Collins grunted. “There are meltdowns and there are meltdowns,” he said. “The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl could be classified as radiation leaks. This one was a real whing-ding, snap-doodle of a meltdown — there isn’t much left out there. The satellite sensors show unbelievable temperatures. The first reading they got was thirty minutes after the thing went. We got a fax of a satellite photo half an hour ago and you wouldn’t believe it. Looks like the damn thing was hit with a ten-ton blockbuster. The structure is gone — steel, concrete, everything. Nothing left but some rubble and a hole in the ground.”
After a bit Collins added, “Of course, there’s not a chance in a zillion that anyone survived it.”
Grafton whistled. “You’re saying it’s almost like it blew up.”
“That’s precisely what it did. In the argot of the trade, ‘a power excursion,’ or a runaway. In lay terms, the son of a bitch blew up.”
Jake was stunned. Today no one had mentioned an explosion, nor had the word passed the lips of anyone at the Kremlin. “I thought nuclear reactors couldn’t explode.”
“A popular misconception. Fast breeders can. This one did.”
Jake was still trying to take it in. “Exploded?”
“The core exploded.”
“A nuclear explosion?”
“Boom.”
“How could that happen?”
Collins rubbed his face. He looked around, then by reflex turned up the volume on the radio. “Serdobsk was a liquid metal fast breeder reactor, one of the first ones the Russians built. The core is made up of uranium-235, which is surrounded by rods of uranium-238, which breed into plutonium. In a water-cooled pressure reactor, bleeding off the water causes the core to melt and fission to stop. Of course the hot core can melt the containment vessel and release radioactivity, but fission stops. In a breeder, loss of coolant has the opposite effect: the fission reaction increases. The more rapid the coolant loss, the worse the effect. As the temperature rises the core melts and fills the spaces between the rods. When the material is compact enough, it can detonate in a nuclear explosion.”
Collins waved a hand impatiently. “It’s been years since I studied this stuff, but as I recall, theoretically you could get an explosion about the equivalent of ten tons of TNT if the core is really cooking when the coolant goes. That looks to me about what they had. An explosion like that would blow maybe half the core material into the atmosphere — that’s tons of really filthy uranium, plutonium, iodine, strontium-90, that kind of crap.”
Jake Grafton felt like a sinner listening to God’s verdict. “Tons?”
Collins was merciless. “If you want all the trade words, a liquid-metal cooled breeder is autocatalytic — it’s its own catalyst for manufacturing power excursions. The process of compaction and excursions that result in more compactions is a little like what happens in a collapsing star at the end of its life. Power melts the core, it crashes down, more power, more rebound or crashdown, poof! Think of it like a little supernova. The nuclear reaction stops only when the core disassembles — blows itself to smithereens.”
“What could cause this…core compaction?”
“Well, I’m no expert, but—”
“You’re as close to an expert as I’ve got.”
“As I recall, there are a bunch of theoretical possibilities. Basically any event that causes the core to be compacted can start the process. The reactor is cooled by liquid sodium, which is hotter than helclass="underline" molten steel could cause the sodium to vaporize and explode. A sodium vapor explosion is the most likely way, but fuel vaporizing could trigger it. Or an external explosion that damages the core and compacts it, or coolant loss or surges that damage the core—”
Jake had had enough. He stopped the recitation with a raised hand. “So how bad is it?”
“Bad?” Collins stared at him as if he were a dense child. “This reactor was old, full of plutonium and really raunchy crud. Plutonium is the deadliest substance known to man. It has a half-life of twenty-four thousand two hundred years. One would have to wait for about ten half-lives, call it two hundred and fifty thousand years, for the stuff to cool off to the tolerable level.”
“Forever.”
“Essentially forever.”
“How much land will have to be permanently abandoned?”
“I dunno. They’re trying to figure that out in Washington. And I’m trying to make some estimates. Depends on the winds and how much atmospheric mixing there was, how much rain, all that stuff.”
“So guess,” Jake Grafton said.
“Maybe fifty thousand square miles. Maybe twice that.” Collins shrugged.
“Yeltsin’s fault,” Jake Grafton said slowly.
“It’s somebody’s.” Collins weighed his words. “You know, I got out of nuclear power after my first tour. Oh, I was a gung-ho little nuke all right — had my interview with that troll Rickover and did my time in Idaho and thought we had the fucking genie corked up tight. But this stuff”—he looked around again, searching for words—“God uses fusion to make the stars burn. We use fission now and we’re working up to fusion. We’re playing God…toddlers sitting in the dark playing with matches. The consequences…I just decided I wanted no more of it.”
“Serdobsk blew. Man’s hubris? Or did someone help this supernova compaction along?”
“What do you want, Admiral? Probability theory?”
“Yes.”
“Never bet on God. Go with the main chance. Men build ’em, men screw ’em up.”
“If you were going to blow a breeder, how would you go about it?”
Collins was in no mood for what-if games, yet a glance at Grafton’s face made him concentrate on the question. “Shaped charges on top of the vessel. Blow down and in. Put some hot molten steel into that sodium stew. The charges wouldn’t have to be very big since the containment vessel is unpressurized. With luck I’d get a little sodium vapor explosion that would send a shock wave down into the core. The first shock wave would lead to a power excursion and another — bigger — shock wave, and so on. If I were willing to meet my maker with that on my conscience, that’s the way I’d do it.”
Jake Grafton just grunted.
The telephone rang at midnight. “Admiral Grafton.”
“This is Richard, Admiral. I’ve got it.”
Jake came wide awake. Richard Harper. “This isn’t a secure line, Richard.”
“Okay.” Two seconds of silence. “It was a hell of a trail and they were damn cute, but I got it. How do you want it?”
“I’ll have someone call you. Can you write it out?”
“Sure.”
13
The storm broke in Russia the next morning. The speaker of the Congress of People’s Deputies managed to call the house to order, but that was the last thing he accomplished. While the world watched on television the deputies brawled. Finger pointing and shouting gave way to shoving and fists. Before the camera was turned off several deputies were seen to be on the floor being kicked and pounded with fists by their colleagues.
A huge, angry crowd gathered in Red Square. Conspicuous today were the red flags, the ugly mood. Then, as if someone struck a match, the crowd exploded. A truck was overturned and set on fire. Policemen were beaten, several to death. Then the rioters spilled out of the square and headed for the nearby hard-currency hotels and restaurants, which they looted. One hotel was set ablaze. Foreigners were attacked on the streets and beaten mercilessly. Somehow CNN managed to televise most of the riot live to a stunned, angry, frightened world.
Although the sense of fear and betrayal was strongest in Russia, the rest of the world felt it too. Nuclear power plants stood throughout the Western world. Their safety had long been an issue, but the debate seemed esoteric to electorates concerned with the mundane issues of jobs, wages, education and housing. The massive, catastrophic pollution from the Serdobsk accident was something the public could understand. They were seeing the consequences of an accident that advocates of nuclear power said would never happen.