... the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant (its proper name, more commonly called the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP or just "Chernobyl") near Pripyat in northern Ukraine, 110 miles northwest of the city of Chernobyl, 10 miles from the Belarus–Ukraine border, and about 62 miles north of Kyiv.

The CNPP consisted of four "Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalny" (RBMK) ("high-power channel-type reactor" 1000 Megawatt (MW) reactors, the four together producing about 10% of Ukraine's electricity at the time of the disaster.

Reactor one was completed in 1977; reactor 2 in 1978, reactor 3 in 1981, and reactor 4 in 1983. Two more reactors, numbered five and six of the same basic design as 3 and 4, were planned. Reactor 5 was around 70% complete at the time of reactor 4's explosion and was scheduled to come online approximately six months later, Reactor 6 hadn't begun meaningful construction.

Reactor 4 was undergoing a safety test simulating an electrical power outage. The idea was to maintain electrical output from the reactor keeping cooling water circulating until the back-up electrical generators could provide power. Three tests between 1982 and 1986 failed. The fourth try on April 26, 1986 saw a cascade of bad decisions causing Reactor 4 to become increasingly unstable. During the planned decrease of reactor power in preparation for the electrical test, the power unexpectedly dropped to a near-zero level. The operators were able to restore the specified test power only partially. This risk was not made evident in the operating instructions, so the operators proceeded with the electrical test. Upon test completion, the operators triggered a reactor shutdown, but a combination of unstable conditions and reactor design flaws caused an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction instead.

A large amount of energy was suddenly released, and two explosions ruptured the reactor core and destroyed the reactor building. One was a highly destructive steam explosion from the vaporizing superheated cooling water; the other explosion could have been another steam explosion or a small nuclear explosion, akin to a nuclear weapon “fizzle.” This was immediately followed by an open-air reactor core fire that released vast amounts of airborne radioactive contamination. For about nine days that contamination spread and precipitated onto parts of the USSR and western Europe, especially Belarus, 15 miles away, where around 70% landed. As a result of rising ambient radiation levels off-site, a 6.2 mi radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident. About 49,000 people were evacuated from the area, primarily from Pripyat. The exclusion zone was later increased to 19 miles.

The reactor explosion killed two of the reactor operating staff outright. A massive emergency operation to put out the fire, stabilize the reactor, and cleanup the ejected nuclear core began and led to 134 station staff and firefighters suffering acute radiation syndrome (a terrible way to die) from absorbing high doses of ionizing radiation. Of these 134 people, 28 died in the days to months afterward and approximately 14 suspected radiation-induced cancer deaths followed within the next 10 years. Significant cleanup operations were taken in the exclusion zone to deal with local fallout, and the exclusion zone was made permanent.

Due to the continued deterioration of the sarcophagus, it was further enclosed in 2017 by the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement, a larger enclosure that allows the removal of both the sarcophagus and the reactor debris, while containing the radioactive hazard. Nuclear clean-up is scheduled for completion in 2065.
If you have not seen HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl, you should. While taking certain liberties with the truth (a female physicist from Belarus represents hundreds of physicists, chemists, and technicians involved) the key points that this was largely the expected outcome of anything undertaken by socialists because they lie their asses off to paint a petty picture on the glowing wall outside an exploded reactor. This is easily the best mini-series since Band of Brothers.

One thing is for certain, the planet owes a great deal to four men:


Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, who made the response the single focus of the Soviet Union, and who gave Shcherbina and Legasov carte blanche in terms of access to anything and everything the USSR had, from twow lunar rovers to some 700,000 men and women to do the cleanup.


Boris Shcherbina, vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers, leader of the response to the Chernobyl disaster, who listened to his subordinates and got them access to the resources needed (like all of the liquid nitrogen in the USSR).


Valery Legasov, First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy and chief of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster, who had the vision to see how bad things were, how bad they could get, and how best to avoid those outcomes.


General Pikalov, who took it on himself (rather than ordering a subordinate to do so) to drive a truck with a dosimeter up to the burning reactor building. It was his action that got Legasov the first accurate reading of the scope of the disaster. By this one act, I conclude Pikalov was a brave man, and a good leader.

Some good cuts of the series:

If you have access to HBO and haven't watched the series, you really owe it to yourself to do so. They did an excellent job with it, and pulled no punches when it came to laying blame squarely at the feet of the Soviet government system.

Excellent series indeed.

Is that exclusive to HBO?

Just saw something on one of the travel channels that Pripyat is now open for tours.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
Is that exclusive to HBO?

Yes.

Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
Is that exclusive to HBO?

Yes, but you can also pay ~$18 to buy an electronic copy of the miniseries through something like Google Play Video, Vudu, iTunes, Youtube, etc., or buy a physical BluRay copy for ~$30 from a retailer like Amazon, Walmart, or Best Buy.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
Is that exclusive to HBO?

If you travel much, check your hotel for HBO Go.

I've watched the HBO series two or three times. I've listened to the podcast two times, most recently Saturday as my brother and I drove to Salt Lake City. He was unaware of the series.

It really is a must see. It's amazing the Soviet style government lasted as long as it did.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Just saw something on one of the travel channels that Pripyat is now open for tours.

Kiev is the starting point, there are one day and two day tours:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/At..._Kiev-Kyiv_Kiev.html

I've considered going someday combined with a visit to this missile silo:

http://www.comtourist.com/hist...vomaysk-icbm-museum/

"The Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind."

Another recommendation for the Chernobyl series. Wife & I really enjoyed it.
I've been fascinated with the incident for years & had read a lot about it before. I was a whopping 3 months old when it happened.

Chernobyl has been one of those places that I think would be interesting to visit, but not so much at the same time.
A bit less now, since they've encased reactor 4 in the new containment.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Just saw something on one of the travel channels that Pripyat is now open for tours.

Kiev is the starting point, there are one day and two day tours:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/At..._Kiev-Kyiv_Kiev.html

I've considered going someday combined with a visit to this missile silo:

http://www.comtourist.com/hist...vomaysk-icbm-museum/

"The Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind."

I’ll go when I have been told I need radiation therapy.

If your safety test destroys the building, you need to reevaluate your methods.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
If your safety test destroys the building, you need to reevaluate your methods.

Well, on the positive side, the test proved that it wasn't safe.

I can remember when this was first reported.

Huge vote for the Chernobyl series.

quote:

Originally posted by redstone:
I can remember when this was first reported.

Huge vote for the Chernobyl series.

Me too. Sweden first reported it to the outside world. Some nuclear facilities there had their warning systems go off because the levels were so high. Once they realized it wasn't them, some backtracking discovered the source.
I recall many years ago, a documentary series, I think it was a Turner network, that was excellent but can't find it anymore and haven't watched the HBO version.

Scary to think that anyone thought those tests were a good idea. Also scary to think the Fukushima design issues couldn't have been foreseen either. We think there are some really smart people overseeing all of these plants and that they are completely fail safe, given the consequences. That is a mistaken belief.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Just saw something on one of the travel channels that Pripyat is now open for tours.

Kiev is the starting point, there are one day and two day tours:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/At..._Kiev-Kyiv_Kiev.html

I've considered going someday combined with a visit to this missile silo:

http://www.comtourist.com/hist...vomaysk-icbm-museum/

"The Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind."

I’ll go when I have been told I need radiation therapy.

HA ! Very good.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Just saw something on one of the travel channels that Pripyat is now open for tours.

Yup, everybody who has been there has been giving it a glowing report, saying that the place almost radiates good health and clean air.

Very well done mini-series. Before it came out and after it inspired me to do a semi-deep dive into the science of the disaster and the human response.

Videos like this one always creep me out. Soviet secrecy being what it was, they weren't very open and honest with the people who lived there. Many never understood the scope of the disaster.



In that video, there are occasional white 'flashes.' These are apparently caused by the radiation interacting with the film used to capture the imagery.

I was in high school when this happened. I didn't understand the full scope of it until years later.