It seems that the reactor operators do not understand how their reactor works. This being said overriding safety control should take authorization from a regional director or someone high enough up the chain to tell them no.
@@Privat2840 Apparently, critical information on the reactor design was classified secret and the operators were not allowed to know it. The operators simply followed procedures to run the reactor. It worked unless conditions outside normal operating parameters were encountered. In those cases, knowing the design of the reactor might have helped.
_"you should probably stop and rethink your plan"_ - no way, comrade. No way, no why, no how - that would be a sabotage of a five-year plan. And for that you'd get a white beaches holiday... erm, izvinitye, slip of tongue - I meant "white *bears* holiday", of course - and a couple of years of it, actually. So, "nyet", and don't you even dare to think about it - you have to get yer priorities right: "Socialismo o muerte", and toe the Party line - or else.
One of the things that amazed me after discovering this channel and following some of the recommended readings you have given across your videos was realizing how exhausting for the operators, both physically and mentally, was to work on the control panel of one of these behemoths to keep everything under control. And of course once more, hats off to you sir !
As one operator at ChNPP (an ex Red Navy reactor sailor), was quoted as saying, "How do you control this hulking POS?! And why is it in civilian use?!"
How were the Soviets who ran these RBMK reactors trained? Did they go to university? Or on the job? Crazy to think that even with the design flaw, there are still soviet RBMK reactors in operation today.
i have a hunch that somewhere in the deepest archive room of the kremlin there are documents that accurately describe the behavior of these reactor in all working conditions.
There is also a rumour that there are actual recordings of the control room CCTV on that very night. Apparently, the mic next to Toptunov wasn't working at the time but it would still make for interesting viewing. If it does exist, I doubt that it will ever see the light of day.
In all probability, you would not be far off the mark. That goes for the Chernobyl accident itself as well. Only the Lord knows what they've got hidden away in there about that.
@@ChrisMatthewson regardless of existence of recordings, the whole accident schematics looks more or less clear. Reactor's control rods had indeed positive reactivity area, reactor was indeed in poorly controllable state, so operators' movements just triggered the whole thing. I personally don't expect anything brand new (if even found & published) will change the scene dramatically.
@@konstantinklimenko4181 No, I don't think that it would change anything about what physically happened or how that happened, but it would confirm and/or set some things straight. A picture is worth a 1000 words and so we could once and all see in reality what it was like in the control room before the explosion. Dyatlov would be shown as he really was instead of some made up opinion by someone who disliked him and the general atmosphere of nothing particularly unusual going on. So, many things could once and forever be set straight and cleared up. The reactor would still explode no matter how many times it is watched but a lot of dis-information would be blown away. That is why it will never be released.
@@ChrisMatthewson speaking of justice, operators started liquidation right after the explosion, and subdued quite a number of internal fires within the station. This fact is typically completely missed and only firefighters are regarded as heroes.
TCG I have watched you since the original iceberg videos, I wanna thank you for you boosting my interest in the Chernobyl Disaster and RBMK Reactors in general.
Their naval reactors were pretty similar. They do some unbelievably dangerous and negligent stuff with no regard to just basic safety. They test launch sub icbms tied up to the dock on base. Of course the obvious happens, theres launch failures. One made it 10 feet above the sub, came crashing back down on that submarine. One that they had 2 reactors in, because they knew one would fail eventually on patrol. This way they wouldn't need to return if 1 melted down. Has happened a few times. Couldn't imagine a worse situation with an icbm landing on anything with that kind of design and mfg quality making it out because of anything other than luck.
@@chehn R-14 sub of US Navy actually *did* make use of an improvised sail from hammocks and whatnot due to seawater contamination ruining fuel! In fact, it got enough speed (aroudn 2 knots, give or take) under the sail that windmilling propellers ran generators at a sufficient level to start charging the batteries
It baffles me how you are able to read all of those reports! Long, dry, and boring as hell. Yet you read all of them, and you are able to make sense of it all. Thank you on behalf of us all. You actually make it understandable and interesting. I salute you! Teaching seems to be your calling! I truly appreciate all of what you do.
@Spetsnazty Of course, it's not boring to him! That's exactly what I am saying! And for myself, I can listen to him, find it very interesting, and learn about something that I find interesting, but doesn't have the patience or understanding to read those long, boring reports myself!
Could you also do a video about the Jaslovské Bohunice A1 incidents, the 2nd one resulting in partially melting the core? The reactor was an experimental of the type KS-150 and was working with natural (not enriched) uranium and the plant had a rather low power output of 104 MWe. Moderator was heavy water and coolant was gaseous carbon dioxide. The reactor was designed to be refueled while in operation and both incidents happened during refueling of a critical reactor. The first accident due to operator error combined with bad design of the locking mechanism of the fuel assembly and the second, that led to partial meltdown, was caused again by operator error as they unintentionally teared a sack containing silica gel balls and did not properly clean the channels. Which resulted in low coolant gas flow and overheating and rupturing the fuel channel and its surrounding channels too. While it was technically possible to repair the reactor, it was not feasible from an economical point, as new, more powerful soviet VVER 440/V230 reactors were being build on the site as part of the V1 plant, which operated without any incidents from 1978/1980 to 2006/2008 (block 1 and block 2). The two currently running VVER 440/V213, which have been modernized and their thermal power risen by 7% from 1375 MWt to 1471 MWt together with improvements in the generator part (power output increase by again by 7% from 472 MWe to 505 MWe), are scheduled to be shut down in 2065 after 81/80 years if operation (block 1/2). A new 1200 MWe block is being mentioned quite often in the last years, according to plans the construction should begin 2035 and commercial operation start in 2045. The new V3 plant should be running until 2125. Wow. Nuclear reactors and power plants are build to last...
Well, in both cases, the USSR's way of doing things seems to be: Grab all the evidence. Try to silence anyone saying anything and then release their version of what happened and that version is NEVER EVER their fault. So who is to say what bits they just copied and pasted from an earlier incident?
@@ChrisMatthewson I think you may have misspelled it. USSR=USA? No, wait, isn't it USSR=EU? I got it! USSR=USSA But don't worry about it, just keep quiet and I won't tell anyone it's obviously all *YOUR FAULT*. 🤪
The shorter graphite for the control rods makes perfect sense for the differing outcomes between Leningrad and Chernobyl. With Leningrad those longer graphite portions were already displacing more water thus AZ-5 doesn't cause as big of a spike since graphite was already in play. At Chernobyl where it goes from neutron absorbing water to neutron enhancing graphite the spike is much larger because of the fact that it was already getting out of control even with the water slowing things up. Shortly after AZ-5 is pushed and the flip in reactivity occurs between water and graphite that was all it needed to really go over the top on reactivity thanks to the positive void coefficient combined with that shorter control rod graphite portion.
Have you read the English translation of Chernousenko's "Chernobyl: Insight From the Inside"? It has some illuminating information about this model of reactor which I haven't seen anywhere else. There were a number of UA-cam interviews of Chernousenko before he passed away but they seem to have disappeared into the ether. Very interesting character who landed himself in a whole heap of trouble over his criticisms. I was particularly interested in a very short passage where he said - rather enigmatically - that they were so concerned about the threat of seasonal rain flooding the reactor basement and causing a flashover they ..... redirected weather fronts away from the facility ....
How is it written. A 1991 traduction from Russian sounds quite cumbersome. I appreciate the new book from Higginbotham but would also appreciate a more detailed book about the physical background.
@@el_dani Very easy read. Whoever translated did a pretty good job. Chernousenko comes from a bit of different perspective because he was the director of the exclusion zone which included the cleanup. One of the things he does say is that estimates of how much of the core was ejected from the reactor are bald faced lies. His team came to the conclusion that the overwhelming majority was blown completely clear of the building with a significant percentage atomised and picked up by the prevailing winds. I mean, he provides a lot of facts and figures I haven't seen anywhere else. And he was one of the first to point out that the shift workers were largely thrown under the bus. I think he was the Ukrainian representative so he had a little more freedom to speak candidly. He used to have a Wikipedia entry but - somewhat mysteriously - it appears to have vanished. You can find his book second hand through Amazon at reasonable prices. I found it fascinating.
In the end though, the reason for both accidents was the state and its institutions. Of course, one couldn't say that back then, the state was infallible! And therein lies the primary issue.
Yep, I was grew up in a communist country, they had every chance to make something good from the chance they got, but they chosed to just be like every other system with good living people on the top and working masses on the bottom. The leaders of the government regularly came together in aristocrat castles to hunt and feast. In the end it was a system what God gave to the people, it was infallible, perfect and unquestionable just like the royal system before them. I'm glad it's over. They didn't cared about the people. News travelled slowly in the Red Block, in 1986 cheap food flooded my country, all the food came from the land around Chernobyl, there was a cancer epydemic after that. They sold us their radioactive food, this is how much the Sovietunion cared about the workers.
@@Zodroo_TintYep, I'm glad that state is gone. My mother thanks Chernobyl though, fervently. Getting a resettled friend from there with a personal dosimeter saved her from renting an apartment in a building "hotter" than Pripyat. Building was still occupied though, nobody got punished. Who knows how many more just like it were built. Simply because the local mine gave out cheap building material from their left overs. Just brings to mind the fact that the state didn't, and doesn't care about people.
I’ve recently discovered your channel and after binge-watching most of your videos I’m beyond amazement due to the quality and details of your work. Your channel is something that I needed to find. It’s still very confusing to me and all those conflicting quotes, different institutions and names saying different things make a big mess in my head, but I’m very slowly beginning to understand more and more thanks to your efforts.
Great research! One comment for those who don't know... the reason increasing fuel enrichment can help reduce the chances of an accident like this is because when the enrichment increases, the fuel designers can put more "burnable poisons" into the pellets. This allows for better transient characteristics. Then as the fuel burns, natural poisons build up as the burnable ones burn out and the fuel is consumed. There is some complicatedness to this balance because boiling water reactors produce a descent amount of plutonium, towards the back 3rd or sonof it's lifespan. Thus when western BWRs are at the end of a fuel cycle, the core fuel limits have the lowest margin, since the control rods are full out. Im not familiar enough with the RBMK design to comment on how that later is impacted, but I fission works the same, even in Russia.
The RBMK didn't use any burnable poisons in the fuel. They replaced entire fuel assemblies with boron rods, and then gradually removed them over the course of months. Only after the accident did some burnable poisons start to be used. Given that the RBMK was overmoderated, increasing enrichment reduced the void coefficient simply by increasing the fuel:moderator ratio.
@@markusw7833 lowest margin to their design limitations for various scenarios. It's more complex than it's worth explaining in a UA-cam comment, but if you Google search "nuclear fuel safety limits," you can get a good bit of material. The NRC website also has some good articles that describe the different design/safety limits and their purposes. But the bottom line is that a reactors fuel needs to be designed to withstand normal operatio, transients (turbine trip, loss of feedwater, loss of recirculation... etc) and accidents. To maintain those limits, the operators have to ensure certain equipment available and the fuel/core engineers have to ensure they design the core and fuel with specific parameters... enrichment and burnable poisons being 2 of many.
Another good presentation. It stirred my memory they sure knew about PWR reactors, after all it was not an RBMK in K-19 that was in the Kennedy era! Apparently they could not cool that one even with the rods in. Makes you wonder. Keep up the wonderful work!
subscribed just a few mins in; one can tell when there is substantial knowledge to be gained ;) just one thing tho: please consider investing in a better mic. can't really put my finger on it, but the audio is kinda flat/noisy. either way, great content!
I do have one point of contention with the significance of the final feedwater temp, as it enters the core. While not the cause of Chernobyl, it would have heavily contributed to the onset of the original power spike and I think it is important that the 2 scenarios had different final temps. It is minor because I agree that it was not the reason Chernobyl exploded but still important to distinguish. 1. Lack of subcooling would provide NPSH to the recirc pumps and cavitation in the pumps would impact their efficiency/capacity. 2. But more importantly, if the water starts to boil lower in the core, it would decrease negative reactivity, while also putting the core into a departure from nucleate boiling state (DNB). In this condition, the boiling of the water cause reactivity to become unpredictable and in a reactor like an RBMK, it would cause it to overpower sections of the core, then the negative heat coefficient would kick in, reducing power sloghtly and then allowing it to rise again. Then the 2 conditions would fight eachother at different rates in the core, since it is so massive. It probably wouldn't have lead to a disaster scale event but the core would have been substantially damaged, even if the unit was shut down by manual insertion of the control rods, as opposed to a scram. In western BWRs, the departure cause a slightly different, yet still concerning effect, where the reactivity yo-yos against the void coefficient, and can cause the fuel to rupture the cladding. Thus they are fitted with protections to detect such a condition.
The main circulation pumps at Chernobyl were not limited or interrupted by cavitation. This had been offered initially as a cause and subsequently studied. Water being close to its boiling point at the core inlet was apparently a significant contributory factor, but what wasn't pointed out early is that in RBMK reactors this was not an abnormal state and an operating rule wasn't broken in either lack of subcooling or the connection of all main circulation pumps. This topic was covered in the second Masters of Weaponized Narration videos released last week. It is true we don't know how different this condition was at Leningrad in 1975 vs Chernobyl in 1986, and we don't know the Operating Reactivity Margins in the apparently two uses of the emergency protection system after the initial shutdown at Leningrad. The similarities between the two incidents are striking but there could be confounding factors. Nonetheless, at this point, as you saw the first deputy minister of the Ministry of Energy mention, we are extremely confident that there indeed was a difference in the design of the control rods between the two incidents, which in our opinion is the key to answering the question why a disaster of Chernobyl's magnitude hadn't occurred earlier. Too many things were done according to the rules at Chernobyl and too many times prior things had happened or gone wrong. INSAG-7 even mentions a repetition of Chernobyl could have occurred in other seemingly more benign circumstances. But, a change to the dimensions of the control rods creating or augmenting a positive scram effect occurred in proximity to the disaster. The reactor actually exploded at about the time you would expect it to, as its coefficients of reactivity reached their maximum values with the removal of additional absorbers due to increasing fuel burnup by design.
@@markusw7833 To put it VERY simply: Chernobyl unit 4 had problems at the bottom of the reactor - A place where, because of shortened control rods, (when AZ-5 was pressed) absorbing water was pushed out of the way and graphite inserted increasing reactivity in that very bottom of the reactor. All at a time when water entering there was almost at boiling point anyway. So VERY crudely: Water about to boil gets turned instantly to steam as the reactivity has just gone up following the pressing of AZ-5 and the water being replaced with graphite. Then, of course, all that steam (void) increased reactivity further. Basically, all this mess happened in the bottom of the reactor at Chernobyl. So, all in all, as that is where the whole problem started, I don't feel that you need to be a nuclear engineer to say that the shortening of the control rods played a massive part in why the Chernobyl unit 4 exploded. - Water about to boil gets a massive boost that makes it boil due to increased reactivity because graphite is now where water used to be. The water instantly turns to steam and steam (voids) increases reactivity further. BANG! Of course, lots and lots of things led up to that point to put the reactor into that situation, but the finishing point was caused by shortened control rods.
@@markusw7833 "Pray do expound" My, did you swallow the entire "Steven Fry Dictionary to pompous English"? - I would suggest that you watch all 3 of TCG's excellent videos all about what led up to the explosion on that night. It's a great detailed account of all the things that led up to that point.
Tiny side story. 1975 Dad was a SGT in the USAF stationed at Kelly Airbase TX His office was the tallest on base so they put a weather station and test equipment on the roof, Dad was tasked with getting the data to the correct people. He came home one day and said today we all breathed in nuclear material. Just little tiny amounts. He did not answer any questions. and never did.
So...if you'll pardon the analogy, post Leningrad, the Russians basically took an already unstable system, and gave it the nuclear equivalent of a hair trigger (I use that because I distinctly remember one Russian scientist stating that withdrawing the rods in Chernobyl 4 was "akin to cocking a gun.") They were in effect doing in-service testing. that's incredible to me.
Multiple people with close knowledge comment on the RBMK project undergoing concurrent development and operation, even using the word experimental, incomplete. It's interesting where the line is to be drawn when you think about it because many things change.
Not in effect, they WERE doing in-service testing. The beurocrats in charge got a medal for bringing reactor 4 online ahead of schedule. Only, they hadn't actually passed all the safety tests and weren't supposed to have signed off on reactor 4 entering service. The safety test they were running created the circumstance, but trying to get it back up to service spec before morning is what pulled the trigger.
Good evening! I just want to make it known to you that another channel under the name "Wisioner" essentially copied the entire script of this video and reads it with an AI rendered voice. Id share a link if I could but i also dont want to promote their content theft.
I hope you reported it, too. Good job! I've found myself doing that from time to time, and the folks at UA-cam did in fact listen and shut down the offending channel each time.
8:12 is this the issue that Fomin was so concerned about at Chernobyl? I recall a description (by Medvedev 😬) that Fomin was seemingly obsessed with "thermal shock" from cold water entering the reactor from the emergency cooling system during the fateful test. He may actually have been concerned about operators being unable to cope with a badly-skewed neutron field as happened in Leningrad. Given that reactor accidents were State secrets and information tightly controlled by the KGB, it's interesting that Fomin even heard about it, much less became preoccupied with it's apparent cause 🤔 But this lack of transparency eventually came back to haunt the Soviet nuclear industry.
I would say ' final straw during a perfect storm'. On that night, many of the things they did weren't that much different to how they normally did things and so this led to not much concern on the night and seeing what they did do as normal and usual. I believe that having shortened control rods played a massive part in providing the final kick to send the already near boiling point water to instantly turn to steam, but that water had to be in that state for that to happen. So the control rods are not the only thing involved. Had the inlet water been at a lower temperature at the point AZ-5 was pressed, then the sudden increase in reactivity/heat might not have been enough to make it all boil and give time for the boron to get in place and lower reactivity.
It was the lack of control rods. The minimum of temperature-controlling rods that were supposed to be inserted was 15. They only inserted 8. I've heard higher minimums than this, but I discovered the information from the "Chernobyl: Minute by Minute" video here on UA-cam, and I was shocked at just how poorly trained those night-shift workers were. I'm interested in finding out if this is featured in other videos, because I heard a different number on another video, and I can't recall the title of that one right now. All this information is both fascinating and horrifying at the same time, and I hope we don't go through the same type of incident. My biggest fear is that if we automate these nuclear reactor systems so much and don't have well-trained shift workers to handle a sudden melt down, what then?
Great Video! There are some theories that the first Explosion in Chernobyl was an explosion in the fuel tubes. This explosion was caused by the fuel being vaporized and shooting high up in the sky, higher than the second explosion, Eveidece suporting this theory is presented in a report by Swedish Scientist Lars-Erik De Geer, etal: "A Nuclear Jet at Chernobyl Around 21:23:45 UTC on April 25, 1986" "This paper renders the following hypothesis. The first explosion consisted of thermal neutron mediated nuclear explosions in one or rather a few fuel channels, which caused a jet of debris that reached an altitude of some 2500 to 3000 m. The second explosion would then have been the steam explosion most experts believe was the first one. "
This jet was detected by US satellite, that was monitoring Soviet DUGA over horizon radar in the Chernobyl area. Time of detection corresponded to local time in Chernobyl 01:23:45 on April 26 1986. Jet was emitted after flash of blue light on the ground. On April 29 1986 air probes were taken in Cherepovets, north of Moscow, that were analyzed by gamma spectrometer. Minsredmash experts found Xe-135 in the probe and determined ratio Xe-135/Xe-135m/ (ground state/excited state) as 22.4 , that pointed out to a nuclear explosion. Original estimate was 10 kT of TNT, but later reduced to 10T of TNT. Super critical reaction on prompt neutrons occurred in 3-30 fuel channels with participation of 0.01% of total fuel load of 200T. On first weeks of May 1986 KGB already issued order that true nature of Chernobyl disaster should never been disclosed.
At some time before I die, I hope, by watching all your videos several times, to actually understand the ins and outs of what really happened at these reactor accidents.
@@MichaelVLang I suppose I assumed that anyone this deep in the comments section probably gets that. The video is about a power plant, right? Anyone watching the video knows that we're boiling water, I hope! I meant it in a playfully facetious way. That's why I said "one could argue". I wasn't arguing that, heh--just putting it out there. ;-)
@@kennethocongerskin9460 I'm glad to speak with you, i'm interested in Scotland, Irish and England music, culture, also I like to drink Single Malt Isley whiskey. A little bit dancing traditional dances of Great Britain. Of course I'm in the same city, because it's really beautiful. You're welcome to come here, as I know there are no any sanction tourists from Britain at all.
@@the3yM Hahaha. I know nothing of traditional British dance. Zero. My interest is in old Soviet cars. And yes I should get a visa to visit before it is too late. Scarey times☹️.
In my opinion, this is all a symptom of the cumulative effect of policies instituted by the CPSU. The stance of the central party was effectively to do anything to project only the most positive image of the country's capabilities. This stance created policies which pressured people to lie about anything which would negatively impact their position rather than actually addressing the issues. These lies and cover-ups all converged in Chernobyl.
I have heard something of the sort being systemic, but having not experienced it myself it's rather difficult to imagine. I would be shocked if this is what actually happened given here you're talking about a nuclear expert level, literally the highest of the high. It does seem more probable they misunderstood the reactor, but the reality may be rather more complex.
@markusw7833 I'm afraid its entirely plausible. Don't forget, the USSR was founded by a group of fanatics. In the fundamentalist mindset, lies are perfectly acceptable if they serve the long-term goal. The people who came after, even those who had never been diehard communists, were trapped within the edifice of deceit that the Bolsheviks created.
I was wondering, has there been any actual Monte-Carlo multiphysics neutronic simulation of the Chernobyl incident? Surely that would be the only way to confirm those assumptions about the cause(s) of the accident.
@@38vocan This is documentation about it. I am still looking for the one that I posted from bc im on my phone now haha inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/39/107/39107419.pdf?r=1
This whole incident and its history really shows the dangers of "Needing to be Perfect" as a State-level imperative. It had to be secret, had to be hidden and protected!
This is entertaining but attempts to describe conditions that are too complex for a lawyerly verbal description. Something’s (plural) were wrong with the RBMK design, but also with the training of the operators and the oprerations of their organization.
very good analysis. I always thought Diatlov's analysis was really sound in that the reactor was doomed from much earlier due to the "2-reactor" effect + control rod reactivity insertion into the lower half. the postitive void coefficient is what then even increased the reactivity. when the trouble started for realy in Czernobyl they had like just 300 MW thermal , and 3 MCPs running, so I dont expect there was a tremendous amount of voiding present when AZ--5 was pressed ?
I am genuinely curious as to why you say that they changed reactivity to a power level? You seem to have a fairly good understanding of the reactor dynamics and hearing reactivity used to refer to anything other than departure from criticality is quite jarring every time it comes up.
How were the Soviets who ran these RBMK reactors trained? Did they go to university? Or on the job? Crazy to think that even with the design flaw, there are still soviet rbmk reactors in operation today.
Why does higher enrichment reduce the void issue? What other changes were made? Building an reactor in such a way that the water is not just the moderator and coolant but also necessary as an absorber sounds like a bad design.
Higher enrichment alters the fuel to moderator ratio making the reactor less over-moderated (moderation, performed by graphite, slows down neutrons that in turn are more likely to cause fission), in which circumstance water acts as less of an absorber. Unfortunately I don't know more than this. Good question.
@@markusw7833 With higher enrichment the moderation can be shifted away from carbon towards water, because otherwise the water absorbs too many neutrons. The russian reactor designs are unsafe because the carbon is sufficient for moderation. Russian reactors are good for breeding Plutonium and using low enrichment. Water moderated reactors use slower and fewer neutrons.
@@markusw7833 They aren't explicitly good for Pu, but they have the lowest absorption and thus work with no or low enrichment. Graphite reactors were the first to breed Pu for weapons.
@@markusw7833 VVERs and most western reactors have their cores inside single large pressure vessels. The vessel must be depressurized and opened to replace any fuel assemblies. This makes it very difficult to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, for which frequent fuel replacements are needed. If the fuel is left in the reactor too long, then too much of the plutonium-239 is converted to plutonium-240, which is unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Water-cooled graphite-moderated reactors use "pressure tube" design, where numerous tubes of cooling water pass through holes in the graphite moderator blocks. The fuel assemblies are placed inside the tubes, so every tube must have a separate access, to open it individually. It is then relatively easy, to allow any tube to be opened and its fuel changed at any time - even if the reactor is running. This permits the frequent fuel replacements necessary for weapons-grade plutonium production.
I always thought that reactors are simple. Control rods control the power thats it but its way way more complicated. Now I have a lot more respect for nuclear engineers.
The RBMK reactor had some significant and known flaws, like the Xenon poisoning of the core and the fact that the reactor was notoriously instable at low power, but the Soviet government didn't want to accept those facts for political reasons. Which is why on that fatal day in Chernobyl, yet another attempt of running a very specific test was done and failed, this time catastrophically. It was a textbook case of "doing the same experiment over and over again with the same parameters and expecting different results".
Xenon poisoning isn't unique to just the RBMK. It happens in _all_ running reactors. It's a natural part of the fission process. Even the earliest reactors ran into this rather quirky part of splitting the atom. As of yet, no one has been able to come up with a solution for how to prevent it from happening since it's a part of the decay path.
Incorrect. The test was a success. The test was a turbine rundown test and so nothing to do with the reactor directly as they shut off the stream to the turbine. After the test, they decided to shutdown the reactor as they always intended to do. It was then that things got errr ummm exciting!
@@ChrisMatthewson No, the reactor core was contaminated and unstable even before the test started, so arguably it was in completely the wrong state and yet the chief technician still decided to go ahead with the test. They should have either skipped the test or had gotten the core fully stabilized before starting the test. The first part of the test was to literally switch off ALL safety systems and take manual control over a reactor type that desperately needed all safety measures to keep it at least somewhat stable. When they retracted the control rods, instead of increasing the output power, the reactor dropped to a very low output and they didn't understand why that happened. That should have been the point to stop the test, switch all safety measures back on and figure out what the problem(s) was/were. Instead they attempted to raise the power to the level they needed to perform the test, by retracting more and more control rods. Their actions to bring the core into the proper state meant that they lost control of the core even before the test. That the turbine rundown part of the test kind of worked doesn't mean the test was a succes, as the entire reactor blew up. The test was to prove that they COULD bring the core in a specific state, do the turbine rundown and then bring the reactor up to power again. The thing is that NOBODY had ever managed to complete the entire test successfully, as the RBMK reactor simply couldn't be controlled in the power settings it needed to be in for the test. That is the part that Soviet leadership refused to accept when they came up with the test and why they kept ordering the test to be done over and over again with the same parameters, because according to Soviet doctrine it should have worked.
@@tjroelsma No, you are mixing up the reactor with "THE TEST". The Test was simply a turbine rundown test plus some measuring of the vibration in the turbine. So, the test was simply on the turbine and nothing to do with the reactor. It was to cut off the steam from the reactor (So separating the two) and then measure the turbine output to see if they could get enough power to power circulation pumps until diesel generators could take over. That was the test and that was successful. You are mixing two things: The test and what they were doing with the reactor, which is an entirely different thing and discussion. Then you are even trying to bring in your thoughts on Soviet Leadership, which again is an interesting topic, but separate from the Turbine Rundown test which was successful on that night.
I didn't understand about the political reasons, you should understand that every RBMK-type project has its own lobbyists. RBMK differs from VVER in terms of production, the rejection of RBMK hits manufacturers who do not want to lose a project that allows them career growth.
The volume for me between 1 to 10 is clear and comfortable at 4. I would seriously examine my lifestyle if I found this difficult to hear. A lot of people in their late 20s have the hearing of a 70 year old and up. This is caused by wearing earbuds/headphones at high volume or going to loud concerts. Muffled sounds can be attributed to high frequency hearing loss which comes with age and high volume damage. Much of this damage can be permanent and you do not want to be learning sign language in your 40s.
It sounds like the reactivity of the reactor was at a different resting power compared to what the systems were calibrated to the power index sounds way off also wasn't the rbmk reactor pressed into doping silicon for semiconductor industry
Once again, this is why I come here. For these very nice and nerdy videos. But in the case of this accident, I'm going to have to run defence for the reactor a bit. Yes, the RBMK leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to its Physics characteristics. Yes, they should have sat on the design longer instead of plunking it out into this world untamed, and untested etc. We can all agree on that. But, when the reactor scrams itself twice while _clearly_ indicating through its systems it is not feeling well, and really does not want to restart. If you then start disabling things like the lateral ionisation chambers to force it back up in power, then it is us human fleshy types buggering things up that are to blame for whatever happens next, not the reactor! It can only obey the Laws of Physics. At some point common sense has to override even Party Politics and goals when dealing with powerful machinery like a nuclear reactor.
Thank you so much for the super thanks! Yes, operator error is also at fault for this accident, however at the time these practices were normalised in the industry. It is an interesting thing how these operator errors would echo down to Chernobyl, as the accident solidified the need to increase the fuel enrichment, which led to the control rod lengthening and displacer shortening, which eventually led to the accident. Even the operators then, behaving under correct regulations at the time would feel the echo of the operator errors as it led to the explosion of Unit Four.
@@thatchernobylguy2915 You're most welcome! These videos are a great help in furthering my study and understanding of the wonky reactor that is the RBMK. Practices like that should never be normalised. Most certainly not when dealing with this type of equipment. If I were a supervisor, and I found any of the crews bending ionisation chambers on my reactor to force it back up in power in such a heavily poisoned state, I would have their g*ts for garters, and then some. Even the most stable, well-designed reactor will become unstable and behave erratically in such a poisoned state. Let alone a headstrong, touchy reactor like the RBMK. One doesn't muck about with the Laws of Physics, or face the consequences if you do. And some of the similarities are uncanny indeed. There's no denying that. On to the next video it is!😄
@@swokatsamsiyu3590 _"Practices like that should never be normalised"_ but then Soviet Union was not a "normal" country and pretty much nothing there worked "as it should have", and "overcoming difficulties" by whatever hook, crook, or just brute force was part and parcel of life there, back then. Individuals at power enforcing their decisions against better judgement, "the Plan has to be achieved" (and its goals met) no matter what, on 1st May, or on anniversary of The Revolution this road/ bridge/ building/ what not has to be "opened" even if half finished. So they laid the asphalt on a road in a haste and hurry even on the night of 30th of April, so the Secretary or some other Party bigwig could "open" it with much fanfare on the morning of May 1st... and then three days latter the entire road was torn up because water pipes and -sewage- SEVERAGE that was supposed to be put in the ground first wasn't there yet. Just yesterday I watched the video about "The Most Dangerous Bridge in Russia" (ua-cam.com/video/vVFx8GcxNqw/v-deo.html) and there's one bit off-topic moment in it that illustrates the Soviet obsession with "show-off cum window dressing", or "pokazukha" (показуха) - when the narrator is talking about that "BAM connection ceremony". BAM (Rus. БАМ) is a Baikal-Amur Railway (Rus. магистраль, magistral, meaning a highway or a main thoroughfare) which was rebuild in Brezhnev times, and it was done in the same fashion as "Pacific" railway "back then" in USA - they've laid the tracks simultaneously from both ends, to meet at certain point - and the difference was in US they did not care where would they meet, while Soviet powers that be DECLARED that it HAVE to be in this town (Kuanda/ Куанда). But, as usual, nothing ever goes to plan there - one party was behind the schedule and the other one has advanced further (40 km/ 25 mi east of Kuanda), so they have met each other not where they were ordered to. In any normal country it would be a non-issue - "aw, c'mon! so what? what's the difference?" - but then again, Soviet Union WAS NOT a "normal country", so AFTER the initial connection of the tracks in Balbukhta town/ settlement, FEW DAYS LATTER they dismantled a section of the tracks in Kuanda, and redid the "connection ceremony" as ordered by Party in the initial plan. "Ordnung muss sein", y'see... In case you'd like to watch it yourself this episode starts at 15:33, and anyway the whole story about this bridge (that "BAM story" is just supplemental to it) shows how things works... erm, lemme reword it - "how things ARE" there. And while this video is accompanied by EIGHT "translated CCs" that English "translation" is kinda gibberish and "something completely different" from what these people say - and even Russian CC are pretty much in the "whisky tango foxtrot?!" genre. The best possible translation (albeit still imperfect) you'll get when you select first "Russian auto-generated" CC and then choose "Auto-translation" option... but I digress here ;-)
@@MrKotBonifacy Living in a country not all that far from the former USSR, I'm well aware of their obsession with looking the part to the outside world. Not to mention the fact that things were anything but "normal" in those times. I was 15 when the accident at Chernobyl NPP happened. Only due to the fact that we (and a host of other countries) got a good whiff of the fallout, and started asking difficult questions did they have to come clean about what transpired there. How far this went? Well, fairly quick after the accident some USSR scientists phoned the IAEA with the question if they happened to have any literature on how to put out a graphite fire in a reactor core. Upon hearing this, the somewhat baffled person on the other side of the line asked if they would liked to be referred to the UK since they had had the Windscale fire in one of their graphite reactors in the 50's. "That will not be necessary. It is merely a scientific exercise of sorts. We're fine!" Will look up the БАМ story sometime this week. And if the English subs are that bad, I'll stick to the "Russian auto-generated" CC since I can read/ write Cyrillic, and understand a good deal of the Russian language as well. You can thank the RBMK for that^^
@@swokatsamsiyu3590 _"... can read/ write Cyrillic, and understand a good deal of the Russian language as well. You can thank the RBMK for that^^"_ - yeah, _"always look at the bright side of life, ta-dam ta-dam ta-dam"_ ... ;-) _"...a country not all that far from the former USSR"_ - Finland, perhaps? Or Sweden? Well, never mind; greetings from Poland : ) Also, it looks like we're of about the same age - I was 22 back then. Cheers!
It is very possible. Living proof of that are the RBMKs (Leningrad NPP Units 3 - 4, Kursk NPP Units 3 -4, Smolensk NPP Units 1, 2, and 3. And the 3 Bilibino NPP RBMK-lets (EGP-6s)) still in operation today. They've been quietly making electric power for the past decades without much issue. However, the RBMK will always be a somewhat untamed, grumpy reactor you will have to run within its design parameters without deviation, full stop. If you do that, and take into account its weaknesses and unique behaviour in certain operating regimes, then the RBMK can be a proper, well-behaved reactor.
Something that helped me understand Chernobyl and the others is that the RBMK reactors weren't like Toyota Corollas. Each RBMK was its own, unique design, with, presumably, design improvements. And along with new improvements, also came new weaknesses. Hence, knowing how to operate one RBMK could help you understand how to operate another, but none of them were completely identical.
You never see the good stuff like this on Kyle Hill channel. Dont get me wrong hes entertaining and good but this is the stuff that can be used against the pro nuclear narrative. This is history and needs to be shared so we can advance. Thank you
Ah it was a mistake we all drank a little more then usual because it was November 29th my Birthday so we all let off some steam but guess we can all say it was the wrong steam that was let out comrade. We don't know if it was Sasha's fault or Vladimir we all drank some of Vladies home brew a fresh batch of that Gud Gud and the next thing we all knew AZ-5 explodes. Anyways we are all good even with all the radiation I'm still great I have a 3rd eye and 4 more fingers now whats wrong with that? My wife has No problem with it I tell you 😁
When you're actively overriding multiple automatic protections in a radioactive system, you should probably stop and rethink your plan.
It seems that the reactor operators do not understand how their reactor works. This being said overriding safety control should take authorization from a regional director or someone high enough up the chain to tell them no.
@@Privat2840 Apparently, critical information on the reactor design was classified secret and the operators were not allowed to know it. The operators simply followed procedures to run the reactor. It worked unless conditions outside normal operating parameters were encountered. In those cases, knowing the design of the reactor might have helped.
_"you should probably stop and rethink your plan"_ - no way, comrade. No way, no why, no how - that would be a sabotage of a five-year plan. And for that you'd get a white beaches holiday... erm, izvinitye, slip of tongue - I meant "white *bears* holiday", of course - and a couple of years of it, actually.
So, "nyet", and don't you even dare to think about it - you have to get yer priorities right: "Socialismo o muerte", and toe the Party line - or else.
@@Privat2840regional directors never said No because they we're scared the Party would reprimand them.
Ask Brjouchanov.
@@brinnbelyeaThe Soviet “System” strikes again.
One of the things that amazed me after discovering this channel and following some of the recommended readings you have given across your videos was realizing how exhausting for the operators, both physically and mentally, was to work on the control panel of one of these behemoths to keep everything under control. And of course once more, hats off to you sir !
As one operator at ChNPP (an ex Red Navy reactor sailor), was quoted as saying, "How do you control this hulking POS?! And why is it in civilian use?!"
@@sawyerawr5783Indeed !
@@sawyerawr5783 Indeed !
How were the Soviets who ran these RBMK reactors trained? Did they go to university? Or on the job? Crazy to think that even with the design flaw, there are still soviet RBMK reactors in operation today.
@@sawyerawr5783 In Soviet Russia, REACTOR controls YOU.
i have a hunch that somewhere in the deepest archive room of the kremlin there are documents that accurately describe the behavior of these reactor in all working conditions.
There is also a rumour that there are actual recordings of the control room CCTV on that very night. Apparently, the mic next to Toptunov wasn't working at the time but it would still make for interesting viewing. If it does exist, I doubt that it will ever see the light of day.
In all probability, you would not be far off the mark. That goes for the Chernobyl accident itself as well. Only the Lord knows what they've got hidden away in there about that.
@@ChrisMatthewson regardless of existence of recordings, the whole accident schematics looks more or less clear. Reactor's control rods had indeed positive reactivity area, reactor was indeed in poorly controllable state, so operators' movements just triggered the whole thing. I personally don't expect anything brand new (if even found & published) will change the scene dramatically.
@@konstantinklimenko4181 No, I don't think that it would change anything about what physically happened or how that happened, but it would confirm and/or set some things straight. A picture is worth a 1000 words and so we could once and all see in reality what it was like in the control room before the explosion. Dyatlov would be shown as he really was instead of some made up opinion by someone who disliked him and the general atmosphere of nothing particularly unusual going on.
So, many things could once and forever be set straight and cleared up. The reactor would still explode no matter how many times it is watched but a lot of dis-information would be blown away. That is why it will never be released.
@@ChrisMatthewson speaking of justice, operators started liquidation right after the explosion, and subdued quite a number of internal fires within the station. This fact is typically completely missed and only firefighters are regarded as heroes.
I can't pretend to understand these accidents but I try very hard to. Thank you for breaking it all down
TCG I have watched you since the original iceberg videos, I wanna thank you for you boosting my interest in the Chernobyl Disaster and RBMK Reactors in general.
Imagine testing in production with an RBMK reactor. That was basically what was happening at Leningrad unit 1.
Basically what they did in Chernobyl too.
Their naval reactors were pretty similar. They do some unbelievably dangerous and negligent stuff with no regard to just basic safety. They test launch sub icbms tied up to the dock on base. Of course the obvious happens, theres launch failures. One made it 10 feet above the sub, came crashing back down on that submarine. One that they had 2 reactors in, because they knew one would fail eventually on patrol. This way they wouldn't need to return if 1 melted down. Has happened a few times. Couldn't imagine a worse situation with an icbm landing on anything with that kind of design and mfg quality making it out because of anything other than luck.
@@mtmadigan82 How are you gonna return to base when your one reactor has just melted
Time to fashion sails from your blankets, comrades!
@@chehn R-14 sub of US Navy actually *did* make use of an improvised sail from hammocks and whatnot due to seawater contamination ruining fuel! In fact, it got enough speed (aroudn 2 knots, give or take) under the sail that windmilling propellers ran generators at a sufficient level to start charging the batteries
It baffles me how you are able to read all of those reports! Long, dry, and boring as hell. Yet you read all of them, and you are able to make sense of it all. Thank you on behalf of us all. You actually make it understandable and interesting. I salute you! Teaching seems to be your calling! I truly appreciate all of what you do.
He doesn’t find it boring.
@@SpetsnaztyExactly! When it’s an interest area, it easy, even FUN.
I agree with these guys, I don't find it boring or dry
@Spetsnazty Of course, it's not boring to him! That's exactly what I am saying! And for myself, I can listen to him, find it very interesting, and learn about something that I find interesting, but doesn't have the patience or understanding to read those long, boring reports myself!
It's called education, the thing the orange haired menace is fighting against.
Could you also do a video about the Jaslovské Bohunice A1 incidents, the 2nd one resulting in partially melting the core? The reactor was an experimental of the type KS-150 and was working with natural (not enriched) uranium and the plant had a rather low power output of 104 MWe. Moderator was heavy water and coolant was gaseous carbon dioxide. The reactor was designed to be refueled while in operation and both incidents happened during refueling of a critical reactor. The first accident due to operator error combined with bad design of the locking mechanism of the fuel assembly and the second, that led to partial meltdown, was caused again by operator error as they unintentionally teared a sack containing silica gel balls and did not properly clean the channels. Which resulted in low coolant gas flow and overheating and rupturing the fuel channel and its surrounding channels too. While it was technically possible to repair the reactor, it was not feasible from an economical point, as new, more powerful soviet VVER 440/V230 reactors were being build on the site as part of the V1 plant, which operated without any incidents from 1978/1980 to 2006/2008 (block 1 and block 2). The two currently running VVER 440/V213, which have been modernized and their thermal power risen by 7% from 1375 MWt to 1471 MWt together with improvements in the generator part (power output increase by again by 7% from 472 MWe to 505 MWe), are scheduled to be shut down in 2065 after 81/80 years if operation (block 1/2). A new 1200 MWe block is being mentioned quite often in the last years, according to plans the construction should begin 2035 and commercial operation start in 2045. The new V3 plant should be running until 2125. Wow. Nuclear reactors and power plants are build to last...
The level of detail in your videos is amazing
wait a minute! Did the Leningrad accident provide the USSR and Legasov with a ready-made sequence of events they could massage and apply to Chornobyl?
This is something I did suspect during research :)
Well, in both cases, the USSR's way of doing things seems to be: Grab all the evidence. Try to silence anyone saying anything and then release their version of what happened and that version is NEVER EVER their fault. So who is to say what bits they just copied and pasted from an earlier incident?
@@ChrisMatthewsonthat's pretty much every country, not just the USSR
@@jamesgornall5731 Yes. Power corrupts wherever you are.
@@ChrisMatthewson I think you may have misspelled it. USSR=USA? No, wait, isn't it USSR=EU? I got it! USSR=USSA
But don't worry about it, just keep quiet and I won't tell anyone it's obviously all *YOUR FAULT*. 🤪
The shorter graphite for the control rods makes perfect sense for the differing outcomes between Leningrad and Chernobyl. With Leningrad those longer graphite portions were already displacing more water thus AZ-5 doesn't cause as big of a spike since graphite was already in play. At Chernobyl where it goes from neutron absorbing water to neutron enhancing graphite the spike is much larger because of the fact that it was already getting out of control even with the water slowing things up. Shortly after AZ-5 is pushed and the flip in reactivity occurs between water and graphite that was all it needed to really go over the top on reactivity thanks to the positive void coefficient combined with that shorter control rod graphite portion.
Have you read the English translation of Chernousenko's "Chernobyl: Insight From the Inside"? It has some illuminating information about this model of reactor which I haven't seen anywhere else. There were a number of UA-cam interviews of Chernousenko before he passed away but they seem to have disappeared into the ether. Very interesting character who landed himself in a whole heap of trouble over his criticisms. I was particularly interested in a very short passage where he said - rather enigmatically - that they were so concerned about the threat of seasonal rain flooding the reactor basement and causing a flashover they ..... redirected weather fronts away from the facility ....
How is it written. A 1991 traduction from Russian sounds quite cumbersome. I appreciate the new book from Higginbotham but would also appreciate a more detailed book about the physical background.
@@el_dani Very easy read. Whoever translated did a pretty good job. Chernousenko comes from a bit of different perspective because he was the director of the exclusion zone which included the cleanup. One of the things he does say is that estimates of how much of the core was ejected from the reactor are bald faced lies. His team came to the conclusion that the overwhelming majority was blown completely clear of the building with a significant percentage atomised and picked up by the prevailing winds. I mean, he provides a lot of facts and figures I haven't seen anywhere else. And he was one of the first to point out that the shift workers were largely thrown under the bus. I think he was the Ukrainian representative so he had a little more freedom to speak candidly. He used to have a Wikipedia entry but - somewhat mysteriously - it appears to have vanished. You can find his book second hand through Amazon at reasonable prices. I found it fascinating.
What is enigmatic about that?
In the end though, the reason for both accidents was the state and its institutions. Of course, one couldn't say that back then, the state was infallible! And therein lies the primary issue.
Yep, I was grew up in a communist country, they had every chance to make something good from the chance they got, but they chosed to just be like every other system with good living people on the top and working masses on the bottom.
The leaders of the government regularly came together in aristocrat castles to hunt and feast. In the end it was a system what God gave to the people, it was infallible, perfect and unquestionable just like the royal system before them.
I'm glad it's over.
They didn't cared about the people. News travelled slowly in the Red Block, in 1986 cheap food flooded my country, all the food came from the land around Chernobyl, there was a cancer epydemic after that.
They sold us their radioactive food, this is how much the Sovietunion cared about the workers.
Private companies are worse but take risks that are covered by the media in other ways.
@@Zodroo_TintYep, I'm glad that state is gone. My mother thanks Chernobyl though, fervently. Getting a resettled friend from there with a personal dosimeter saved her from renting an apartment in a building "hotter" than Pripyat.
Building was still occupied though, nobody got punished. Who knows how many more just like it were built. Simply because the local mine gave out cheap building material from their left overs. Just brings to mind the fact that the state didn't, and doesn't care about people.
@@Low760private companies are governed by the laws of the land, that help keep them in check
@@Low760U got brain lesions or aomething?
Oh shit I havent been this early since my first day on the job. Great video TCG!
It sounds like you were early enough that xenon still identified as iodine.
@@bmstylee 🤣🤣🤣
@@bmstylee So how can Xenon be identified as iodine, when they're two completely two separate elements?
I’ve recently discovered your channel and after binge-watching most of your videos I’m beyond amazement due to the quality and details of your work. Your channel is something that I needed to find. It’s still very confusing to me and all those conflicting quotes, different institutions and names saying different things make a big mess in my head, but I’m very slowly beginning to understand more and more thanks to your efforts.
Another case study in: Commies cannot boil water
Comrade 1 fill pot with water comrade 2 boil water comrade 3 accuse comrade 1 of conspiracy against the state
Great research! One comment for those who don't know... the reason increasing fuel enrichment can help reduce the chances of an accident like this is because when the enrichment increases, the fuel designers can put more "burnable poisons" into the pellets. This allows for better transient characteristics.
Then as the fuel burns, natural poisons build up as the burnable ones burn out and the fuel is consumed. There is some complicatedness to this balance because boiling water reactors produce a descent amount of plutonium, towards the back 3rd or sonof it's lifespan.
Thus when western BWRs are at the end of a fuel cycle, the core fuel limits have the lowest margin, since the control rods are full out.
Im not familiar enough with the RBMK design to comment on how that later is impacted, but I fission works the same, even in Russia.
The core fuel limits have the lowest margin of what?
The RBMK didn't use any burnable poisons in the fuel. They replaced entire fuel assemblies with boron rods, and then gradually removed them over the course of months. Only after the accident did some burnable poisons start to be used.
Given that the RBMK was overmoderated, increasing enrichment reduced the void coefficient simply by increasing the fuel:moderator ratio.
@@MinSredMash thanks for the information!
@@MinSredMash What's the point of burnable poisons?
@@markusw7833 lowest margin to their design limitations for various scenarios. It's more complex than it's worth explaining in a UA-cam comment, but if you Google search "nuclear fuel safety limits," you can get a good bit of material. The NRC website also has some good articles that describe the different design/safety limits and their purposes.
But the bottom line is that a reactors fuel needs to be designed to withstand normal operatio, transients (turbine trip, loss of feedwater, loss of recirculation... etc) and accidents. To maintain those limits, the operators have to ensure certain equipment available and the fuel/core engineers have to ensure they design the core and fuel with specific parameters... enrichment and burnable poisons being 2 of many.
Another good presentation. It stirred my memory they sure knew about PWR reactors, after all it was not an RBMK in K-19 that was in the Kennedy era! Apparently they could not cool that one even with the rods in. Makes you wonder. Keep up the wonderful work!
subscribed just a few mins in; one can tell when there is substantial knowledge to be gained ;)
just one thing tho: please consider investing in a better mic. can't really put my finger on it, but the audio is kinda flat/noisy. either way, great content!
... they created a bizarre unstable buckling condition too ... Under those conditions, ring oscillations can set in.
... not to mention causing cold shock to the reactor piping, vessel, and fuels and potentially a cold water accident as well. ... good grief
I do have one point of contention with the significance of the final feedwater temp, as it enters the core. While not the cause of Chernobyl, it would have heavily contributed to the onset of the original power spike and I think it is important that the 2 scenarios had different final temps. It is minor because I agree that it was not the reason Chernobyl exploded but still important to distinguish.
1. Lack of subcooling would provide NPSH to the recirc pumps and cavitation in the pumps would impact their efficiency/capacity.
2. But more importantly, if the water starts to boil lower in the core, it would decrease negative reactivity, while also putting the core into a departure from nucleate boiling state (DNB).
In this condition, the boiling of the water cause reactivity to become unpredictable and in a reactor like an RBMK, it would cause it to overpower sections of the core, then the negative heat coefficient would kick in, reducing power sloghtly and then allowing it to rise again. Then the 2 conditions would fight eachother at different rates in the core, since it is so massive. It probably wouldn't have lead to a disaster scale event but the core would have been substantially damaged, even if the unit was shut down by manual insertion of the control rods, as opposed to a scram.
In western BWRs, the departure cause a slightly different, yet still concerning effect, where the reactivity yo-yos against the void coefficient, and can cause the fuel to rupture the cladding. Thus they are fitted with protections to detect such a condition.
The main circulation pumps at Chernobyl were not limited or interrupted by cavitation. This had been offered initially as a cause and subsequently studied. Water being close to its boiling point at the core inlet was apparently a significant contributory factor, but what wasn't pointed out early is that in RBMK reactors this was not an abnormal state and an operating rule wasn't broken in either lack of subcooling or the connection of all main circulation pumps. This topic was covered in the second Masters of Weaponized Narration videos released last week. It is true we don't know how different this condition was at Leningrad in 1975 vs Chernobyl in 1986, and we don't know the Operating Reactivity Margins in the apparently two uses of the emergency protection system after the initial shutdown at Leningrad. The similarities between the two incidents are striking but there could be confounding factors. Nonetheless, at this point, as you saw the first deputy minister of the Ministry of Energy mention, we are extremely confident that there indeed was a difference in the design of the control rods between the two incidents, which in our opinion is the key to answering the question why a disaster of Chernobyl's magnitude hadn't occurred earlier. Too many things were done according to the rules at Chernobyl and too many times prior things had happened or gone wrong. INSAG-7 even mentions a repetition of Chernobyl could have occurred in other seemingly more benign circumstances. But, a change to the dimensions of the control rods creating or augmenting a positive scram effect occurred in proximity to the disaster. The reactor actually exploded at about the time you would expect it to, as its coefficients of reactivity reached their maximum values with the removal of additional absorbers due to increasing fuel burnup by design.
@@markusw7833 To put it VERY simply: Chernobyl unit 4 had problems at the bottom of the reactor - A place where, because of shortened control rods, (when AZ-5 was pressed) absorbing water was pushed out of the way and graphite inserted increasing reactivity in that very bottom of the reactor. All at a time when water entering there was almost at boiling point anyway. So VERY crudely: Water about to boil gets turned instantly to steam as the reactivity has just gone up following the pressing of AZ-5 and the water being replaced with graphite. Then, of course, all that steam (void) increased reactivity further. Basically, all this mess happened in the bottom of the reactor at Chernobyl. So, all in all, as that is where the whole problem started, I don't feel that you need to be a nuclear engineer to say that the shortening of the control rods played a massive part in why the Chernobyl unit 4 exploded. - Water about to boil gets a massive boost that makes it boil due to increased reactivity because graphite is now where water used to be. The water instantly turns to steam and steam (voids) increases reactivity further. BANG!
Of course, lots and lots of things led up to that point to put the reactor into that situation, but the finishing point was caused by shortened control rods.
@@ChrisMatthewson Pray do expound on the lots and lots of things that led up to that point.
@@markusw7833 "Pray do expound" My, did you swallow the entire "Steven Fry Dictionary to pompous English"? - I would suggest that you watch all 3 of TCG's excellent videos all about what led up to the explosion on that night. It's a great detailed account of all the things that led up to that point.
A fascinating look into Soviet reactor life in the early days. Your channel is amazing
With the top-down management structure in place, you’d think they might have said “no experiments ever”.
I highly recommend visiting Leningrad it’s a beautiful town
Tiny side story. 1975
Dad was a SGT in the USAF stationed at Kelly Airbase TX
His office was the tallest on base so they put a weather station and test equipment on the roof, Dad was tasked with getting the data to the correct people.
He came home one day and said today we all breathed in nuclear material. Just little tiny amounts. He did not answer any questions. and never did.
Yea, I highly doubt that's from Leningrad.
So...if you'll pardon the analogy, post Leningrad, the Russians basically took an already unstable system, and gave it the nuclear equivalent of a hair trigger (I use that because I distinctly remember one Russian scientist stating that withdrawing the rods in Chernobyl 4 was "akin to cocking a gun.")
They were in effect doing in-service testing. that's incredible to me.
Multiple people with close knowledge comment on the RBMK project undergoing concurrent development and operation, even using the word experimental, incomplete. It's interesting where the line is to be drawn when you think about it because many things change.
Not in effect, they WERE doing in-service testing.
The beurocrats in charge got a medal for bringing reactor 4 online ahead of schedule. Only, they hadn't actually passed all the safety tests and weren't supposed to have signed off on reactor 4 entering service. The safety test they were running created the circumstance, but trying to get it back up to service spec before morning is what pulled the trigger.
Impressive work! Subscribed. Thank you.
So the Sredmash official doctrine is what we learned in kindergarten: you make a mess, you clean it up.
Good evening! I just want to make it known to you that another channel under the name "Wisioner" essentially copied the entire script of this video and reads it with an AI rendered voice. Id share a link if I could but i also dont want to promote their content theft.
I hope you reported it, too. Good job! I've found myself doing that from time to time, and the folks at UA-cam did in fact listen and shut down the offending channel each time.
Expanded my knowledge. Thank you
8:12 is this the issue that Fomin was so concerned about at Chernobyl? I recall a description (by Medvedev 😬) that Fomin was seemingly obsessed with "thermal shock" from cold water entering the reactor from the emergency cooling system during the fateful test. He may actually have been concerned about operators being unable to cope with a badly-skewed neutron field as happened in Leningrad.
Given that reactor accidents were State secrets and information tightly controlled by the KGB, it's interesting that Fomin even heard about it, much less became preoccupied with it's apparent cause 🤔
But this lack of transparency eventually came back to haunt the Soviet nuclear industry.
It was tightly kept away from the public - not from scientists who were responsible for ensuring it doesn't happen again.
Damn really makes me wonder if Chernobyl would’ve been avoided if it weren’t for the control rods, or if it was the final straw during a perfect storm
I would say ' final straw during a perfect storm'. On that night, many of the things they did weren't that much different to how they normally did things and so this led to not much concern on the night and seeing what they did do as normal and usual. I believe that having shortened control rods played a massive part in providing the final kick to send the already near boiling point water to instantly turn to steam, but that water had to be in that state for that to happen. So the control rods are not the only thing involved.
Had the inlet water been at a lower temperature at the point AZ-5 was pressed, then the sudden increase in reactivity/heat might not have been enough to make it all boil and give time for the boron to get in place and lower reactivity.
It was the lack of control rods. The minimum of temperature-controlling rods that were supposed to be inserted was 15. They only inserted 8. I've heard higher minimums than this, but I discovered the information from the "Chernobyl: Minute by Minute" video here on UA-cam, and I was shocked at just how poorly trained those night-shift workers were. I'm interested in finding out if this is featured in other videos, because I heard a different number on another video, and I can't recall the title of that one right now. All this information is both fascinating and horrifying at the same time, and I hope we don't go through the same type of incident. My biggest fear is that if we automate these nuclear reactor systems so much and don't have well-trained shift workers to handle a sudden melt down, what then?
This is what happens when you deploy on Fridays... sorry, couldn't resist!
Great Video! There are some theories that the first Explosion in Chernobyl was an explosion in the fuel tubes. This explosion was caused by the fuel being vaporized and shooting high up in the sky, higher than the second explosion, Eveidece suporting this theory is presented in a report by Swedish Scientist Lars-Erik De Geer, etal: "A Nuclear Jet at Chernobyl Around 21:23:45 UTC on April 25, 1986"
"This paper renders the following hypothesis. The first explosion consisted of thermal neutron mediated nuclear explosions in one or rather a few fuel channels, which caused a jet of debris that reached an altitude of some 2500 to 3000 m. The second explosion would then have been the steam explosion most experts believe was the first one. "
This jet was detected by US satellite, that was monitoring Soviet DUGA over horizon radar in the Chernobyl area. Time of detection corresponded to local time in Chernobyl 01:23:45 on April 26 1986. Jet was emitted after flash of blue light on the ground. On April 29 1986 air probes were taken in Cherepovets, north of Moscow, that were analyzed by gamma spectrometer. Minsredmash experts found Xe-135 in the probe and determined ratio Xe-135/Xe-135m/ (ground state/excited state) as 22.4 , that pointed out to a nuclear explosion. Original estimate was 10 kT of TNT, but later reduced to 10T of TNT. Super critical reaction on prompt neutrons occurred in 3-30 fuel channels with participation of 0.01% of total fuel load of 200T. On first weeks of May 1986 KGB already issued order that true nature of Chernobyl disaster should never been disclosed.
@@nyckhusan2634 Intresting! Any sorce for this?
I just found your channel and joined up, I look forward to more videos, ty for the hard work you put into it!
Are you going to be covering Chernobyl 1982 nuclear accident witch had a pertial meltdown in reactor 1?
Check my latest video :)
@@thatchernobylguy2915 oh, sorry my bad, somehow it didn't show up
Nice video! I cant stop watching these vids fr, I love watching your vids!:D
Why do I feel the urge to play Minesweeper?
Where do you find all these pictures and videos?
A lot of research into archival footage and photos :)
Just type РБМК instead of RBMK and you will find how easy is to fin it. Then translate basic text and you will know more than this guy
@@NionXenion-gh7rf Thanks
0:26 this image looks like it's been artificially generated - look at the 'writing'
Maybe it’s just upscaled
At some time before I die, I hope, by watching all your videos several times, to actually understand the ins and outs of what really happened at these reactor accidents.
Good luck, because I still have a lot to understand :)
All to boil water.
@@MichaelVLangOne could argue the phrase "generate electricity" is more appropriate. They weren't making pasta.
@@bsadewitz a problem with referring to it that way is that not many know what "generate electricity" means in the slightest. They've boiled water.
@@MichaelVLang I suppose I assumed that anyone this deep in the comments section probably gets that. The video is about a power plant, right? Anyone watching the video knows that we're boiling water, I hope!
I meant it in a playfully facetious way. That's why I said "one could argue". I wasn't arguing that, heh--just putting it out there. ;-)
Very interesting, just the sound quality could be better, crispier. People with a mild hearing loss struggle with understanding.
Спасибо за видео. Я родился в Ленинграде через 7.5 лет после этой аварии. Пронесло...
Where are you now if you don't mind me asking?
@@kennethocongerskin9460 In Saint Petersburg, Russia
@@the3yM Ahh so the same city. I hear it is beautiful. Thanks for answering me. With respect from the UK.
@@kennethocongerskin9460 I'm glad to speak with you, i'm interested in Scotland, Irish and England music, culture, also I like to drink Single Malt Isley whiskey. A little bit dancing traditional dances of Great Britain. Of course I'm in the same city, because it's really beautiful. You're welcome to come here, as I know there are no any sanction tourists from Britain at all.
@@the3yM Hahaha. I know nothing of traditional British dance. Zero. My interest is in old Soviet cars. And yes I should get a visa to visit before it is too late. Scarey times☹️.
In my opinion, this is all a symptom of the cumulative effect of policies instituted by the CPSU. The stance of the central party was effectively to do anything to project only the most positive image of the country's capabilities. This stance created policies which pressured people to lie about anything which would negatively impact their position rather than actually addressing the issues. These lies and cover-ups all converged in Chernobyl.
I have heard something of the sort being systemic, but having not experienced it myself it's rather difficult to imagine. I would be shocked if this is what actually happened given here you're talking about a nuclear expert level, literally the highest of the high. It does seem more probable they misunderstood the reactor, but the reality may be rather more complex.
@markusw7833 I'm afraid its entirely plausible. Don't forget, the USSR was founded by a group of fanatics. In the fundamentalist mindset, lies are perfectly acceptable if they serve the long-term goal. The people who came after, even those who had never been diehard communists, were trapped within the edifice of deceit that the Bolsheviks created.
Someone asked what flavor of autism I have. I sent them to TCG
I sent them to Dark5 and MOWAS 2 :D
Brilliant!
I was wondering, has there been any actual Monte-Carlo multiphysics neutronic simulation of the Chernobyl incident? Surely that would be the only way to confirm those assumptions about the cause(s) of the accident.
hal.science/hal-03117177/file/epjn200018.pdf
@@bsadewitz Thanks for the answer, what is the document you are referencing, the one that mentions TRIPOLI 4?
@@38vocan This is documentation about it. I am still looking for the one that I posted from bc im on my phone now haha
inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/39/107/39107419.pdf?r=1
@@38vocan UA-cam is doing that thing where it deletes my comments again, apparently.
H T T P S COLON SLASH SLASH hal.science/hal-03117177
A bit late here but could you please put the links in your description or a pinned comment? That would be immensely helpful!
This whole incident and its history really shows the dangers of "Needing to be Perfect" as a State-level imperative. It had to be secret, had to be hidden and protected!
This is entertaining but attempts to describe conditions that are too complex for a lawyerly verbal description. Something’s (plural) were wrong with the RBMK design, but also with the training of the operators and the oprerations of their organization.
Been waiting for a video by you about this.
Tell me how an rbmk reactor core explodes?
"Shift change" here we go...
Thank you
very good analysis. I always thought Diatlov's analysis was really sound in that the reactor was doomed from much earlier due to the "2-reactor" effect + control rod reactivity insertion into the lower half. the postitive void coefficient is what then even increased the reactivity. when the trouble started for realy in Czernobyl they had like just 300 MW thermal , and 3 MCPs running, so I dont expect there was a tremendous amount of voiding present when AZ--5 was pressed ?
Google lists of reactor accidents. The two first links Wiki and IEER fail to mention this accident. Be great to see an updated and correct list.
Textbook production pressure.
Safety third.
I love how they just had to cram a 20cm thick strip of wood paneling above the giant control panels. Was it mandatory worldwide in the early 70's?!
Is there a reason reactors don't use a warming system similar to a jet engine for their coolant?
Picture at 1:20, far left. Is that the same guy that was scapegoated for the Chernobyl incident?
Leningrad have to be more harder to build then Chernobyl. And it have stayen more time with more accidents.
I learn eeengleeesh from a buch
I am genuinely curious as to why you say that they changed reactivity to a power level? You seem to have a fairly good understanding of the reactor dynamics and hearing reactivity used to refer to anything other than departure from criticality is quite jarring every time it comes up.
How were the Soviets who ran these RBMK reactors trained? Did they go to university? Or on the job? Crazy to think that even with the design flaw, there are still soviet rbmk reactors in operation today.
As far as I'm aware university, prestigious one(s) at that I think.
Is there a technical reason for wearing this caps or are they just a kind of uniform?
Why does higher enrichment reduce the void issue? What other changes were made?
Building an reactor in such a way that the water is not just the moderator and coolant but also necessary as an absorber sounds like a bad design.
Higher enrichment alters the fuel to moderator ratio making the reactor less over-moderated (moderation, performed by graphite, slows down neutrons that in turn are more likely to cause fission), in which circumstance water acts as less of an absorber. Unfortunately I don't know more than this. Good question.
@@markusw7833 With higher enrichment the moderation can be shifted away from carbon towards water, because otherwise the water absorbs too many neutrons. The russian reactor designs are unsafe because the carbon is sufficient for moderation.
Russian reactors are good for breeding Plutonium and using low enrichment.
Water moderated reactors use slower and fewer neutrons.
@@0MoTheG Western reactors and VVERs don't use graphite. Why are graphite reactors particularly good at producing plutonium?
@@markusw7833 They aren't explicitly good for Pu, but they have the lowest absorption and thus work with no or low enrichment. Graphite reactors were the first to breed Pu for weapons.
@@markusw7833 VVERs and most western reactors have their cores inside single large pressure vessels. The vessel must be depressurized and opened to replace any fuel assemblies. This makes it very difficult to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, for which frequent fuel replacements are needed. If the fuel is left in the reactor too long, then too much of the plutonium-239 is converted to plutonium-240, which is unsuitable for nuclear weapons.
Water-cooled graphite-moderated reactors use "pressure tube" design, where numerous tubes of cooling water pass through holes in the graphite moderator blocks. The fuel assemblies are placed inside the tubes, so every tube must have a separate access, to open it individually. It is then relatively easy, to allow any tube to be opened and its fuel changed at any time - even if the reactor is running. This permits the frequent fuel replacements necessary for weapons-grade plutonium production.
I’m 8 days late on 2 videos ain’t no way
I always thought that reactors are simple. Control rods control the power thats it but its way way more complicated. Now I have a lot more respect for nuclear engineers.
The video I've been waiting for!
Comrade Dyatlov would be proud of you! But he would order you out of the room anyway..
I thought you meant 6 am at night thanks for clarifying. If only there was a shorter way to denote morning and night with the time.
What is your view on nucliar energy in the 2021 century? and what do you think is needed to enshrute nucliar power serves all humankind?
I cannot believe these Ruzzian reactors run so close to disaster at all times.
The AI-enhanced images you used in this video look less than great... You should just drop the AI-enhancing.
Are you narrating this video from down in a well?
The RBMK reactor had some significant and known flaws, like the Xenon poisoning of the core and the fact that the reactor was notoriously instable at low power, but the Soviet government didn't want to accept those facts for political reasons. Which is why on that fatal day in Chernobyl, yet another attempt of running a very specific test was done and failed, this time catastrophically. It was a textbook case of "doing the same experiment over and over again with the same parameters and expecting different results".
Xenon poisoning isn't unique to just the RBMK. It happens in _all_ running reactors. It's a natural part of the fission process. Even the earliest reactors ran into this rather quirky part of splitting the atom. As of yet, no one has been able to come up with a solution for how to prevent it from happening since it's a part of the decay path.
Incorrect. The test was a success. The test was a turbine rundown test and so nothing to do with the reactor directly as they shut off the stream to the turbine. After the test, they decided to shutdown the reactor as they always intended to do. It was then that things got errr ummm exciting!
@@ChrisMatthewson No, the reactor core was contaminated and unstable even before the test started, so arguably it was in completely the wrong state and yet the chief technician still decided to go ahead with the test. They should have either skipped the test or had gotten the core fully stabilized before starting the test.
The first part of the test was to literally switch off ALL safety systems and take manual control over a reactor type that desperately needed all safety measures to keep it at least somewhat stable. When they retracted the control rods, instead of increasing the output power, the reactor dropped to a very low output and they didn't understand why that happened. That should have been the point to stop the test, switch all safety measures back on and figure out what the problem(s) was/were. Instead they attempted to raise the power to the level they needed to perform the test, by retracting more and more control rods.
Their actions to bring the core into the proper state meant that they lost control of the core even before the test. That the turbine rundown part of the test kind of worked doesn't mean the test was a succes, as the entire reactor blew up. The test was to prove that they COULD bring the core in a specific state, do the turbine rundown and then bring the reactor up to power again. The thing is that NOBODY had ever managed to complete the entire test successfully, as the RBMK reactor simply couldn't be controlled in the power settings it needed to be in for the test. That is the part that Soviet leadership refused to accept when they came up with the test and why they kept ordering the test to be done over and over again with the same parameters, because according to Soviet doctrine it should have worked.
@@tjroelsma No, you are mixing up the reactor with "THE TEST". The Test was simply a turbine rundown test plus some measuring of the vibration in the turbine. So, the test was simply on the turbine and nothing to do with the reactor. It was to cut off the steam from the reactor (So separating the two) and then measure the turbine output to see if they could get enough power to power circulation pumps until diesel generators could take over. That was the test and that was successful.
You are mixing two things: The test and what they were doing with the reactor, which is an entirely different thing and discussion. Then you are even trying to bring in your thoughts on Soviet Leadership, which again is an interesting topic, but separate from the Turbine Rundown test which was successful on that night.
I didn't understand about the political reasons, you should understand that every RBMK-type project has its own lobbyists. RBMK differs from VVER in terms of production, the rejection of RBMK hits manufacturers who do not want to lose a project that allows them career growth.
4:09 Thats a unit trip. Very annoying in realistic multiplayer sims.
The sound is so muffled it’s very difficult to understand what the narrator is saying.
The volume for me between 1 to 10 is clear and comfortable at 4. I would seriously examine my lifestyle if I found this difficult to hear. A lot of people in their late 20s have the hearing of a 70 year old and up. This is caused by wearing earbuds/headphones at high volume or going to loud concerts. Muffled sounds can be attributed to high frequency hearing loss which comes with age and high volume damage. Much of this damage can be permanent and you do not want to be learning sign language in your 40s.
It sounds like the reactivity of the reactor was at a different resting power compared to what the systems were calibrated to the power index sounds way off also wasn't the rbmk reactor pressed into doping silicon for semiconductor industry
havent heard this The 1975 track yet
At what point do you just go, let it shut down for god's sake. Not like you cant turn it back on later!
Chornobyl*
"Ladies and gentlemen... And others" lmao
In a room of nuclear intelligence all it takes is a wrong switch at the wrong time to ramp a problem
Real men test in prod.
You might want to consider improving your audio. It sounds like you were talking through a blanket.
I like the french fry hats. Would you like mayo with your fries maam?
Anatoly Dyatlov and the Soviet Union government is didn't learned about this warning shot who did came from the reactor.
It was the same on the ship Moscova they don't know what the he'll they are doing.
Once again, this is why I come here. For these very nice and nerdy videos. But in the case of this accident, I'm going to have to run defence for the reactor a bit. Yes, the RBMK leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to its Physics characteristics. Yes, they should have sat on the design longer instead of plunking it out into this world untamed, and untested etc. We can all agree on that. But, when the reactor scrams itself twice while _clearly_ indicating through its systems it is not feeling well, and really does not want to restart. If you then start disabling things like the lateral ionisation chambers to force it back up in power, then it is us human fleshy types buggering things up that are to blame for whatever happens next, not the reactor! It can only obey the Laws of Physics. At some point common sense has to override even Party Politics and goals when dealing with powerful machinery like a nuclear reactor.
Thank you so much for the super thanks!
Yes, operator error is also at fault for this accident, however at the time these practices were normalised in the industry. It is an interesting thing how these operator errors would echo down to Chernobyl, as the accident solidified the need to increase the fuel enrichment, which led to the control rod lengthening and displacer shortening, which eventually led to the accident. Even the operators then, behaving under correct regulations at the time would feel the echo of the operator errors as it led to the explosion of Unit Four.
@@thatchernobylguy2915
You're most welcome!
These videos are a great help in furthering my study and understanding of the wonky reactor that is the RBMK.
Practices like that should never be normalised. Most certainly not when dealing with this type of equipment. If I were a supervisor, and I found any of the crews bending ionisation chambers on my reactor to force it back up in power in such a heavily poisoned state, I would have their g*ts for garters, and then some. Even the most stable, well-designed reactor will become unstable and behave erratically in such a poisoned state. Let alone a headstrong, touchy reactor like the RBMK. One doesn't muck about with the Laws of Physics, or face the consequences if you do.
And some of the similarities are uncanny indeed. There's no denying that.
On to the next video it is!😄
@@swokatsamsiyu3590 _"Practices like that should never be normalised"_ but then Soviet Union was not a "normal" country and pretty much nothing there worked "as it should have", and "overcoming difficulties" by whatever hook, crook, or just brute force was part and parcel of life there, back then. Individuals at power enforcing their decisions against better judgement, "the Plan has to be achieved" (and its goals met) no matter what, on 1st May, or on anniversary of The Revolution this road/ bridge/ building/ what not has to be "opened" even if half finished. So they laid the asphalt on a road in a haste and hurry even on the night of 30th of April, so the Secretary or some other Party bigwig could "open" it with much fanfare on the morning of May 1st... and then three days latter the entire road was torn up because water pipes and -sewage- SEVERAGE that was supposed to be put in the ground first wasn't there yet.
Just yesterday I watched the video about "The Most Dangerous Bridge in Russia" (ua-cam.com/video/vVFx8GcxNqw/v-deo.html) and there's one bit off-topic moment in it that illustrates the Soviet obsession with "show-off cum window dressing", or "pokazukha" (показуха) - when the narrator is talking about that "BAM connection ceremony".
BAM (Rus. БАМ) is a Baikal-Amur Railway (Rus. магистраль, magistral, meaning a highway or a main thoroughfare) which was rebuild in Brezhnev times, and it was done in the same fashion as "Pacific" railway "back then" in USA - they've laid the tracks simultaneously from both ends, to meet at certain point - and the difference was in US they did not care where would they meet, while Soviet powers that be DECLARED that it HAVE to be in this town (Kuanda/ Куанда).
But, as usual, nothing ever goes to plan there - one party was behind the schedule and the other one has advanced further (40 km/ 25 mi east of Kuanda), so they have met each other not where they were ordered to.
In any normal country it would be a non-issue - "aw, c'mon! so what? what's the difference?" - but then again, Soviet Union WAS NOT a "normal country", so AFTER the initial connection of the tracks in Balbukhta town/ settlement, FEW DAYS LATTER they dismantled a section of the tracks in Kuanda, and redid the "connection ceremony" as ordered by Party in the initial plan. "Ordnung muss sein", y'see...
In case you'd like to watch it yourself this episode starts at 15:33, and anyway the whole story about this bridge (that "BAM story" is just supplemental to it) shows how things works... erm, lemme reword it - "how things ARE" there. And while this video is accompanied by EIGHT "translated CCs" that English "translation" is kinda gibberish and "something completely different" from what these people say - and even Russian CC are pretty much in the "whisky tango foxtrot?!" genre.
The best possible translation (albeit still imperfect) you'll get when you select first "Russian auto-generated" CC and then choose "Auto-translation" option... but I digress here ;-)
@@MrKotBonifacy
Living in a country not all that far from the former USSR, I'm well aware of their obsession with looking the part to the outside world. Not to mention the fact that things were anything but "normal" in those times. I was 15 when the accident at Chernobyl NPP happened. Only due to the fact that we (and a host of other countries) got a good whiff of the fallout, and started asking difficult questions did they have to come clean about what transpired there.
How far this went? Well, fairly quick after the accident some USSR scientists phoned the IAEA with the question if they happened to have any literature on how to put out a graphite fire in a reactor core. Upon hearing this, the somewhat baffled person on the other side of the line asked if they would liked to be referred to the UK since they had had the Windscale fire in one of their graphite reactors in the 50's. "That will not be necessary. It is merely a scientific exercise of sorts. We're fine!"
Will look up the БАМ story sometime this week. And if the English subs are that bad, I'll stick to the "Russian auto-generated" CC since I can read/ write Cyrillic, and understand a good deal of the Russian language as well. You can thank the RBMK for that^^
@@swokatsamsiyu3590 _"... can read/ write Cyrillic, and understand a good deal of the Russian language as well. You can thank the RBMK for that^^"_ - yeah, _"always look at the bright side of life, ta-dam ta-dam ta-dam"_ ... ;-)
_"...a country not all that far from the former USSR"_ - Finland, perhaps? Or Sweden?
Well, never mind; greetings from Poland : )
Also, it looks like we're of about the same age - I was 22 back then. Cheers!
This reactor seems impossible to control.
With modern software simulations and certification of safe operational procedures it would be possible.
It is very possible. Living proof of that are the RBMKs (Leningrad NPP Units 3 - 4, Kursk NPP Units 3 -4, Smolensk NPP Units 1, 2, and 3. And the 3 Bilibino NPP RBMK-lets (EGP-6s)) still in operation today. They've been quietly making electric power for the past decades without much issue. However, the RBMK will always be a somewhat untamed, grumpy reactor you will have to run within its design parameters without deviation, full stop. If you do that, and take into account its weaknesses and unique behaviour in certain operating regimes, then the RBMK can be a proper, well-behaved reactor.
Something that helped me understand Chernobyl and the others is that the RBMK reactors weren't like Toyota Corollas. Each RBMK was its own, unique design, with, presumably, design improvements. And along with new improvements, also came new weaknesses. Hence, knowing how to operate one RBMK could help you understand how to operate another, but none of them were completely identical.
RBMK 1000 reactors were mass produced in two series. They are not unique designs in any way.
@@mvs3246 18:10
Always a shift change...
Everyone who knew the truth about Chernobyl was threatened by the KGB.
Did vodka play a part at any point in the sequence of events?
👍👍
Overconfidence but little knowledge, a dangerous combination...
The absolute lack of understanding, dare I say stupidity of these Soviet operators is pathetic
You never see the good stuff like this on Kyle Hill channel.
Dont get me wrong hes entertaining and good but this is the stuff that can be used against the pro nuclear narrative.
This is history and needs to be shared so we can advance.
Thank you
We're pro-nuclear. Discussing incidents doesn't mean you're against something.
Wassup
Ah it was a mistake we all drank a little more then usual because it was November 29th my Birthday so we all let off some steam but guess we can all say it was the wrong steam that was let out comrade. We don't know if it was Sasha's fault or Vladimir we all drank some of Vladies home brew a fresh batch of that Gud Gud and the next thing we all knew AZ-5 explodes. Anyways we are all good even with all the radiation I'm still great I have a 3rd eye and 4 more fingers now whats wrong with that? My wife has No problem with it I tell you 😁