What if Chernobyl Didn't Explode?

In the last video, I mentioned that I wondered what might have happened to my KZbin channel if Chernobyl never exploded. A few people commented I might have become That Fukushima Guy or That Windscale Guy. But what if this was actually the case? What if Chernobyl hadn’t exploded that night? How would the world have changed from where it is today? The more I thought about this subject, the more interesting it became.

[@bubblegumfacebabe]

without chernobyl, we wouldn't have STALKER!!

[@dx-ek4vr]

STALKER was based off a Science Fiction novel called Roadside Picnic, which was written way before the disaster. So STALKER could probably still exist, but in an unrecognizable form

[@naterod]

Without Chernobyl it would’ve just been another RBMK reactor like ignalina. It was only a matter of time.

[@swokatsamsiyu3590]

Yes, yes, yes, finally he is mentioning the MKER! If there is one reactor I would have loved to see run, it would have been the MKER. It would have been everything the RBMK should have been, but never got to be. Not only did it have full containment (yes!), it also had both active _and_ passive emergency cooling, enhanced neutronics, and something they refer to as "enhanced self-protection for the reactor". This reactor could have been really good. And times would been a lot less panicky 10 days after my 15th birthday. I'm in a country that also got a good whiff of the accident fallout. We could not eat anything from our gardens, milk was disposed of, and children weren't allowed to play in any outdoor sandboxes. If the Chernobyl disaster had never happened, we would have never had this awesome channel with all these exquisitly nerdy videos. Or maybe we would have, but then with very different nerdy videos. Keep up the good work😊

[@marciskt1]

Chernobyl was a nail in USSR coffin. Even Gorbachev said that..

[@StopTeoriomSpiskowym]

Maybe the war can be.

[@bsadewitz]

It was a nail, but there were MANY nails.

[@simonzinc-trumpetharris852]

'coffin'

[@thatcampingmann9543]

Chernobyl, Afghanistan, Berlin Wall, perestroika and Gorbachev, black October, many more nails

[@literallynull]

Not the way you think. Chernobyl made people go to the streets and protest against the atomic energy, they went to protest for the first time since the 1960s it then turned into political demonstrations

[@saintuk70]

If Chernobyl hadn't "exploded" my 1986 would have been a slightly less scary! Due to the proximity of Sellafield, life in the southwest of Scotland was already nervous of nuclear power. Chernobyl ramped this up and impacted a lot of farmers where I lived etc etc etc.

[@STEFAZON500]

Another sub note would have been that Italy would still have nuclear power and they would have completed at least BWR units at Monalti Di Cristo. Finland would have built Loviisa 3 that would have been heavily modified VVER-1000. That in turb would have lead that when Olkiluoto 3 would have been planned and built there would have not been a need to build such a massive unit and TVO the utility would have chosen a smaller and proven design that would have been easier to construct. Germany would have had a strong anti-nuke movement regardless of Chernobyl but there roots lay in the fear of nuclear war.

[@calcog5716]

We wouldn't be dipendent from exporting gas and fossil fuels if it wasn't for the unit 4 premature decomission and the ignorance and fear of our people exploited by politics.

[@tokyosmash]

It wasn’t a matter of “if” but when

[@12pentaborane]

I think if the Chernobyl disaster hadn't happened a lot of countries that bought CANDU wouldn't have bought them.

[@msxcytb]

You seem to explain one question that I have always had about RBMKs. If the test was standard thing for every unit to pass or something new and unique. Somehow never it is phrased clearly. Thanks!

[@dalejr183]

I was 6 years when it happened I remember it on TV and grew up being told the Soviet Union was the Evil Empire.

[@SunBear69420]

You should do a whole series of "That _________Guy" youtube channels. Of course thats if you wanted to pursue content creation. That WorldWar2Guy or anything else that you find interesting. I would love for you to have multiple deep dive channels for my perusal

[@rakshahhh]

if Chernobyl hadn't exploded, Slavutych wouldn't have been built, which means I wouldn't have been born and wouldn't have written this comment

[@lucasquintanilla1673]

That honestly depends. If I remember correctly, that was the city built after Pripyat was abandoned. If so, it would’ve depended on if both of your parents were from Pripyat or the Chernobyl area and if they both were, it is still possible, you could’ve existed even though the odds of it are admittedly lower.

[@rakshahhh]

@@lucasquintanilla1673 you are right, but in my case both parents were not from Pripyat or Chernobyl.

[@lucasquintanilla1673]

@@rakshahhh again it really depends on why they came there, and if those reasons would have been prevented, if Chernobyl had not existed as for all, I know, they might have gone to that area to Pripyat instead of going to the city they did. Part of the reason I think this is I am of the opinion that things aren’t as random as people think and I tend to think that certain things are either predetermined or at least are likely to happen to an extent anyway. I guess my outlook on stuff like that is that it’s pretty much a compromise between fate and free will. It’s one of the reasons that I take the idea of butterfly theory with a grain of salt, and as naïve as this might seem, I am of the opinion that certain things with people are meant to happen, no matter what, even if there are many things that are genuinely up to Circumstance

[@rakshahhh]

@@lucasquintanilla1673 that's an interesting thought. In fact, they could still both end up in Pripyat. As the best student of the medical institute, my mother was sent to the best ukrainian city at that time (the choice was Kyiv or Slavutych, and based on the video, Pripyat would also be one of the best cities for young professionals of the late ua-USSR). The father got there because of the corruption of his Russian parents, who wanted to settle his son (doctor) in a place with prospects. So yes, perhaps he would have gone to the Pripyat pharmacy and met her anyway.

[@lucasquintanilla1673]

@@rakshahhh my opinion on subjects like that is that as I have said, I personally think that the whole idea that the odds of your existence are practically zero and that if you exist, you do so purely because of chance is some thing I disagree with. I personally think that while certain aspects of people may be determined by chance or choice, I think that there are certain things that were always meant to happen in some form.

[@saschakrause2374]

Hello Sir. Thanks for the view from your side. Again was a pleasure watching the new episode . Maybe there are controversial opinions in and around what would have happen, but I think anyone has there own thoughts of an alternate future. We agree with your points in general. Go on doing what you do. Waiting for the next weekend. 😊

[@traumgeist]

Mothman would have found some other way to have his revenge.

[@xy-ow7hw]

Simply said: If not this Reactor had blown up, another one with the same buildingstructure would have in an emergency. There would have been other names to "call out". And since we know how the UDSSR handled things, they would solely have blamed the personal, since it already would have worked in that case.

[@hansmuller1625]

An interesting line of inquiry indeed. I think we would have abundant energy around the world if the anti nuclear activists hadn't had this propaganda piece in their arsenal.

[@msxcytb]

I sometimes wonder that if Fukushima would have not resulted in any meltdowns and H2 explosions, just perhaps site being destined to shutdown and never run again, the anit-nuclear folks(effectively pro coal/gas folks) in for example Germany would claim "victory'' and seek immediate shutdowns everywhere nevertheless.

[@ThunderClawShocktrix]

agree msot fo thew world would be using nuclear power and wed have hydrgon powered cars and planes

[@defies4626]

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on the part where there's closer economic and cultural ties with the west. What happened to the soviet union was a very deliberate ideological choice and deliberate thing. It had nothing to do with 'punishing' the soviet union for Chernobyl or other crimes and more to do with experimenting because they genuinely thought what they were doing was a good thing.

[@angrydragonslayer]

And people still think it is The russian part of my family is paved into the road of bones and people still think that

[@bsadewitz]

Well, yeah: with Glasnost and Perestroika, the force which held the USSR together was no longer there! They were doing a good thing--if that's what you were referring to.

[@bsadewitz]

And Chernobyl certainly was a driving force behind a shift toward greater openness. I can't imagine anyone arguing otherwise.

[@bsadewitz]

I mean, what, "experimenting" with, oh, you know, NOT RUTHLESSLY CRUSHING DISSENT? I suppose you could put it that way ...

[@thequantumrecords7549]

8:26 you missed an opportunity for "we'd expect to see a booming nuclear industry, in both ways of course." and i hate you for it

[@joshua01793]

a video on the finaces of the deaster and clean up would be intersting. great stuff as always!

[@thatchernobylguy2915]

Sounds interesting, will research this

[@constantinosschinas4503]

I wouldn't have three legs.

[@grahamariss2111]

Whilst an RMBK may not have exploded, the succession of preceding near and partial meltdowns with the RBMK would have continued until they had another "big one" which whilst not as spectacular as Chernobyl would have exposed the RBMK fundamental flaws.

[@MrArgus11111]

Germany's "strong anti-nuclear movement" has temporarily doomed them

[@eaglevision993]

As a German I totally agree. The uneducated masses had what they needed to justify anti scientific politics and antics. "Nucular go boom" is just more easily to make a political statement of than complicated scientific evidence.

[@kieranmilner4208]

Along with the open borders

[@donaldcarruthers717]

I have never heard so many inconsistencies in a video before. Reactor 3 began production before the proper safety tests were done, that were already signed off for. Slowing the turbines was part of the required test, that had begun hours before shift change. But due to power demand, reactor 3 was maintained at a lower output level. Which caused Xenon poisoning. Control rods were pulled out to get power levels back up, and when things started acting up, the rods were inserted by the A3-5. The boron tips accelerated reaction to over 10x normal output.

[@davidbaca7853]

Great content again. One thing that still hasn’t been addressed in the US is nuclear waste. It’s still being contained on site as of nobody wants it so it will still just build and stockpile.

[@Yazovheimer]

0:14 omg, i made it into that chernobyl guy's video! Mom i am famous!

[@rzpogi]

If Chernobyl did not happen, Philippines' Bataan Nuclear Powerplant would be running today.

[@skylineXpert]

Interesting perspective

[@Mr.HaraldTheMan]

Could be very possible the Kostroma NPP wouldn't have been cancelled as the RBMKP-2400 would have been so powerful and with RBMK now having a good reputation, yeah could be very likely.

[@swokatsamsiyu3590]

Oh God yes, the RBMKP-2400. That would have been a beast of a reactor. The RBMK is so big that it should have come with its own zip code. The RBMKP-2400 would have been so large that, when traversing from one end of the central hall to the other, you would probably have skipped a few time zones by the time you got to the other side. Imagine trying to run this thing with the, shall we say, somewhat underpowered computer systems the USSR had back then. I shudder at the thought alone.

[@Mr.HaraldTheMan]

@@swokatsamsiyu3590 I think the really long one you're talking about is another cancelled project that being the 4800

[@swokatsamsiyu3590]

@@Mr.HaraldTheMan Could be that I'm mixing up the two. So, there's that. It's a good thing this thing never got willed into existence. I mean, they had a hard enough time keeping the RBMK in check such as it was at the time. Now imagine a reactor almost 5 times that big. Good Heaven's!

[@danielle3064]

I just had the thought, not related to this video. It would be cool if there was a sim/game where you are the operator and you have to keep the reactor stable while passing the safety test. It would do all the calculations (simplified as needed) based on control rods, water flow, xenon buildup, etc. and show the resulting power output. trick is that there is no way to win that day. Results would be cancel the test or boom boom

[@bekkatheman]

It did further medical procedures in treating radiation sickness and poisoning.

[@scottmendrala692]

Then we would probably be living in the for all mankind alternate timeline

[@johnmf6096]

1) turn off the TV in the background. 2) move the mic away from your face 3) keep up the good work

[@florabee9283]

Zaporizhzhia Guy? The Zaporizhzhia situation is a concern.

[@daniellassander]

Chernobyl happened due to poor reactor design primarily, Soviet needed a scapegoat because they could not admit that their reactor design was bad. Running the test is also at fault, but they didnt know how the reactor would behave. Had they been informed about the graphite tipped control rods and that pulling them all out would put them all at the same level, so pushing the AZ-5 button here is just asking for a disaster.

[@armyman-ig7qs]

Well if it didn’t happen there would be no need for glasnost

[@SamwiseOutdoors]

My comment from the last video made the lede!

[@stekra3159]

You coud maybe have been one of thoes nucar bros repoting on new reactors etc.

[@simonzinc-trumpetharris852]

'A booming nuclear industry'. 😂

[@ridhobaihaqi144]

Will it be.... a time capsule in 21st century(?) 🤔🤔🤔🤔

[@oldman975]

“What if” doesn’t exist. What happened,happened and that can’t be changed no matter the event.

[@stekra3159]

The world our would have a slightly bigger slightly less save nuclear industry.

[@simon2493]

Not much imho, nuclear power construction in USA was stopped after 3 miles island accident.

[@markusw7833]

It probably would have restarted, particularly with the Soviet Union continuing to build up capacity.

[@simon2493]

@@markusw7833 cold war would have ended soon after either way.

[@markusw7833]

@@simon2493 Not necessarily. I would have to read more into it for this counterfactual. One thing no one is mentioning is the role nuclear energy was playing and would have continued to play for the Soviet Union. It wasn't just some passion project. It was apparently a necessity for the western industrialized part of the Soviet Union and capacity was being added on.

[@simon2493]

@@markusw7833 If we're switching to USSR then it depends on how would mainly Ukraine faired after fall of USSR. Ukraine with its weak GDP growth for the past 20 years wasn't in much need of new capacity, but even then what stopped nuclear growth was increases in industry efficiency. France had plannes for twice as many reactors as it has, but even with current numbers they do have overcapacity.

[@markusw7833]

@@simon2493 I'm thinking of the USSR before its fall, if Chernobyl hadn't happened and the Soviets had continued to rely on and aggressively expand nuclear energy production. From my observations virtually no one knows the pre-Chernobyl history of nuclear power in the USSR, or its reason for being. There may be a video on this in mid April.

[@lukek8357]

I think the culture and politics of USSR would have inevitably brought them undone. Everything that happened in the wake of Chernobyl shows the problematic nature of the political and social system. The lies and deceptive behaviour as well as policy of never admitting the truth to their own citizens or the world was inevitably going to bring them down. Realistically Chernobyl probably just made it easier to understand how bad it was once the USSR fell.

[@starsjosephfrost]

I personnally think the USSR wouldn’t had collsape and wouldn’t split russian-ukrainian relations and it may join the “New union treaty” post august coup.

[@tinyjr8618]

haha love the video

[@jordanlewis3790]

Environmental issues would be a lot less. Air pollution from coal fires power plants across europe would be gone. Life would be much better.

[@DrAngryFace]

*If Chernobyl didn't happen, Dyatlov wouldn't have been in the toilet*

[@namelesske]

POV: Fukushima is the worst nuclear disaster since Mayak. While there have been minor incidents with eastern RBMK reactors, they pale in comparison to the reckless and obsolete western-type blocks. The Soviet Union, under its new leader Vladimir Putin, promptly offered the expertise of its best nuclear scientists, including senior expert Valery Legasov, to analyze the situation. Additionally, Hospital 6 was alerted to provide support for the first responders and their families. This stands in stark contrast to the western cover-ups and the blame placed on TEPCO following the series of disasters by President Trump.

[@markusw7833]

"The Soviet Union, under its new leader Vladimir Putin, promptly offered the expertise of its best nuclear scientists, including senior expert Valery Legasov, to analyze the situation." That's funny.

[@swappinqentertainment]

Lol b/c Putin was involved in Chernobyl right? Autism comment fs.

[@gingernutpreacher]

Are you high ukraine's nationalism was sped on because they saw the records about the holidomir

[@rakshahhh]

After Chernobyl, environmental strikes began to take place in Kyiv, which the authorities did not stop, which greatly surprised the Ukrainians and we continued to hold rallies for other reasons as well. this happened in 1987-1991

[@billcampbell9611]

Here’s another plausible scenario, unfortunately: without Chernobyl, the public’s memory of TMI fades away. The anti-nuclear crowd loses momentum. Nuclear power is again seen as plentiful and safe. Wealthy folks, ever lusting for more money, influence governments to relax the nuclear regulatory standards, as corporate greed tries to slash expenses. (We see that in the US today as billionaires have convinced dim-witted voters that we don’t need government safety standards, selling them on the fallacy that “industry will police themselves”). Anyhow, under the relentless pressure to make more money, nuclear power plants would then operate at cheaply as possible, with shortcuts taken in design and construction, followed by lax maintenance and an unskilled workforce. Eventually a disaster would occur, potentially dwarfing Chernobyl. (I don’t count Fukushima; it was very serious, but nowhere near the scale of Chernobyl).

[@shaun5552]

Adding to that in the 1990's there was a major push in many countries to deregulate all sorts of things. Had it not been for Chernobyl then there's at least some chance nuclear would've been one of them. End result = a lot of cheaply built reactors with minimal regulatory supervision. From that position almost certainly something drastic would've happened somewhere.

[@FenixQubes]

You should definitely get a pop filter, good video otherwise.

[@swappinqentertainment]

Lol and we conveniently forget that Putin tried to join NATO at the time of Clinton…

[@ThunderClawShocktrix]

yes and clinton blocked it so we could blame the russia Ukraine war on clinton

[@freestyler3061]

The accident has nothing to deal with the war between Russia and Ukraine. Regardless of the reactor exploding or not today's geopolitical state would not be different. This is not a real analysis but rather a wishful thinking.

[@harmonbrentdm]

You could also have been Three Mile Island accident. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident