The short answer is that the physicists and the ministry of nuclear power who certified the reactor as foolproof knew that it was an inherently dangerous design but the flaws had been classified as state secrets, so all the nuclear engineers working on these reactors were only provided with a limited picture. You can Google "positive void coefficent" which is an effect whereby water flash heated to steam in the core (which creates voids) causes a runaway positive feedback loop on power output. In this design, water is both a coolant, and secondary medium to reduce the reactivity of the core by absorbing neutrons. Other, newer designs specifically minimised or eliminated the effect. The engineers at the plant weren't even aware that a positive void coefficient was a thing. Maybe the engineers could have deduced it, but it wasn't taught that way, so based on what they had been taught, it was foolproof. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_coefficient
Pretty insane when they sit and break down the numbers and the effects what would happen if the fire proceeded and the reactor wasn't contained - absolutely terrifying that Russia/Western Europe would be on the brink of annihilation for hundreds of years. And to t
Intriguing story I wonder about the accuracy of the Russian attitudes and personalities (I know no Russians ) It is really kind of brutal Is this propaganda or is this a real look at the Russian Psyche/Society Rocket River
No. eta: just in case anyone is wondering, the characters played by Harris and Skarsgard and the 3 main plant operators were actual people, the physicist played by Emily Watson is a composite character.
I've known several people who grew up in the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact countries. I have also read about this on a semi-fanatical level at times. The attitudes and reactions of the officials and the people in Pripyat seem accurate from most accounts. Keep in mind that the USSR kept an iron grip on information; but this was so big that they could not contain it, literally and metaphorically speaking. A lot of accounts would come from people sometimes far after the fact. Recollections can be distorted; but there was so much similarity in the accounts that one has to believe them to be accurate. One thing that I liked about the second episode is how they used actual news coverage, including the one with (I think) Tom Brokaw referring to Chernobyl being right outside of Kiev, when in reality it was much further away. A lot of people just didn't have that frame of reference for distances. It is kind of like describing the distances between Houston & Dallas, or LA and San Francisco to someone on the highly-compacted East Coast. By the way - a little frame of reference on this to consider is that the distance from Pripyat (near Chernobyl) and Minsk (where Emily Watson's character detected the radiation) would be about the drive from South Houston to North Dallas. When they say that it was detected in Sweden within a couple days that is roughly 3 times that distance, or greater than a drive from Beumont to El Paso.
Thanks. I am glad that this is not just caricatures The Authenticity is appreciated IT is a bit chilling and harsh "I need your permission to kill three men. . .. . " Rocket River
This show is on another level. Nothing scarier than the sound of those Geiger counters at the end. Wonderful story telling from such a horrible story.
Is nobody concerned or at least curious about the three holes punched in the milky way. That seems pretty thread worthy.
No doubt, just wished some of those British emulated a Ukrainian, Russian accent, would have been gravy. Used to watch lot of Emily Watson movies back in teh day.
Man, that's the only gripe I have, but the show is too good to complain about anything. It was just silly on initial watch to hear all these Ukranian characters being portrayed by British accents. Some kind of stern gutteral sound of a language would've been nice.
I agree about the accent. I keep thinking how well The Americans represented the Soviet Union and it was freaking FX. HBO could have done something similar and I believe it would have been much more authentic. HBO’s audience is smart enough for subtitles. Regardless, it’s a pretty great show.
I was pretty passionate about this a while back, if anybody wants to know how it happened. The control rods ( which serve to moderate the reaction and absorb the extra neutrons) actually caused and accelerated the accident due to graphite on the tips. It was known the design was flawed but nobody really did anything. While things were looking bad, they only got to the point of no return because the very control rods that were supposed to slow the reaction actually accelerated it when the submerged all of them as an emergency fall back when they got the power surge.
This is a pretty interesting blog of visiting some of Chernobyl (I think this was published 2004) so there's probably more current ones but it's a pretty cool visit/site just for the photos alone, especially since she pretty much does it solo on a motorcycle. Iirc she gets fairly close, and even includes some images of a school she visits. http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter3.html
