If the world population got wiped out apart for afew survivors,what would happen2the nuclear plants and stores

Question

If the world population got wiped out apart for afew survivors,what would happen2the nuclear plants and stores
would they explode/leak? would it render the world unrepopulatable?

Answer 1

Hanford in the state of Washington has been the 'temporary' respository for most of America's nuclear waste since nuclear power was first developed in WW2. And right now, despite billions of dollars and massive government effort, it is leaking radioactive waste into rivers, soil, and the air. So I think it's pretty safe to say that without all those efforts, there would be a lot more radioactive stuff in the environment.

As far as the power plants... it's my understanding that barring some kind of massive malfunction (which has already happened a couple times) even if everyone left, the plants would automatically seal off and just hum quietly to themselves without doing much harm. But old power plants are hardly a permanent repository for radioactive material. So it's reasonable to assume that all that will get out sooner or later too. Maybe a thousand years from now. But eventually.

So we have all the radioactive stuff released into the environment. Will this make the planet unlivable? Not even vaguely.

What it WILL do is cause a lot of genetic damage. This means that survivors will have shorter lifespans. Cancer will be much more prevalent. Mutations will be more common, as will stillbirths. These are all not-fun things to happen, but they are all survivable.

Arguably, with all those mutations perhaps even good things would happen sooner instead of later. A few extra DNA-repair mechanisms could solve the whole problem (not a far-fetched idea... we have quite a few already). Still, I don't think I'll be volunteering for the interim time, thank you.

Answer 2

Most nuclear plants are built with many safety and backup procedures. If no one turned up it would most likely just shut down once it hit an error. It would usually take a few serious faults for the plant to blow up. Some might, but most won't. However not all social infrastructure is built as secure as a nuclear power plant and requires lot of maintainance to work properly. Pipes will burst, leaks occur, toxic spills, electrical shorts and uncontrollable fires erupt bringing down a city. Unless you where next to the blast zone when a nuclear plant goes off, I would be more worried about what wiped everyone else out.

Most of the nuclear material will just continue to sit where it was left. Some drums of waste may start to leak in a few hundred years and leave a pool of radioactive goo for 10,000 or more years. Some incests are able to handle radiation so they will be fine. As long as any survivors stayed away from these places they will fine too, except for dealing with the problem that took the rest of humanity out and trying to survive when there is no more shops to go to when you get hungry.

Answer 3

To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Buy radioisotopes! They're not makin' 'em anymore!" All of the U-238 and U-235 that there was ever going to be was created at the Big Bang. All of those radioisotopes that there were ever going to be on Earth accreted here when the Earth formed. They have been decaying away ever since. Nuclear plants and stores would lose radioactive material. If the world population gets wiped out, the survivors would have to figure out how to live in a world where the radioisotopes have decayed away, and the hydrocarbon resources are depleted.

Answer 4

The nuclear plants would just shut down, harmlessly, and stay that way.

The stores would become sources of free stuff.

Answer 5

i'm sure there are automatic safeguards for that type of thing. think about the time when most of these places were made (1950's) i'm sure the thought of horrific nuclear annihilation was more present back then than it is now and people planned accordingly.

Answer 6

Chimpanzees would take them over.

Answer 7

the ones lrft would screw it up for them selfs