I'm not sure who has done a better job in the role they have. Shchbernia and Legasov keep one upping each other. The actor playing Shchbernia stole the EP with his meltdown..
I'm assuming it will end with the sarcophagus being installed, hopefully we'll get an scene with the elephant's foot
Sorry I missed this post in the midst of the other posts that day and was just catching up. The idea behind it is simply additional passive cooling. The term moderator coefficient was thrown around in e4 as Legasov, Scherbina, and the Khomyuk were discussing the cause in that secret location. In this case it was known secretly that the graphite tips actually created a positive moderator coefficient. What that means is that it exacerbated existing reactivity and perpetuated it. That’s not what you want in the event of an accident. Our control rods have a negative moderator coefficient which in the event of an accident would systematically reduce reactivity regardless of the state they are in. If your question is about my plant, the rigor that went into the design and the redundancy that is built into it at least from my perspective make it hard for me to believe something like Chernobyl could happen. There is no more winging it like they used to do and there’s no single person able to really force people to do the wrong thing over and over again. Chernobyl was constructed with the belief that those protections were not needed or warranted.
I think the thing that’s sticking with me the most is the psyche of the Soviet people. They’re in a situation that calls for them to do incredibly dangerous and terrible things, but they just get on with it. The miners, the divers, the liquidators... they’ve got a shitty job but someone has to do it to save Europe so they just go ahead and do it. They’re just so used to shit like this happening (like the babushka in the opening scene of ep 4) that it doesn’t seem to phase them. The podcast touches on a lot of this but don’t think we’ve talked about it here.
Also with our fuel design once it heats up to a certain point it will shut itself down then start back up once it cools off, rinse and repeat. As the gaps get too large between the U-235 atoms and they get excited too much, thermal neutrons won’t be absorbed.
I really hope HBO does more short docuseries like this. I feel like the fact they only have 5 episodes really forces them to not drag shit out unnecessarily like GOT, Sopranos, etc. this show is one of the best I have seen in a long time.
Yes, I was wondering about construction of US plants. I remember when Fukushima happened, they were worried about the core making it down into the soil and leaching into the groundwater, etc. I was wondering if worst-case planning of the infrastructure in US plants considered a full/partial meltdown. If you had to, could you seal off the plant from the exterior environment. For instance, is the concrete in the foundation made thicker to prevent the core from getting out of containment?
I can’t speak for that specific kind of design particular but I would say that core meltdown was the primary defense in depth planned for in terms of the health and safety of the public being foremost on our minds. There’s roughly 15 feet of concrete and inch thick carbon steel liner that between the bottom of the reactor and the ground at my plant. I’m not a civil guy though:)
Towards the beginning of the Dog ep helicopters where shown spraying/dusting the land and forest they were flying over What was it and was it effective?
It was a sticky substance used in the hopes that it would keep radioactive particles & dust from getting into the atmosphere.
Just about the "cleanest" story you could imagine being told. Absolutely no fat whatsoever. No better format than the limited series.
The way Legasov explained heat and cooling with the blocks was excellent. Really enjoyed this. I also really hope people watch this and also not be freaked out or turned off by nuclear power. It’s the present and most assuredly the future. And it’s green.
Was going to say the exact same thing about the way Legasov explained it. It was the most I understood what actually happened tbh.
That was incredible. I think i'm gonna re-watch the first ep now after seeing how this was explained because now it feels like it makes way more sense.
It's pretty eerie to re-watch the scenes of the people watching the fire from the bridge in ep 1. Seemed a little like filler at the time
this was beautiful television. So bleak, yet so beautiful. Even the explosion was beautiful. Television is getting pretty great in 2019...
I think bbc did something some years back, and a ukrainian doc is out there too iirc, also there's footage of the liquidators / biorobots that I find incredible. Some of it is grainy because of the radiation affecting the film.
The buildings creeped me out the most. They absolutely nailed it too. Ive been to a few of those Eastern Euro shitholes the Soviets ran and they were all that shitty easter egg light green color inside or wallpaper. Big empty concrete buildings that had nothing inside and like 3 people worked there.
Fukushima. It would be fascinating primarily because the same culture in Soviet Russia or at least a similar version of it permeated the ranks of the upper echelon at TEPCO, especially with regard to them hiding things, not asking for help, ignoring studies telling them they were susceptible to tsunamis, and choosing not to perform modifications to improve safety or create emergency evacuation plans. TEPCO readily admitted that they were more concerned with the backlash and so they engaged in collusion, nepotism, and corruption to get their way.
Arguably the most bizarre fact about Chernobyl As many others have said, this was phenomenal. I'm about to listen to the final podcast
I can't find the full timeline on imgur. But some dude has a complete timeline of Chernobyl before and after the incident.
I was pretty surprised to read that you can tour Chernobyl today. The story I read said you’ll ingest (?) the same amount of radiation as you would if you sat at your house all day.
Yea, as long as you’re not there for an extended period of time or go around touching everything, you’re perfectly safe. ETA: some people still live there.