Chernobyl HBO

[RPM 26267]

56 minutes ago, mulletpelini said:

Pulling out is usually safer than a partial leaving in

Instinct says this is the right move, but in this case you want to fully insert. You just have to worry about the tip.

[DigglerontheHoof 21095]

15 hours ago, Burt Macklin said:

Yes and no. They retrofitted them after Legasov died to fix that safety issue, but there are still RBMK reactors operating in Russia. However, I don’t believe they build any of the new ones with that same design.

I understand cost was the driving factor, but I'm still completely confused as to why the boron rods were tipped w/ graphite.  

[Loco 3752]

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I understand cost was the driving factor, but I'm still completely confused as to why the boron rods were tipped w/ graphite.  

At the time of the Chernobyl disaster, the RBMK reactors had graphite ‘followers’ on the end of their control rods. The purpose of the graphite followers was to increase the ‘worth’ of the control rods. For a given movement of a control rod, a rod with a follower produces a greater change in reactivity than a rod without.

To explain. If you lower a control rod a little you add some Neuton absorber from the core, so reducing the number of neutrons in the core, and hence decreasing the reactivity. If the rod has a graphite follower, then lowering the rod also removes some graphite moderator from the core, which further reduces the reactivity.

The graphite followers are believed to have contributed to the final moments before the Chernobyl disaster. Inserting a control rod normally reduces the reactivity of the coreas I described. However, if a rod with a follower is raised completely from the core, then when you start to insert it, the graphite follower initally adds some graphite to the core, increasing the core reactivity rather than reducing it. This triggered the final reactivity excursion at Chernobyl.

There should have been an interlock that prevented raising the control rods so far, but this was one of the interlocks that the operators had overridden in their struggle to keep the reactor at a stable low power level for the planned test at Chernobyl. Since Chernobyl, the graphite followers have been removed from the rods in the remaining RBMK reactors to prevent the possibility of this happening.

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by slorch

[Message Board User 12390]

 

[Fondren & Main 6677]

So, the CIA would deliberately blow up a nuclear reactor and potentially cause worldwide devastation amounting in numerous innocents deaths just to make the Russians look bad...

 

Wow.  That's pure lunacy at its finest.

[SizzleChest 8276]

1 hour ago, Fondren & Main said:

So, the CIA would deliberately blow up a nuclear reactor and potentially cause worldwide devastation amounting in numerous innocents deaths just to make the Russians look bad...

 

Wow.  That's pure lunacy at its finest.

We went to the moon to make them look bad.

[Fozzz 152]

6 hours ago, Fondren & Main said:

So, the CIA would deliberately blow up a nuclear reactor and potentially cause worldwide devastation amounting in numerous innocents deaths just to make the Russians look bad...

 

Wow.  That's pure lunacy at its finest.

The CIA has done worse.

[kevwun 15680]

No, I'd say that one would top everything being that it could have caused the deaths of more people than WWII.

[MissingInAction 24868]

FAKE NEWS! SAD!

[sidis 9775]

i mean, as far as propogranda counter-narratives go...i'm not sure how creating a series showing how agents or officers the cia successfully infiltrated deep into the ussr's guarded energy sector undetected by the kgb to the point it was able to sabotage a nuclear power plant and cause tens of billions of dollars in damages and the death of a substantial number of russians gives your average russian a better feeling about the whole thing than a series demonstrating that a team of russian national scientists were dedicated enough to the truth and what was right that they were effectively willing to commit a combination of cancer suicide and defy a state government with no qualms about murdering perceived dissidents in order to save the entire eastern hemisphere.  not to mention the countless average russians that played a part in preventing nuclear meltdown and continental contamination...from the miners to the divers to the liquidators.

[Fondren & Main 6677]

27 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

The CIA has done worse.

Comrade Fozzz?  Give me an example of worse than worldwide devastation?

[Fozzz 152]

11 minutes ago, kevwun said:

No, I'd say that one would top everything being that it could have caused the deaths of more people than WWII.

That is extremely speculative.  Back in reality, the CIA's trained death squads in El Salvador killed like 50,000 people.  Fewer deaths than WWII but far more than the recorded deaths attributable to Chernobyl.

[Mileslong 4722]

The CIA has done worse.

Lmao. oh really, please share details

[Mileslong 4722]

That is extremely speculative.  Back in reality, the CIA's trained death squads in El Salvador killed like 50,000 people.  Fewer deaths than WWII but far more than the recorded deaths attributable to Chernobyl.

Yeah that seems factual, especially when you say “killed like” some number

[Fozzz 152]

10 minutes ago, Mileslong said:

Yeah that seems factual, especially when you say “killed like” some number

Are you just totally unaware of our involvement in El Salvador in the 70s and 80s?  Maybe HBO should make a mini-series about that.

[DDD Dad 14272]

We went to the moon to make them look bad.

Don’t you mean Mars?

I’ll show myself out.

[FartingMonk 3606]

You guys are discounting a lot.  Nuclear technology was in its infancy at the time probably 20 years old.  They did not understand it and the inherent dangers of it.  Rickover saw it and forced American nuclear to go with PWRs because of the negative coefficient to reactivity.  You get less bang for your buck but it was safer.  The Russians felt that if they went that way it would mean the Americans were right.  So they went with the RBMKs.  It's a matter of trial and error.  Well they didn't and we didn't understand the magnitude of being wrong.   Read up on the Idaho incident.  We were wrong as fuck but we started with small test reactors. They went full scale with unproven interlocks

[Deej 76620]

2 hours ago, Fozzz said:

Are you just totally unaware of our involvement in El Salvador in the 70s and 80s?  Maybe HBO should make a mini-series about that.

I think everyone knows our involvement, but you were so definite on like, the numbers.

[Fozzz 152]

6 minutes ago, Deej said:

I think everyone knows our involvement, but you were so definite on like, the numbers.

There is no precise number. Around 75000 people were killed and the US backed governmental forces were responsible for the great majority of those deaths.  The CIA helped train those forces and actively shared intelligence with them to help massacre the citizens of that country. 

[Augustus 3061]

So a CIA spy manages to rig several tests over three years to fail, until he eventually gets the last attempted test pushed back to midnight by having the folks in Kiev demand more electricity so they can hit their quotas, resulting in a bunch of newbs and an egomaniac carrying out the test--which was essential because the reactor needed to run at reduced power for many hours prior to this brilliant coup of plan, all while presumably counting on the fact that somehow, somebody would prevent the core from melting through the concrete pad and poisoning an enormous hunk of the planet.......

Sounds legit.

And also:  No.  No matter how many Central Americans died at the hand of CIA trained forces, that is not "worse" than damn near precipitating the fucking China Syndrome.  (or perhaps the South Pacific Syndrome, given where the reactor was located)

Edited June 8, 2019 by Augustus

[Deej 76620]

It's ok, we all know Fozzz is Putin.

 

[youdunnf'dup 2147]

Just watched all 5 episodes in a row. I don’t know how some of y’all started from episode one and waited a week between episodes. What an amazing/horrible story. 

 

“I think it’s safe to say it’s the most dangerous place on planet earth”

Edited June 9, 2019 by youdunnf'dup

[RPM 26267]

nm

Edited June 9, 2019 by RPM
wrong thread

[Parliament 14153]

You can put this show on the same level as Band of Brothers and John Adams.  The best of Russian courage and Soviet bureaucracy on display.  The gallows humor of the miners.  The harsh "mechanical" musical score. 

I have a question though.  They said Chernobyl was a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I have read that elsewhere.  Why?  As big as this crisis was, how could it take down the 2nd most powerful nation in the World?

[SizzleChest 8276]

4 minutes ago, Parliament said:

I have a question though.  They said Chernobyl was a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I have read that elsewhere.  Why?  As big as this crisis was, how could it take down the 2nd most powerful nation in the World?

Gorbachev, for one, was apparently pretty inspired to reform.  Chernobyl sucked up a massive amount of resource and manpower.

Once the reform train started rolling, it wasn't going to stop.

[oSuJeff97 3435]

On 6/9/2019 at 9:17 AM, Parliament said:

You can put this show on the same level as Band of Brothers and John Adams.  The best of Russian courage and Soviet bureaucracy on display.  The gallows humor of the miners.  The harsh "mechanical" musical score. 

I have a question though.  They said Chernobyl was a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I have read that elsewhere.  Why?  As big as this crisis was, how could it take down the 2nd most powerful nation in the World?

Well probably because the (mostly) projected military power of the Soviet Union couldn't make their economic situation any better.  The cleanup cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars and also devastated tons of farm land, agriculture, etc.

It probably didn't directly cause the fall of the Soviet Union, but that's a sizeable economic gut punch to a country that had been in a precarious position for quite some time because they were desperately trying to keep up with the Americans in the Cold War.

[Burt Macklin 19000]

15 minutes ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Well probably because the (mostly) projected military power of the Soviet Union couldn't make their economic situation any better.  The cleanup cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars and also devastated tons of farm land, agriculture, etc.

It probably didn't directly cause the fall of the Soviet Union, but that's a sizeable economic gut punch to a country that had been in a precarious position for quite some time because they were desperately trying to keep up with the Americans in the Cold War.

Yeah, that and the other part of the answer is that the Soviet Union’s was already collapsing under it’s own weight. It’s demise was pretty much inevitable, but it was sped up for many of the reasons you said. 

Midnight in Chernobyl is a great book if y’all liked the tv series. They go in depth on a lot of the central characters and their backgrounds and it sheds light on the Soviet Union, as a whole. It was a system that beat inefficiency and cutting corners into its member, even if they didn’t start out that way. Not to mention, Stalin would literally arrest and kill members of the Soviet Union if he thought they had become too successful and powerful.  A government like that was never going to last.

[Burt Macklin 19000]

1 hour ago, oSuJeff97 said:

Well probably because the (mostly) projected military power of the Soviet Union couldn't make their economic situation any better.  The cleanup cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars and also devastated tons of farm land, agriculture, etc.

It probably didn't directly cause the fall of the Soviet Union, but that's a sizeable economic gut punch to a country that had been in a precarious position for quite some time because they were desperately trying to keep up with the Americans in the Cold War.

Yeah, that and the other part of the answer is that the Soviet Union was already collapsing under its own weight. Its demise was pretty much inevitable, but it was sped up for many of the reasons you said. 

Midnight in Chernobyl is a great book if y’all liked the tv series. They go in depth on a lot of the central characters and their backgrounds and it sheds light on the Soviet Union, as a whole. It was a system that beat inefficiency and cutting corners into its members, even if they didn’t start out that way. Not to mention, Stalin would literally arrest and kill members of the Soviet Union if he thought they had become too successful and powerful.  A government like that was never going to last.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Burt Macklin

[hornian 5207]

You can say that again, Burt. 

[Nueces River Rat 5533]

On 6/9/2019 at 9:17 AM, Parliament said:

You can put this show on the same level as Band of Brothers and John Adams.  The best of Russian courage and Soviet bureaucracy on display.  The gallows humor of the miners.  The harsh "mechanical" musical score. 

I have a question though.  They said Chernobyl was a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I have read that elsewhere.  Why?  As big as this crisis was, how could it take down the 2nd most powerful nation in the World?

It was a factor.  I mean they eventually had to seek outside help from the evil West as in  us  (the US) and free Europe which means the Soviet educated class ( the younger class - the equilvlent of our Baby Boomers and Gen X)  for which many were engaged in this whole mess saw their counterparts totaly apporach the issues from all sorts of other angles which totally went against what the Soviet hierarcy in academia taught for decades.   Don't underestimate what the little taste of freedom those folks got from visiting the west back then along with Gorby actually opening up their society to Western stuff like music, clothes, etc did to help bring down the country.   Of course on top of the facade they built around their military power which albeit was dangerous, but the quagmire in Afganistan and what they did post to recover from it did not help one bit.   One thing  which helped the US to recover from it's quagmire in  Vietnam is we still had the Soviet Union to focus on which helped us refocus in the 80's to eventually end the Cold War.  This on top of threats in the Middle East from Iran mainly at the time with the hostage taking at the embassy and their active roles in Beruit, etc.    The Soviets didn't have that threat to focus on as the wheels were in motion internally in the East Bloc which led to collapase of the wall and free Poland, Romaina, Hungray,  etc.  So it was like WTH do we do now and we are broke?  

Edited June 11, 2019 by Nueces River Rat

[oSuJeff97 3435]

50 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

One thing  which helped the US to recover from it's quagmire in  Vietnam is we still had the Soviet Union to focus on which helped us refocus in the 80's to eventually end the Cold War.  This on top of threats in the Middle East from Iran mainly at the time with the hostage taking at the embassy and their active roles in Beruit, etc.    The Soviets didn't have that threat to focus on as the wheels were in motion internally in the East Bloc which led to collapase of the wall and free Poland, Romaina, Hungray,  etc.  So it was like WTH do we do now and we are broke?  

Those things may have helped in terms of "morale of the people" and so fourth, but I'd say the bigger factor would have been that the U.S. had a massive, dynamic economy that dwarfed the USSR. 

Russia didn't have the biggest consumer economy in the world to help drive GDP, let alone Ford, General Motors, General Electric, IBM, AT&T, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc., etc.  Not to mention that in the mid/late 70s the microprocesser revolution was about to happen with the U.S. leading the way.

[Nueces River Rat 5533]

Those things may have helped in terms of "morale of the people" and so fourth, but I'd say the bigger factor would have been that the U.S. had a massive, dynamic economy that dwarfed the USSR. 
Russia didn't have the biggest consumer economy in the world to help drive GDP, let alone Ford, General Motors, General Electric, IBM, AT&T, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc., etc.  Not to mention that in the mid/late 70s the microprocesser revolution was about to happen with the U.S. leading the way.

You are correct with this as well.

[HenryJames 65919]

 

[Nolacycling 893]

On 6/4/2019 at 11:09 AM, Fozzz said:

Along with the "2-4 megaton" steam explosion, the show apparently either made up or took at face value a rumor that everyone on the "bridge of death" died.  No one in Pripyat actually died from the fallout resulting from the explosion.

Link? to nobody on bridge of death died or are you going to once again differentiate between who died immediately and those that had shortened lives, Comrade?

[Mojo Hand 4580]

The show didn't make up the 2-4 megaton explosion thing either.   The Russians apparently believed at the time (wrongly, it seems) that is what was at stake (at 1:26):

 

Edited June 12, 2019 by Mojo Hand

[Fondren & Main 6677]

4 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

That girl is gonna grow a third tit.

[HookEm 2450]

Go on...

[Constant 6722]

Fozzz is Dyatlov; Dyatlov is Fozz. The reactor is fine. 

Edited June 12, 2019 by Constant

[HenryJames 65919]

6 hours ago, Fondren & Main said:

That girl is gonna grow a third tit.

[Native Horn 3495]

You didn't see a third tit, because there WASN'T a third tit!

[TwiceHorn 31349]

12 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

If there's any group of people that need to catch some serious Roentgens, it's "influencers."

[Loco 3752]

12 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

This might be the only bright spot.   I hope they get a good one with the Elephant Foot!  

[Loco 3752]

Fyre Festival too  Radiation Bugaloo

Edited June 12, 2019 by Loco

[BayouBill 835]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BygSBnhAWYt/?utm_source=ig_web_options_share_sheet

[52-80 19126]

23 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

If there's any group of people that need to catch some serious Roentgens, it's "influencers."

shes gonna get some radiation on datass

[52-80 19126]

On 6/7/2019 at 3:26 PM, Fondren & Main said:

So, the CIA would deliberately blow up a nuclear reactor and potentially cause worldwide devastation amounting in numerous innocents deaths just to make the Russians look bad...

 

Duh.  Where do you think they got the courage to orchestrate 9/11?  There was precedence.

[Asithappens 974]

On 6/7/2019 at 3:04 PM, Fozzz said:

The CIA has done worse.

Yeah. I wouldn't say that the accident caused world-wide devastation.  And as far as killing innocents? You must be kidding if you think the CIA hasn't done that already. Multiple times. 

[Guest Lobo]

You know that the reactor almost detonated a yield that would have killed millions of our Allies in Eastern Europe?  The CIA does weird shit, but typically starting with wars with other continents isn't one of them.  

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, Lobo said:

You know that the reactor almost detonated a yield that would have killed millions of our Allies in Eastern Europe?  The CIA does weird shit, but typically starting with wars with other continents isn't one of them.  

That would be Western European allies, but hey who cares about geography.