How They Could Have Saved Chernobyl

[@fionarosemills]

Love this channel. I'm autistic and Chernobyl is my special interest since I was 8 years old. Thank you for doing this channel and sharing this information

[@DougPaulley]

I am autistic too and Chernobyl is also one of my special interests. I remember parents stopping me drinking milk in May 1986 because of Chernobyl. Thank you for the channel.

[@ItrastoWoW]

Make 2 into 3.

[@thebestcayplays]

And I thought I was the only one has been interested in Chornobyl from a young age

[@AviTheWolf]

Same here!

[@Transberrylemonaid]

Same! Though I have a horrible memory. I can’t really have conversations about it like most. But I’m still more than happy to sit and listen to someone else talk about it or watch a documentary like this. Scratches that itch.

[@Chrinik]

Toptonov is indeed the best reactor operator in history. He generated decades worth of power in mere milliseconds.

[@MinSredMash]

The unofficial 'study guide' for ChNPP SIURs from 1985 shows that they were already thinking about increasing fuel enrichment to 2.4% from 2%. This was one of the main upgrades implemented after the accident to reduce the void coefficient.

[@TheOpticalFreak]

Wait they already knew of the positive scram effect in 1983!!? 😱

[@markusw7833]

Yes. The stranger thing is how late they found out about it.

[@jarosawklimentowski5091]

Some people knew. But not the operators because it was classified. It's unfair to blame the operators that they used the AZ-5. It was a standard and considered the safest method to shutdown the reactor. It's done even in modern BWRs because it's just safer to shut it down immediately than to lower the power into instability regions slowly. They just had no idea and nobody briefed them about it.

[@CristalianaIvor]

The 80's truly were a remarkable time, where people were like - oh everything is wrong in this highly dangerous potentially apocalyptic nuclear power plant test, ah f_ck it, let's do it anyway. Half the staff is missing? pfff what will happen? I keep watching those plane disaster videos (mentour pilot is a great channel if you wanna know) and he keeps talking about the swiss cheese accident model: so basically imagine a few slices of swiss cheese, every slice is a safety mechanism to prevent an accident and accidents only happen in the very rare occurence of every hole of the swiss cheese slices aligning exactly. I think that's what happened here too. There are actually alot more nuclear accidents than is publicly spoken about, like I once read up on it and they for example had one in france where it just flooded the whole basement and took out the computers 💀 But most of them don't lead to disaster. I think your video really shows that if just one more thing went right, this proabably would not have happened, or two a way less dramaticall degree than it did.

[@iitzfizz]

Yup, the swiss cheese model! I watch mentour too also blancolirio! Am an aviation nerd lol

[@T0m0zuki]

A catastrophy is never a single event going wrong. It is a series of events. A cascade. Don't forget the reactor poisoning. I believe this was the main key to the power surge and why it blew up. Or at least one of the most important ones.

[@isaowater]

Can you explain how YOU believe the reactor exploded? And could you also cite sources. Thanks :)

[@T0m0zuki]

@@isaowater , like I said, it was a cascade. It was flawed from the very beginning with positive void coefficient and graphite moderation. Then there was a bypass of safety regulations. Then there was XE poisoning. Steam buildup at the bottom because of semi lowered control rods. There are so many things you can`t pinpoint out a single one being the main factor. It is not a religion or belief. All that actually happened because of bad design and human error.

[@isaowater]

@@T0m0zuki How'd you come about this information? How can I trust you?? What are your sources??? I'm just having fun with you. Your version of the accident isn't in line with the official narrative, however is in line with the 1986 soviet narrative which blamed the operators!

[@andy99ish]

"Event going wrong" is a catastrophy. Your statement "a catastrophy is never a single catastrophy" is wrong. Say, the collapse of one bridge is one catastrophy. If the 9/11 attacks were one catastrophic event or multiple such events was hotly debated in court, as it was relevant to compensations paid by insurance companies. What you probably mean, is single error/fault vs. multiple errors/faults causing a catastrophy. Now some catastrophies are caused by one error/fault, some by multiple. And there might be contributing factors too. And no, errors/faults must not necessarily occur in a series. If there is more than one, they can occur in moments far apart, or as a series, or simultaneously. In the Chernobyl case we have multiple errors and faults occurring in very different moments, namely: the strongly positive void coefficient by design, carrying out the test on a xenon poisoned reactor, the lack of knowledge that control rods lowered to a specific position actually increase reaction, the wrong belief that AZ-5 will immediately stop reaction and probably a couple more, like incorrect semi-manual handling of the cooling system. From watching multiple serious videos I gather that from the moment of starting the test on a poisoned reactor of this type serious damage to that reactor (a partial meltdown) was unavoidable. That the reactor even ran away and then exploded is attributed to additional causes. And there is no consensus if that escalation could have been avoided or not. It is mind-boggling that even in hindsight professionals do not agree what exactly caused the full catastrophy.

[@T0m0zuki]

​@@andy99ish I don`t think a bad event equals catastrophy. At least not from what I`ve heard. Bad event does not necessarily have or lead to catastrophic consequences by itself. A series of events was not meant in relation of one leading to another. But chronologically. But otherwise I agree or I believe we both are on the same page.

[@ahmadsantoso9712]

Fun Fact: The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant never produced tofu.

[@laz7354]

But it did perfectly align Swiss Cheese 🧀

[@bobbylee2853]

Actually put Dyatlov in the toilet.

[@swokatsamsiyu3590]

This must be one of your best videos to date. I have thought about these things many times as a mental exercise. If I were allowed to add one more to the list, it would be; "Let the reactor just completely go to sleep, and not try to start it again" when the power had dropped all the way to 30MWt at 00:28 hrs. Of course there would be no test, but in hindsight that would have been a good thing.

[@kainhall]

13:24 im still hitting AZ-5 due to the power raising so quickly........ VERY!!! quickly . putting in control rods a few at a time when the power is doing that..... would take nerves of steel (i think the operator would have to have hindsight to react so calmly.... you are told and TRAINED that AZ-5 stops EVERYTHING)

[@davidkavanagh189]

Most of the bad stuff that happened, happened AFTER AZ5 was pressed so I'm not sure how you could have the foresight to press it a little earlier and if you did, you'd likely be in a lot of trouble since none of your colleagues would have known why you spontaneously did that.

[@julijakeit]

also, no guarantees that inserting those rods slowly would have stopped the surge, it was increasing so rapidly that the explosion could have happened at any moment. not to mention even most experienced engineers did not know about the flaws of the reactor and were trained that AZ-5 would take care of any problem.

[@mhdgs9944]

Hey babe wake up, that chernobyl guy posted

[@Mechanical_Turk]

The way I see it from these videos, it seems the government was actively working to minimize the safety of the RBMK-1000 despite obvious and known problems. If it hadn't happened in Chernobyl, it would have happened elsewhere.

[@2IDSGT]

Don’t be a drunk Russian…🙄

[@MinSredMash]

Point of order: The rundown regime was not 'useless.' It would be important for preventing fuel damage in the event that a Design Basis Accident (full rupture of an 800mm coolant pipe header depriving half the reactor of coolant) occurred at the same time as a power outage. In this case the voltage from the turbine would be needed to operate the feedwater pumps that make up the slow-acting portion of the Emergency Core Cooling System, until the diesel generators come online. That said, the stigma from the accident was evidently enough to get all three countries operating the RBMK to forget about this potential scenario. Also I disagree that the operating reactivity margin would be higher if the rundown test had been carried out earlier. In fact it likely would have been lower. But this would have probably been fine, so long as the power reduction was carried out in a more orderly manner and they did not try to run the vibration test at the same time. Finally, it's worth stating that the position of INSAG-7 is that shutting down the reactor on time (at 1:23:04 as the rundown began) wouldn't actually affect the result. Virtually every study that simulates the reactor's behavior tries to calculate what would happen if the scram took place even earlier at 1:22:30, because that was the last time when the position of every control rod was known, along with the exact shape of the neutron field.

[@garethjohnstone9282]

Do you know what happens if you don't wear lead underwear in pripyat? Chernobyl fall off.

[@markusw7833]

...Nice.

[@PeterYeadon-js7ou]

That's really an old joke. In 1986 it went "What happens if you buy Russian underpants?....... Chernobyl will fall off". In view of the people that lost their lives to save people, not really very funny.

[@AntiSocialismo50]

They second guy in the thumbnail look like shaggy 😂

[@TheOpticalFreak]

So only the Chernobyl RBMK unit 3 Reactor did the Rundown test?! No other Russian nuclear power plants has ever did that?! 😮

[@stevenclarke5606]

It’s Bullshit , an excuse for the worst Nuclear Accident Ever! Typical Soviet propaganda, build Cheap Shit and wait for it to Destruct! Only the Soviets would build a Reactor without a containment building

[@bayo_yayo4317]

I choose all. Glory to RBMK

[@wojciechboruta9422]

I really like your content. This is my favourite youtube chanel.

[@rare_kumiko]

Not sure if you have already covered this (haven't found a video on it in your channel), but it'd be cool to see a video on the upgrades to RBMKs after the accident.

[@saschakrause2374]

Thank you Sir. Again very nice Video... can Not wait for the next Episode. Great work 😊

[@kstricl]

The rundown options would be the two most realistic options given the political environment. Either phrase the denial in confidence under "it will never be needed" or bull through the rundown under threat of Siberia. Everything else would require better knowledge, better sense or better political connections.

[@ange1playzgamez]

Ok I weirdly focused on the guy next to Toptunov in the photo of him with his glasses on wrong . But the dude next to him looks like Jeffrey Dahmer wtf

[@tractorbasil5713]

If youre reading this. Subscribe.

[@Mann44]

Nice Video, can you make a Video about the Vehicls right at the Site ?

[@saskaheino8776]

These are great videos. Again, this reminds me just how unlikely such a disaster is even in an RBMK reactor. The number of insufficient but necessary conditions for such an event is quite high indeed. Alongside the AZ-5, this is probably the best video you have produced thus far!

[@cremebrulee4759]

As with virtually all accidents, it's not just one thing that is the cause. Even with the poor design, this could have been almost certainly been avoided if the test had been run with with experienced personnel or with the experienced operator present who was told that the test had already been completed. The shortened control rods were known to be a problem. So many mistakes. They all came together and boom! This is referred to by some as the Swiss Cheese model. Each factor is a slice of Swiss cheese. When all the holes in the slices line up, an accident occurs.

[@isaowater]

4:22 Simple mistake, you're pronouncing "Zh" like "Z", which just isn't right. Zh is a vocalized "Sh", similar to "J" only J is evidently more related to Ch.

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

Thank you :)

[@markusw7833]

I don't think it's "sh".

[@isaowater]

@@markusw7833 Sh is pronounced differently when vocalized

[@markusw7833]

@@isaowater Wtf.

[@19Koty96]

@@markusw7833 it's like Sh, but hard :D

[@Sownll5980]

Good video

[@skylineXpert]

Even if unit 4 could be made safer then you cannot change the past. But you can learn & learning is important...

[@julijakeit]

I am born in the year of the disaster and in the post-soviet country not too far from Chernobyl, so to speak. I still remember my parents discussing the disaster and how liquidators were chosen.

[@alexriesenbeck]

I love your videos and your channel! Please use a drop shadow on your title card text on future videos :-)

[@danielle3064]

I have been wondering about all of this and what could have been for a while now and this clears up a lot of my questions

[@fred6059]

Glad I'm not the only one obsessed.

[@KarlFischer-zp8of]

bro, where do you find so much knowledge, is it through wikipedia or I don't know where#

[@JasonWest-zh1gt]

It could be avoided by not letting the russians run a nuclear power plant period.

[@PtichkaPiromant]

you're a clown

[@avus-kw2f213]

With how many little things that could’ve prevented the disaster I’m amazed at all the little things people have done that surely prevent disaster and no one realises

[@williamk3408]

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Politics ruled logic then, and still does today.

[@Bludskibludovski888]

Great video, as always:) great Background music choice too

[@btudrus]

"How They Could Have Saved Chernobyl" Not build a brain-damaged design in the first place.

[@pc14thenumber9]

Thank you for making this video. While it sad that these happen, it also prompt for better handling/understanding moving forward to prevent this kind of accident to happen again no doubt. ..also can the company/people in charge stop looking to cut cost when handling this dangerous stuff already. Geez. "Oh geez, let's not hire more people to handle this control. It's too expensive to pay their salary." ..and put the job on few dude, hoping them being healthy, not distracted, know what to do and pray nothing bad happen to machine/pipe somewhere in the large power plant that can speedrun any tiny problem into a really big mess to clean up later on.

[@CristalianaIvor]

This is actually the most important point about nuclear safety: the point is not that we are scared sh_tless of the evil atom and don't think it's POSSIBLE to build a safe nuclear reactor - we just know that in this cost-cutting hyper capitalistic society they will cut so many corners that it's indeed not a safe reactor anymore.

[@markusw7833]

@@CristalianaIvor Don't think the Soviets were hyper-capitalistic, per se.

[@CristalianaIvor]

@@markusw7833 my comment was for modern nuclear reactors

[@lloydevans2900]

@@markusw7833True, but corner-cutting was something that happened in Soviet style "communism" as well, albeit for different reasons. It doesn't really matter what the reasons for it are, because the corner-cutting itself is what causes the danger, not whatever the motivations for corner-cutting are.

[@hvnterblack]

Don't turn off safety systems, obey safety instruction. RBMK has safe minimum of control rods inserted. They had less than half of that number. They removed controls and got suprised by lost control. What a coincidence...

[@veastark6045]

They did obey the safety instructions and had more than the required amount of control rods. The problem was the safety instructions and regulations were inadequate and flawed. And the Soviet system chose to hide vital information from the operators.

[@hvnterblack]

@@veastark6045 safety minimum was about 14, they left less than 10.

[@Xerdar36]

Not run the test?

[@shinebassist]

That's basically the third point in the video, about not doing the rundown

[@KieraCameron514]

They could have not built an RBMK-1000.

[@MikeGoesBadaBoom]

Cheap cheap cheap 😂

[@danielle3064]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

[@kainhall]

9:03 you cant just give us a graph thats in russian with no context...... . id ASS-U-ME! that this is thermal VS power out put (it made 3000 MW of heat... for 1000MW on the grid/"real electricity") or its got to do with reactivity.... which is probably the case . still.... i have no idea.... i dont speak/read russian can you please explain this graph?

[@MinSredMash]

It's reactor power in MW(t) measured by the two different devices.

[@markusw7833]

@@MinSredMash ?

[@mikemulholland2862]

Fantastic channel. Chernobyl is a pet interest of mine. I eat up every bit of video, writing and anything else i can find. (BTW, I just bought a "New Containment" t-shirt!! YES!)

[@donkeyboy585]

#3 is my big one

[@yld244]

Pretty much comes down to not running testing in a production environment. Perhaps the rundown test could have been simulated without the reactor being disturbed? Gathering data on diesel generator startup times, turbine rundown times and other factors within the reactor along with other calculations may have been sufficient. Just seems extremely risky to perform such a test on a critical piece of infrastructure.

[@stevenclarke5606]

Chernobyl should never have been built, it was a death trap waiting to happen!

[@razvanionut5350]

what you see to say Try to mislead or Create other fictions no one can know what happened there And how the cause was produced because it was the Soviet system to cover up the whole case,

[@classicosdaaviacao3923]

What game is in the video

[@cremebrulee4759]

I thought RBMK reactors were no longer in use. I stand corrected.

[@brenoldt]

great viddeo!

[@JeaneGenie]

Human error once again 🙄

[@Phil-D83]

Not doing the stupid test without permission, or sufficient knowledge to do so, would have been a good start.

[@markusw7833]

They didn't need permission to do the test. As for lack of sufficient knowledge, that was shared by designers and scientists. Furthermore, there is indication of knowledge being withheld from them.

[@rapier5]

From the viewpoint of safety it's a fundamentally terrible design. Never mind that they can be made better. They should never have been made at all.

[@isbestlizard]

Don't take out more control rods past the minimum required and the reactor won't explode. If I was learning how to run a nuclear reactor that would probably be the FIRST thing I ever learned.

[@MinSredMash]

How are you going to learn that when no one knows that the reactor can explode or that the rod limit is relevant to safety in the first place? Also, the reactor could still explode with more than the minimum number of rods inserted...

[@pavlovezdenetsky7824]

There was no indicator of operational reactivity margin before the disaster. How would you know?

[@harrynking777]

If the voids produced positive reactivity, surely the water did too but more so.

[@markusw7833]

FIRST!

[@KayakCampingOffGrid]

Hmmmm... I think the Human Factors would ALWAYS make accidents happen. This is well known in aircrash investigations. Albeit the RBMK has it's Achilles Heel, arguably all nuclear reactors are dangerous when stress testing eg in a poorly implemented rundown. Again, in the West a test would push operators knowledge/experience beyond their limits. Discovering the hidden failure mode during a test is no way to operate a NPP! We see here that the 6 second delay between the diesel generator start, AND not removing almost ALL control rods would have prevented the accident! Human error! The stated minimum control rod law was ignored by the operators, because the Boss bullied the juniors. The human error was so clearly shown in the HBO miniseries, and absolutely the reason for the accident. 😢

[@MinSredMash]

Funny how this channel tirelessly combats all these silly myths and misinformation, only for people like you to come and parrot them in the comments. Casting pearls before swine, because people have decided to content themselves with stories.

[@markusw7833]

@@MinSredMash It's not just one person. Hell, we have trouble trying to keep it straight (e.g. I don't get the water point). But yes, overall the progress seems minimal. :) The HBO mini-series will be taken on somewhat more directly in several weeks.