There are drone videos on YouTube of the Pripyat area done within the last several years. Very interesting and kinda creepy.

There are a bunch of videos available on YT of explorers sneaking into Pripyat by walking some 25 to 30 miles. They stay for days at a time sleeping in abandoned building and getting drinking water from an underground source down what looks like a manhole.

I get HBO Max for free through my cell provider AT&T. I agree that the Chernobyl series was very well done.

The HBO series was excellent.

For anyone wanting a ‘deeper dive’, I recommend the book Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham.

Is there any way to watch this without having to pay $18.99 to Amazon Video for it? I don’t have HBO or HBO Go

I could see 6-8 bucks, 10 bucks even but 19? C’mon now. It’s 5 episodes.

Nope.

The $18 is to buy an electronic copy of the series, to own indefinitely. So basically like buying a DVD, just without the physical disc. Hence the price.

There's no way to just rent an electronic copy of the miniseries for a couple days for a few bucks, like you can with some movies.


The only other option would be to sign up for a month of HBO Max for $15, watch Chernobyl and whatever else for a month, and then cancel the subscription before it renews. This is a few bucks cheaper than buying just Chernobyl, and gets you access to whatever else you want to watch from HBO for 30 days too.

Watch Chernobyl, then rewatch Band of Brothers and The Pacific. That's worth $15 right there. And I'm sure you can find some other stuff worth watching over the course of the remainder of the month, further increasing the value.

"Midnight in Chernobyl" by Adam Higginbotham is a great read on the whole disaster. I'd thoroughly recommend it.

If you have Ammazoom Brine you can sign up for HBO for about $8 per month and watch Chernobyl, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and other mini-series, then cancel at the end of the month.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

The only other option would be to sign up for a month of HBO Max

Well, I saw an email this morning from Comcast that they are giving me a free week of HBO and HBO Go, so there we are! Great timing!

I'll watch this for sure now

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
If you have Ammazoom Brine you can sign up for HBO for about $8 per month

Nope. It used to be ~$8 to add HBO to Prime Video a few years back, but it's now $14.99/month. Same as the standalone HBO Max streaming service subscription.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Well, I saw an email this morning from Comcast that they are giving me a free week of HBO and HBO Go, so there we are! Great timing!

Good deal!

I thought it was excellent, but there was a strange time allocation to some subjects. The segment on pet extermination seemed more appropriate for a 12 episode series than a 5 episode series.

I assumed they were introducing the young man just being groomed for pet extermination for an extended role later in the series, but no. Much time devoted to his reluctance to get rid of contaminated pets, contrasted with his supervisor, an Afghanistan veteran. I think they could have instilled what it was like to do this with much less production expenditure and screen time.

quote:

Originally posted by pbslinger:
I thought it was excellent, but there was a strange time allocation to some subjects. The segment on pet extermination seemed more appropriate for a 12 episode series than a 5 episode series.

I assumed they were introducing the young man just being groomed for pet extermination for an extended role later in the series, but no. Much time devoted to his reluctance to get rid of contaminated pets, contrasted with his supervisor, an Afghanistan veteran. I think they could have instilled what it was like to do this with much less production expenditure and screen time.

It was a metaphor for how the Soviet system would pick you for a distastefulness job for which you'd never volunteer, then make you do it, even though it changed you in ways you didn't want.

It showed how the Soviet systems ground you into dust.

quote:

It was a metaphor for how the Soviet system would pick you for a distastefulness job for which you'd never volunteer, then make you do it, even though it changed you in ways you didn't want.

It showed how the Soviet systems ground you into dust.

Isn't that standard operating procedure for every military in the world in wartime?

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

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.

I decided to buy the DVD from Amazon and have one episode to go. This did not disappoint in any way! I agree, this series is highly recommended!

https://interestingengineering...way-nuclear-reaction

Interesting article about the continuing danger from Chernobyl.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

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.

I decided to buy the DVD from Amazon and have one episode to go. This did not disappoint in any way! I agree, this series is highly recommended!

I started it up again last night.
Probably have it re-watched the end of the week.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er: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.

There's plenty of smart people working in these fields and elsewhere, the issue is with those decision makers who either willfully ignore all the signs and information, attempt to cut & minimize expenditure to show they are being responsible, and/or, generally ignorant to the issues and are easily swayed by others who are not as well informed.

Every year we add HBO to our streaming services for a month or two. Typically around Thanksgiving, through the 1st of the year. We watch this series each time. I have considered buying it, it is worth owning. Most of what I think I know about the incident comes from the series...is anyone aware of any inaccuracies of significance?

^^^^^^^
Just posting the article here. Thanks for the link!!!


Since 2016, the canopylike New Safe Confinement has sealed off and protected the ruined Chernobyl reactor.

‘It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit.’ Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl
By Richard StoneMay. 5, 2021 , 11:20 AM

Thirty-five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident, fission reactions are smoldering again in uranium fuel masses buried deep inside a mangled reactor hall. “It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit,” says Neil Hyatt, a nuclear materials chemist at the University of Sheffield. Now, Ukrainian scientists are scrambling to determine whether the reactions will wink out on their own—or require extraordinary interventions to avert another accident.

Sensors are tracking a rising number of neutrons, a signal of fission, streaming from one inaccessible room, Anatolii Doroshenko of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) in Kyiv, Ukraine, reported last week during discussions about dismantling the reactor. “There are many uncertainties,” says ISPNPP’s Maxim Saveliev. “But we can’t rule out the possibility of [an] accident.” The neutron counts are rising slowly, Saveliev says, suggesting managers still have a few years to figure out how to stifle the threat. Any remedy he and his colleagues come up with will be of keen interest to Japan, which is coping with the aftermath of its own nuclear disaster 10 years ago at Fukushima, Hyatt notes. “It’s a similar magnitude of hazard.”

The specter of self-sustaining fission, or criticality, in the nuclear ruins has long haunted Chernobyl. When part of the Unit Four reactor’s core melted down on 26 April 1986, uranium fuel rods, their zirconium cladding, graphite control rods, and sand dumped on the core to try to extinguish the fire melted together into a lava. It flowed into the reactor hall’s basement rooms and hardened into formations called fuel-containing materials (FCMs), which are laden with about 170 tons of irradiated uranium—95% of the original fuel.

The concrete-and-steel sarcophagus called the Shelter, erected 1 year after the accident to house Unit Four’s remains, allowed rainwater to seep in. Because water slows, or moderates, neutrons and thus enhances their odds of striking and splitting uranium nuclei, heavy rains would sometimes send neutron counts soaring. After a downpour in June 1990, a “stalker”—a scientist at Chernobyl who risks radiation exposure to venture into the damaged reactor hall—dashed in and sprayed gadolinium nitrate solution, which absorbs neutrons, on an FCM that he and his colleagues feared might go critical. Several years later, the plant installed gadolinium nitrate sprinklers in the Shelter’s roof. But the spray can’t effectively penetrate some basement rooms.

Chernobyl officials presumed any criticality risk would fade when the massive New Safe Confinement (NSC) was slid over the Shelter in November 2016. The €1.5 billion structure was meant to seal off the Shelter so it could be stabilized and eventually dismantled. The NSC also keeps out the rain, and ever since its emplacement, neutron counts in most areas in the Shelter have been stable or are declining.

But they began to edge up in a few spots, nearly doubling over 4 years in room 305/2, which contains tons of FCMs buried under debris. ISPNPP modeling suggests the drying of the fuel is somehow making neutrons ricocheting through it more, rather than less, effective at splitting uranium nuclei. “It’s believable and plausible data,” Hyatt says. “It’s just not clear what the mechanism might be.”

The threat can’t be ignored. As water continues to recede, the fear is that “the fission reaction accelerates exponentially,” Hyatt says, leading to “an uncontrolled release of nuclear energy.” There’s no chance of a repeat of 1986, when the explosion and fire sent a radioactive cloud over Europe. A runaway fission reaction in an FCM could sputter out after heat from fission boils off the remaining water. Still, Saveliev notes, although any explosive reaction would be contained, it could threaten to bring down unstable parts of the rickety Shelter, filling the NSC with radioactive dust.

Addressing the newly unmasked threat is a daunting challenge. Radiation levels in 305/2 preclude getting close enough to install sensors. And spraying gadolinium nitrate on the nuclear debris there is not an option, as it’s entombed under concrete. One idea is to develop a robot that can withstand the intense radiation for long enough to drill holes in the FCMs and insert boron cylinders, which would function like control rods and sop up neutrons. In the meantime, ISPNPP intends to step up monitoring of two other areas where FCMs have the potential to go critical.

The resurgent fission reactions are not the only challenge facing Chernobyl’s keepers. Besieged by intense radiation and high humidity, the FCMs are disintegrating—spawning even more radioactive dust that complicates plans to dismantle the Shelter. Early on, an FCM formation called the Elephant’s Foot was so hard scientists had to use a Kalashnikov rifle to shear off a chunk for analysis. “Now it more or less has the consistency of sand,” Saveliev says.

Ukraine has long intended to remove the FCMs and store them in a geological repository. By September, with help from European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, it aims to have a comprehensive plan for doing so. But with life still flickering within the Shelter, it may be harder than ever to bury the reactor’s restless remains.

Pyotr Sivkov/TASS/Getty Images

quote:

Originally posted by AKSuperDually:
Every year we add HBO to our streaming services for a month or two. Typically around Thanksgiving, through the 1st of the year. We watch this series each time. I have considered buying it, it is worth owning. Most of what I think I know about the incident comes from the series...is anyone aware of any inaccuracies of significance?

Pretty accurate info. If you ever want to read or listen to a great book on the subject check out Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham