse of Soviet authority. I had not realised the extent of the concern. So thank you sir for making such an unabashed video on this. I am a big advocate of modernity and the tech involved with it, a lot that the USSR lead on. Such an ingenious solution at the time but sometimes current solutions can lead to big problems down the road. My biggest focus at the moment is the Aral Sea. A reaction to industrialised cotton production but at the expense of draining a sea. Read into it. Fascinating vid on RTGs though. You have my thanks.
Indeed.
the drying up of the Aral sea is an environmental disaster
Yes, the destruction of the Aral Sea is the largest man-made environmental disaster of all times. At least on the regional level. We can speculate on the historic role of man in desertification of Sahara. All other disasters are peanuts compared to this.
This was excellent mate, I'd love to see more documentaries like this on the channel! Keep it up!
I want to be fair with the Soviet Union, except for some makeshift structures, they did a good job with those generators until the USSR lasted, after that they left them abandoned and all the risk went up
This was awesome!
Mark Felton level research and delivery.
Thankyou , I wish I was in Mark Felton’s league😌
@@AndyMcloone I sincerely mean that mate.
After briefly checking out some of your other vids, it is obvious that you put a lot of time and effort into the research, and production. And despite there being so much information, all of which being relevant, you manage to keep it interesting enough that I not only pay attention, I want to learn more.
Also, I'm glad to hear you hold Mark Felton in such high esteem, and I'm pleased you took the compliment in the manner in which it was intended.
Would love to see more Soviet Russia/Germany era vids in the future. And I will definitely be spending some time going through your playlist.
Subed!👍🏻
🤘🏻From🇦🇺
Mark Feltons ego could out power a rtg. You're above his league.
Hah I was about to comment about the high quality of this video, and see there's already a lot of praise. Comprehensive, accurate, and accessible is a rare combination, but you nailed it here.
The recovery was the most intense game of hot potato they must have ever played
Excellent video. New viewer - subscribed, liked and a comment for the algorithm.
Good luck and continued success - this was a lot of work and a very valuable documentary.
(I found the spoken audio difficult to distinguish. I almost bailed on the video - but the sound you added is better quality than the mic track IMO, so I hope you've got that fixed.)
The mind boggles, considering that they aren't the only Soviet Nuclear Remnants around! I wonder how that Recovery Team fared beyond then...
They were fine, their exposure was likely only a few mSv
@@inductivelycoupledplasma6207 Less than that, from the Wiki: "Worker radiation doses were monitored, and the highest dose was not more than 1.16 mSv, less than 10% of the dose of a full-body CT scan.[1][4] "
Definitely a polar opposite to the safety standards of the British nuclear safety standards. Nuclear waste is hauled by rail. The vessel, known as a flask is made from 30 mm steel, cast from two pieces. The body being one, the lid being the other. They're bolted together with large high tensile bolts, and designed to handle major stress. They dropped one from a height of 6 metres to see if it would leak. Nothing significant enough to be considered an unsafe radiation leak. They then decided to do a "worst case scenario," a collision with a train. They pressurised the interior of the casing, strapped it to a flatbed carriage, tipped it over and placed it diagonally across the tracks. A train was launched at it, the impact being 160 km/h (100 mph) It was a spectacular crash and explosion. Tests were conducted on the flask, and other than some bent fins, no real damage. The collision test was known as Operation Smash Hit
If my memory serves me Tom Clancy wrote a terrifying story about these used to make a Dirty Bomb..
Steel beams from Chernobyl ended up in Taiwan and used in a apartment complex. The material was illegally salvaged and sold them sold and sold to someone else. It eventually made it into the apartments of Taiwan. Good news is that they were not that radioactive so no ill-effects happened. The apartment was demolished.
The apartments were built in 1982-1983, so the use of steel salvaged after the Chernobyl accident in 1986 was not possible. The contamination was only cobalt-60 (therefore most likely due to melting of scrap metal with an irradiator source or teletherapy source, similar to the Juarez incident in 1983). Over 100 buildings were built with radioactive steel. Residents have an increased occurrence of chromosome aberrations corresponding to radiation dose, although the relationship with their overall health is unclear - some conditions became more prevalent but a direct link to radiation exposure could not be established.
Source: Taipei Times, April 29 2001, page 2. (Except the part in parenthesis, and the comparison of dates versus Chernobyl.)
@@CoastalSphinxthis is how you make a comment on social media. Well done sir.
Brilliant work as always! These films are gems.
Absolutely amazing video, never heard these stories before and the narrative really ties the research and historical detail together, well done!
I had heard the "men in the woods finding radioactive item" story but in no where near the same detail. As you say absoluty amazing video.
Very educational and well put together. I learn new things everyday thanks to well made videos like this
This was an excellent documentary, the real footage of snow boiling was chilling.
Hats off to the brave gentlemen putting their health at risk for future generations, even though they did not make the terrible mistake of the USSR of deploying these forbidden camping stoves.
"DROP & RUN" .... good grief, I don't EVER want to see/read that on any thing. Another fantastic video, again thank you for your time and effort.
Co60 is nothing to fuck around with. It was the cause of the Goiania radiation disaster in Brazil.
Such an incredible bit of journalistic documentary. Frighteningly sad. Sadly disturbing.
I haven't ever heard of these devices, nor of the desperate reality that remains to be. More future tragedy, certainly.
The recovery footage stood my hairs on end.
An amazing piece, this here!
Very nice presentation. I had heard about the range of uses the USSR had found for radioisotopes. The units for drying grain and killing mold in soil deserve their own presentation as they too must continue to present a legacy of mortal danger that is equal to or greater than that of the RTGs. Not to mention, the constant threat the materials within these devices present to the security of the wider world when someone goes looking for a budget WMD that takes a few days to a few years to do its damage.
Evidently my Russian is still good enough to read and understand most of the warning labels. Bravo Zulu (Well Done).