Telling a dying man who stayed to save the chernobyl disaster, knowing it would kill him, he is 'treading on dangerous grounds' just shows how utterly incompetent these people were.
This is the same force of beurocratic government that allowed Andrei Chikatilo to murder countless victims because they were convinced a serial killer couldn’t possibly exist in the Soviet Union
It's not about being competent or incompetent due to individual flaw, it's an entire system that creates this, communism is a system that has this as the only logical conclusion, everyone in government is there not due to competence but due to the people they know, there is zero way of voting them out of power and they control every single aspect of people's lives under threat of death so they have to answer to no one, they have to project an image of perfection no matter of flawed everything is or else their head is the one that will roll, a system of useless, violent people that abuse their power is the only conclusion of a system like this, there is no accountability for anything and the only get to stay in a position of privilege is by kissing the ass of the people at the top all the way up to the guy in charge.
That's not the point that guy was pushing. If a country lies. But then magically the truth comes out from someone that knows about the reactors in all the facilities of Russia. Yeah, it's not necessarily the life that is threatened. It's his name. Credibility is the target. The goal that Russia was trying to do. Is to be the most effective or proficient country for independent nuclear power. By using cheaper fuel and to have both the facilities and the rods to be built cheaply.
As far as anyone's concerned, Legasov was the whistleblower of the entire Soviet nuclear program and should rightly be named a hero, even posthumously.
He wasn't exactly THE whistle-blower. He's still indeed a hero for what he did along with the other scientists who worked alongside him, but he actually never testified at the trial. Hell, in real life, Legasov wasn't at the trial of the three men Fomin, Dyatlov, Byuchanov, and 3 other plant staff. He actually expose the flaws in his tapes that circled around the scientific community after he committed suicide. Many other scientists were actually the real whistle-blowers publicly. And his words on lies and the truth were due to the fact that he was forced to lie on televised interviews and while he didn't lie during his Vienna testimony, he was forced not to tell the entire truth. Still a hero, just some discrepancies between what actually happened and this scene in the series. The show is still relatively accurate to real events.
Boris Yeltsin awarded him the Hero of the Russian Federation. He is indeed a Hero. It would be better if Gorbachev awarded him The Hero of the Soviet Union
The funny thing is, in reality it was actually Dyatlov who discovered the truth about the design flaw and attempted to present it at the trial, he was silenced by the judge. Legasov assisted the Soviet government in covering it up and scapegoating Dyatlov/etc, it wasn't until years later at a conference he publicly admitted the truth.
@@llynellynhere we go, modern Putinists trying to change history again lmao. Sorry Boris, you didn’t try hard enough, you are now reassigned to the summer meatwave. Take your rusty Mosin and chinesium helmet, and not one step back!
@@llynellyn You know, I really wonder if the change here in the show was done to give Lagasov a more "traditional" heroic outing, one that emphasizes even further his truly deserving heroic status. Taking away Dyatlov's one and only chance to do something redeeming as, even according to Lagasov's tapes, he didn't deserve it, "The man deserves death". Even though it wasn't what really happened, having more of the world see Lagasov's testimony, and Scherbina for that matter, is a worthwhile change to the story.
Its scary how something that is literally fact, can be taken as an “insult”. The soviets did what they did to cut costs, and simply acknowledging that fact is offensive to them.
“You’re treading on dangerous ground” “I’ve already trod on dangerous ground, we’re on dangerous ground right now” Amazing bit of script here contrasting the metaphorical ‘dangerous ground’ of criticizing the state with the very literal ‘dangerous ground’ that that state’s policies helped create.
@@oFinalSolution somewhat proven by a bunch of conspiracy theorists missing this point recently. Why would anyone build a bridge where any one support failing causes the whole structure to fail? because it's cheaper. An innovative engineering technique, provided you don't consider what would happen if a continuous through truss bridge suddenly had one less support, which is 'the whole thing falls in the sea all at once'. Separate/non continuous trusses are safer, even just in theory.
"It's cheaper" has never hit harder nor will it ever hit so hard again. Truly brilliant. Legasov was a truly brave man. Knew what would happen, and did the right thing anyway. He deserved better. Pruitt deserved better. Russia deserved better. How much cheaper was it really? How many lives would it have cost? How much suffering would have been avoided if only they spent the state money to get the proper tips? It really makes you think...
@@bingus99 I am sorry but is Dyatlov a hero? He might not have been a villain, but he certainly did not do anything to earn a title of "hero". Meanwhile, Legasov worked tirelessly to get better safety procedures and equipment on reactors, only to end up haging himself two years after Chernobyl because he was stalled and rejected at every step.
American soldiers feel the same way about the majority of their equipment being produced by prison labour. The reasoning is that it keeps the costs down but no soldier likes to know their safety relies on the quality of products produced by slave labour.
2:20 love dyatlov's shocked face that someone is actually defending him in a legitimate manner. Even though he still was wreckless and irresponsible for his management at Chernobyl, he simply did not know that RMBK reactor could explode because the Soviets official stance is that it couldn't. Had he known what was possible, he would have certainly done everything to make sure the disaster could not have happened.
He knew some but not enough to risk going past the kgb and the CC. That's the problem, the fear and the terror. He knew what he was doing was dangerous and was against the rules. He also knew what the party demanded was so far beyond the rules he didn't have many options. Break the rules and keep your job your life or die in siberia.
The funny thing is, in reality it was actually Dyatlov who discovered the truth about the design flaw and attempted to present it at the trial, he was silenced by the judge. Legasov assisted the Soviet government in covering it up and scapegoating Dyatlov/etc, it wasn't until years later at a conference he publicly admitted the truth.
@@llynellyn It's hard to say confidently that that is the full truth, but yeah, Dyatlov's role was certainly exaggerated to a large degree, to be a scapegoat for countless others.
@@mikkelnpetersen You might as well say you'd rather trust a wolf than a human being. Politicians don't belong to a different species than us. CEO's lie just as much. So do celebrities, religious figures, police officers, military leaders, soldiers, everyone lies to avoid consequences for their actions. It's one of the more disgusting traits of humanity, this desperate and selfish desire to outrun and avoid anything which disrupts our own sense of comfort and contentment.
It's like a mix of surprise, anger, denial, and fear bombarded at his mind at once. He might be ignorant about his fault and play a part in the accident, but he was also a scapegoat. He realize that the goverment will pin it down on him.
The "lie's speech" he gave was definitely great, but what really brought shivers down my spine was when he said "It's cheaper." It's the one phrase that I realize can make a lot of people take any kind of risk.
SAAAAME! Even now, years after I watched this when it first aired, it the 'It's cheaper' that stll resonates with me. It was like a punh to the gutt, knowing how costly that 'cheaper' option had become. That perect delivery is also increedibly effective- the shoulder shrug, the flippant tone that conveys the excuse used in their going that route... only after the disaster, realizing that saving money had actually created an astronomical debt.
2:22 Bryukhanov looking at Dyatlov with a questioning face "beyond 33.000?" Bryukhanov was an oaf, only sitting there as Plant Director for the prestige of having that Big Job, with the Big Paycheck, the honors and influence that came with it. Only to climb the party-ladder. In the first episode, they already showcase the ambitions; Bryukhanov mentioned to be promoted to a BIG position in Moscow. Fomin to advance to his position. Dyatlov informing Fomin he'd like to be considered for Fomin's job after that: they were handing out the honors amongst themselves already.
This kind of ambitious ignorance and negligence happens everyday everywhere in the world, only not with such an obvious catastrophic consequence. My one criticism of this series is that its scorn is a bit too focused at the USSR and seems to suggest that western society and institutions are somehow not capable of this level of negligence, self-interest and corruption. I assure you they are.
@@basilyang7777 There's another detail: Bryukhanov wás already awared several honors by the Communist Party for 'delivering the entire Chernobyl Facility ón time, and with ALL the required tests, completed succesfully'... Bryukhanov had LIED about that part, because that stability test, for when Reactor 4 would fall out due to any circumstance, and to tést if the still-running turbines could bridge the gap till the backup-generators would take over the cooling fór the reactor, was never concluded! Bryukhanov fumbled up that 'report'. When there was pressure from Moscow on the detailed report of that, Bryukhanov hád to quickly come with actual test-results, hence there was immediate NEED to perform that test anyway! Moscow was informed that this test had long been completed, so they just wanted the report for their files and administration. Another example of Bryukhanov's corrrupt lies, merely to serve his ambition. As for Legasov's testimony: a CRITICAL part of RBMKreactors was withheld from even the most knowledgable experts on nuclear energy: A similar reactor in Kallingrad had experienced a similar Powersurge, when they engaged the AZ5 failsafe, on a poisoned/xenon-saturated core: Instead of instantly shutting down, they first saw the reactor produce a hígh spike in power! This alarming finding was covered up by the Communist Party, most likely the KGB itself, to hide the fact that the USSR had buil 'sloppy Nuclear Reactors', merely to keep up the prestige-race with the USA. Reactor no4 had been running at half power, for the entire eveningshift, so when the nightshift, under Dyatlov was to perform the test, Reactor 4 was sáturated with Xenon byproduct, due to incomplete reactivity. Usual procedure would be bringing the reactor up to full power, so reacticity would burn away the Xenon at a normal rate. Purely due to the pressure of the report by Bryukhanov, and hís promotion to a cushy seat in Moscow, Fomin advancing to Bryukhanov's office, and then Dyatlov becoming Chief Engineer of Chernobyl: Fomin's job, there was recklessness, and arrogance: Dyatlov was already decorating his new office in his mind, and gruesomely ignored the CORRECT analysis of the young and barely graduated nuclear Engineer, Toptunov: Toptunov suggested, that due to the Reactor 'behaving oddly', he believed the Core to be poisoned. Toptunov was 100% right. Dyatlov, with all of his 25 years of experience, should have taken Toptunov, wáy more seriously. Dyatlov's arrogance was the reason the test was still pushed, instead of slowly bringing the reactor up to power, let it clean itself, so the test could be performed on a STABLE reactor. Imho, half the fault of this disaster lies with Bryukhanov, Fomin and Dyatlov. The other half lies with the officials that omitted those 2 crítical pages from the RBMK-reports. That critical information was even kept from Chief-Engineers that were running the RBMK reactors in the Soviet Union: they didnt know! They thought it was all good and their reactors were stable and indestructible. they only had their promotions in mind. Not the dangers of fumbling around with a poisoned reactorcore.
@@Snugggg because... The secrecy and the rules being utterly disregarded to do the thing was... A very soviet mindset the layers upon layers of secrecy researchers in nuke power not able to even access books if they were ruled as a problem by the Kgb.
@@basilyang7777also, Bryukhanov was starting to get impatient, he’d lied to the Soviet government, and he *needed* the test complete, and as his subordinate, Dyatlov was going to be the one who got the blame regardless. He got the blame for the explosion, and if the test had simply failed normally, he’d have gotten the blame then. I will never blame Dyatlov for the actual explosion, but I *will* fault him for his abject denial that the disaster was as bad as it was.
"Nobody in that room knew that the shutdown button could act as a detonator". That is a nightmarish line. Edit: I'm starting to think that people can't seem to realize that all I'm saying is that I like *that specific* line. Seriously, wether this series is accurate or not doesn't matter, I just liked that line!
@@sobolanul96 my main problem isn't the scientific inaccuracies, my problem is how the ironically used the same Soviet propaganda for their fiction. Dyatlov and Brykhankov especially, who were nothing like the villains they were portrayed as here, and who had their lives destroyed by the false accusations libeled against them, are viciously maligned by the show, sometimes in ways that are diametrically opposed to what actually happened. Legasov is also portrayed as a victim, despite the fact that his main job in the midst of this disaster was to cover up for the Monopoly that made all the reactors in the Soviet Union... The one for which he was second in command. And to answer your question, the disaster was caused by A perfect Storm of events, and some of it is indeed the fault of the operators, but it was mainly the fault of NIKIET, the Monopoly that I previously mentioned for which Legasov was second in command to their CEO. It was this company that had been trying to get nuclear power plants throughout the Soviet Union to conduct this test. However, most power stations refused. Chernobyl, which was the most successful power station in the Soviet Union, and therefore, the flagship nuclear power plant, accepted the responsibility, but on the authority of a different director. I'm not sure whether or not it was Fomin, but Brykhankov was completely unaware of the test, and was in Kyiv for a family emergency at the time. As for why the test ended in disaster, it is due to the opposite of what was said in the show. The rbmk reactor was built with a positive void coefficient (Legasov's character in the series claimed that it wasn't, and in real life, it is the West that typically builds reactors with inhibitions on this positive void coefficient, for reasons of making the reactor easier to control in exchange for some efficiency) this increased reactivity, but also led to a runaway reaction when the operators, following the faulty instructions of NIKIET and Kurchatov institute scientists; attempted the experiment, which by the time the failsafe button was pressed; had evaporated almost all of the water in the core. The control rods were indeed tipped with graphite, but not for the silly reasons stated in the series. I'll explain further if you're interested.
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse if you don't have something useful to say, keeping quiet is usually the best option..... The man's tapes were found and much more
@@classicskrt2422 legasov probably didn’t even have a major role in the clean up of Chernobyl. He was a chemist. I forget the name of the guy scientists credit as having a similar role to Legasov in the series but he was an actual physicist.
To put the 33,000MWh into some perspective 1MWh of heat energy in a normal fossil fuel plant could power an electric car for over 3,500 miles or run a home for six weeks.
It was 33,000MW, not MWh. It would have to run at 33,000MW for an entire hour to produce 33,000MWh. It only ran at 33,000MW for a few seconds. The most powerful reactor core in the world, the French's EPR produces 1650MW, and if left at 100% capacity (very rare) would only produce 39,600MWh per day.
Actually this particular scene didn’t happen, not as portrayed anyway. Legasov and Shcherbina were not present at this trial. The outcome he talks about in this scene was arrived at and it became common knowledge amongst the scientists in the Soviet Union, yet Legasov still had to fight for many years afterward to have the fatal flaw in all the RBML reactors modified.
It wasn’t technically a nuclear explosion. It was a pressure/chemical explosion caused by uncontrolled nuclear reactions. A nuclear explosion requires critical mass, which was not present in the reactor (the fuel is not pure enough). In a nuclear explosion, a huge number of atoms are split all at once.
Sort of. AZ5 is meant to prevent a meltdown. The premise the operators are working IS a pleasurable assumption... reactor cores don't explode. Legesov goes at great length directly in this speech to address that it was only possible due to the extreme conditions created by the operators. Frankly the way those control rods are designed, it's not even really a flaw if you were to understand that completely withdrawing a control rod was completely out of operating parameters. The graphite ends made the control rods more effective in that slightly withdrawing them not only reduced boron moderation but increased reactivity by introducing the graphite. This was the intent. It makes the core more reactive to control rod changes, They only even call it a flaw because this scenario was made possible by idiots who decided to completely withdraw them. Remember they were trying to increase power in the core, leaving the rod halfway in would have had thier desired effect, it makes zero sense to completely remove a control rod with what they were trying to achieve. The fix essentially removed the graphite tips. The same level of safety could have been achieved by software or hardware limiting the upper travel of the control rods.
@@kuban_fpv5461 The safety system was badly designed from the start. It should not have allowed complete removal of the control rods under any situation during operation, be it normal or tests. Also the AZ5 would have been triggered automatically anyway by the sensors a few seconds later even if the operator did not use it. The only way in which the reactor would not have exploded was to completely disable the AZ5 safety system. This way you would still get a catastrophic meltdown, but not an actual explosion and the biological catastrophe we have to deal with today. Of course, these are all "ifs" and are of little importance now. One more word about safety. An operator will always find a way to bypass the safety systems. It is a race between operator and engineer. This is why all kinds of procedures are implemented for flaw finding in early stages of design and production. I heard a story from many years ago about operators being chained to the floor so they would not reach too deep with their hands inside some presses and get their hands crushed, yet one dude still tried hard and managed to loose some fingers.
The first explosion was caused by the rupture of just a few fuel channels, but that hurled the 2,000 ton reactor lid a kilometer into the air, along wIth the control rods, chunks of graphite and pieces of fuel rods. That ruptured all the other fuel channels, and the hydrogen ignited, causing an even larger second explosion. The bottom of the vessel was shoved down, and the runaway remnants of the core turned into 3,000 degree C plus molten Uranium that turned into the infamous nuclear lava now in the bottom of the building.
Probably reading too much in to symbolism, but at around 4:31 we pass the glass board with red signs. Each red sign displays a different scientific process which increases reactivity in a nuclear material (used in Chernobyl). Earlier, he explained using blue signs what decreases reactivity. Note how all of the blue signs are now removed, leaving only the red signs. Our guy is wearing a blue suit. Given the context of the scene, and what he's achieving here, he's the yin of truth to their yang of lies, which if left unchecked would over-react and cause mayhem.
What he was saying is was Actually true if u watch the full movie as he was explaining the Reason for the failure step by step he took out the Blue's !!!
The explosion still gives me chills, that is probably the closest thing to seeing the explosion recreated under the circumstances surrounding it. Respect to Valery Legasov, Boris Tscherbina, General Pykalov, the firefighters, the miners, the divers, the liquidators, and everyone that were involved in the catastrophe that still affects our world.
It didn't. The world already knew. It took an American TV show all these years later to show America Russia isn't just a bunch of vodka drinking KGB mooks.
The balls to call out an authoritarian and secretive state from its hiding of critical information from the implementers of that states policy, and exposing the effects of that policy and the hiding of those effects - is heavier than all of those fuel rod caps combined.
“ when the truth offends we lie and lie and lie like it’s not even there but it’s still there. “ we couldn’t possibly relate to anything like that in America now could we? 😕
This is a powerful scene but fyi to people who watch - this scene in 'court' didn't actually happen, it's representative of a group of a scientists who exposed it.
"If you mean to suggest the state is responsible for what happened then I must warn you you're treading on dangerous ground." "Bitch I've been exposed to lethal doses of Radiation already."
How would say the joker: "“You have nothing! Nothing to threaten me with! Nothing to do with all your strength." - th-cam.com/video/P9ZpmJ0IrL0/w-d-xo.html
A typical light bulb runs on 75 watts and 1 Mega Watt is equivalent to 1,000,000 watts of power so multiple that by 33,000 and you could power 440,000,000 bulbs for however long it held that power. If your interested on what else it could run look up the rated wattage of a device and divide (1,000,000x33,000) by that number.
@@GasparKvarta yeah LED'S are wild. I was doing a remodel in a grocery store and we had over a 100 of the LED lights on one circuit. I kinda wonder what lighting is gonna look like in the next ten years in regards to how much energy it take to run it.
I noticed, when I watched this series the first time, that when Legasov chooses to make the truth known and called out the USSR the blue ish filter disappeared and turned brighter right as the camera passes the light behind him. Very subtle but brilliant.
If only everything complex can be explained with this simplicity.. I come back often to just listen to the way he explained the working of the nuclear reactor..
“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Soon or later that debt is paid.” I’ll never forget that comment. Everyone should be learning from this.
0:48 Love the acting ! Their faces say so much when asking why. When he says “its cheaper Lagasov faces expresses -do you need me to say it of course we all know this !!! And the judges facials read - oh shit..im sorry i asked that question !!!
Shot from 3,200 to 33,000 megawatts. Right at the moment before the blast the wattage was 330,000. The meter couldn't go that high that fast. That's a lightning storm on Jupiter for one second. To put this into perspective that same storm in one minute will produce enough power, 18 terawatts, to run every powerplant on Earth for one day. 330,000 megawatts will do that for 24 minutes. It's also the same amount of energy produced by a 6.6-magnitude earthquake, or a 350-kiloton hydrogen bomb. Or every nuclear power plant on Earth combined.
Have you ever considered checking your math? Your conversions are all wrong. 33,000 megawatts is not 330000 watts. Its 33,000,000,000 watts. Just like how 3.6 Roentgen is not equivalent to 1, but 400 chest X-Rays. Assuming 1W = 1J/s 33,000,000,000 Watts is roughly equivalent to a blast yield of ~0.0078 tons of TNT. That’s 1900 times weaker than the Little Boy atomic bomb (15000 tons of TNT or roughly 62,760,000,000,000 Watts). From NASA JPL: a lightning storm on Jupiter at its brightest “emit as much light energy as 30 million 100-watt light bulbs burning for one second”. That’s 180 Gigawatts in a minute, or 0.18 terawatts; which is enough power for less than half of all the nuclear power plants on Earth.
This whole scene reminds me of the big courtroom scene in JFK. Specifically, it reminds me of how that scene was edited. We get a man narrating, re-telling what happened at a major historical event as we cut to a recreation of said event. And both scenes deal with the manipulation of truth, the danger of lies pushed by those in power, etc.
While the show does an excellent job at breaking down some pretty hardcore nuclear physics for a general audience, the one thing I think it underexplains are the graphite 'tips'. While Legasov saying "It's cheaper" is a pretty succinct reason, in reality, it's more complicated than that. If you want to know the actual reason, I recommend Scott Manley's breakdown of the explosion.
Yes! I'm curious how "graphite tips" became the go to descriptor for these things, given they were nearly as long as the control rods themselves. The Scott Manley video is excellent at describing the real problem, and there are only a few others that even bother explaining what the "graphite tips" were. Even in this clip, Legasov says "the first part of the rods to enter the core are the graphite tips" which is wrong. They were already in the core: that's the point. I wonder whether this was just for ease of explanation in the show, or if the writers just didn't research properly.
Jeez I got chills when he said so simply why a soviet reactor would have a safety system that should shut down the reactor power has a design that instead causes power to spike "It's cheaper"😳😳😳 One of my favourite TV shows of all time
This scene gave me chills even though in real life Legasov wasn't present in the court. This scene defines the truth of poor managment and when people with stubborness who never listen takes charge (talking about Dyatlov), and people with true competent rarely heard of until it was too late (talking about Legasov, Akimov, Teptunov, and others). This historical drama teaches people how a poor management can lead to catastrophe. How a simple lie can lead to catastrophe. How people wouldn't accept a truth that offends. Once again, HBO never dissapoints us
Irl, Dyatlov (the scapegoat for the deadly mistakes of Soviet scientist like Legasov) defended his men vehemently in court. This series is good fiction but the way they tried to portray innocent men as the villains and villains as victims/heros is disgusting.
I’d learned the clip notes version of what happened at Chernobyl in school and from others but not until this show did I realize the depth and the depravity of the whole situation. I left this series thinking it was nothing short of criminal that I’d never heard the name Valery Legasov until now.
It’s such a good scene that subverts the expectation. You want Dyatlov to be convicted, you hate him for the things he did. But in reality, while the things he did were horrible…not only he but many others were completely unaware of the fact that RBMK reactors could be pushed to exploding. The way his face widened at the fact that Legasov was essentially saying “What you did was fucked, but it all traces back to the men at the top”
What’s ironic is had they used normal control rods to start up the reactor the disaster would have never happened.a meltdown but not a explosion.that’s the cost of cheap in the machine sector of business.
He never told anyone to push the AZ5 button. The positive void coefficient was widely known. RBMK reactors were preferred because they produced plutonium that was used in nuclear weapons. The document with redactions was the one in the library, not necessarily the version available to reactor chiefs.
Lies always incur a debt to the truth, and the debt is always paid. The most infuriating part of that statement isn't that it's true. It's the fact that throughout human history, the people paying that debt are almost never the ones who told the lie in the first place.
0:41 "but not the hull. It was made of carbon composite material..." "Why?" "The same reason we use old construction pipes as ballast. The same reason or sub lighting came from a hardware store. The same reason we use a Logitech controller to steer our submersible. It's cheaper."
That fact remains though that the cheaper Graphite tipped fuel rods wouldn’t have been an issue if the reactor hadn’t been pushed to its limit by a lying incompetent bully. Yes the Graphite temporarily raises reactivity but at 3200 output the reactor could withstand that increase. Dyatlov and Fomin were still responsible. Bryukhanov asked if the test should be scrapped but Fomin said it could go ahead and Dyatlov performed it with incompetence and arrogance.
The point of the fail safe button is for situations like these. Even tho they did push it to the limit, they did so under the knowledge that they could shut it down if needed. So yes, while they foolishly created the circumstances for this to happen, the point is that its not their fault it exploded.
I’ve watched this special several times. And while there are a lot of pieces of it, that have to be altered for the sake of drama and stuff like that. For instance, the appearance of some of the firefighters and stuff from the exposure to radiation didn’t look like they had just gotten dumped with chemicals. But I digress. One thing that I really enjoyed about this thing is they didn’t have any of the actors speaking English with Russian accents. They simply have them speaking with their native accent. The best thing about this in my opinion is they’re using what’s called at least what my film teacher called it. “base language theory” and that is in layman terms, essentially while while, in reality, the actors are speaking, one language in the context of the production, they are speaking the other language. Another part that I’ve always liked about. This is when Legasov explains why the Soviet Union has reactors in the design that they do, and goes on to say, with a completely straight face “it’s cheaper“ the fact that you very quickly begin hearing murmurs and such really sells the scene. He just told probably some of the more powerful individuals in the Soviet union, at least in terms of Soviet Ukraine, that their nuclear technology is nowhere near up to snuff. Now, I’m also willing to bet that when he said this, he probably knew in the back of his mind that the secret police were probably going to pay him a visit at some point. After all basically saying that the government system doesn’t work in terms of really any aspect in countries with a system of government like this was pretty much a death sentence. One thing I should also mention is that not only was this event, the result of the cost cutting. But it was also a result of what happens when you put an individual who is clearly not fully qualified in charge of what is probably one of the most complicated systems to exist at the time.
What I find insanely hilarious about this scene is the actor they played to act as the judge (if that’s the proper term) of the hearing. He bears a shocking resemblance to Hymen G Rickover, an Admiral in the U.S. navy who was in charge of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear reactor program, and who had an reputation for being absolutely ruthless when it came to nuclear safety in the navy.
In all fairness, the reason the rods are tipper with graphite is because when they are completely withdrawn, the graphite tips of the rods help form the graphite "ceiling" of the reactor (not that that matters in regard to the explosion, just there **is** a reason for it lol.)
The great thing to remember is he's being irreverant and contrarian to the government, because he's already pulled out a clump of hair - he's dying, just not quite quickly enough to stop him reporting why.
It is absolutely mind boggling the USSR didn't educate the staff about the danger of AZ-5 acting as a detonator, just to save a little money. Had they known about that risk, they would've never tried that safety test, which of course isn't safe at all for an RBMK reactor. Had they known about the risk, this would've never happened and the reactors would be able to safely operate to this day, I suppose. I think that's what makes Legasov's statement at the end so perfect, "that's how an RBMK reactor core explodes... lies."
Watching this scene, I can't even begin to describe how I feel, having seen communism from the inside. There are no words. One can only understand by living it.
1:23.42 the guys sees the caps leaping up and down on the reactor. 1:23.45 the AZ5 button is pushed and the reactor exploded. That guy must have used the speed force to see that and run outta there in the 3 seconds it took AZ5 to be activated and still not get killed or injured.
Any physicists in the comment section please feel free to respond. What would’ve happened if they didn’t press the emergency shutdown button? Would it have been a meltdown instead of an explosion?
Yeah, it would have just taken a bit longer, but would end up in an explosion anyway. Legasov's point was that Dyatlov did all this thinking that he has the AZ-5 safety net. It just turned out to be the thing that causes the explosion to occur immediately
I don't know.. kind of backfired on them if they did infact do that. Surely they'd have known that by killing him on the two year anniversary of the incident and the day before he was due to report their version of events as official findings, it wasn't going to look good
The fact is in short due to a combination of cheap cut backs and gross management incompetence of the highest order leads to a potentially world threatening disaster, 40 years later what’s changed …. Absolutely nothing the world will never change and that’s what terrifies me
The operators took every control rod out . . . When there were specific rules against that . . . All for a safety test, that "had" to happen. The root cause was pushing ahead, when things got weird. ”I do not need excuses, I need results" . . . Forgot yo say "good results".
I was a 16 year old kid living in Wisconsin, and after watching this, seeing the radiation burns, and all the lives effected, I’m so embarrassed to say that I remember thinking Chernobyl was a “nothing event”. But then again, the USSR treated it as a non-event too!
Tragic the dozens of lives lost at Chernobyl. Yet compared to other disasters, compared to other things the Soviets/Russians did like the 4000 dead in the Hungarian uprising to the half million dead in Ukraine war today, then Chernobyl was trivial in comparison. No HBO show about Hungary 1956 though. million dead in Ukraine today
Telling a dying man who stayed to save the chernobyl disaster, knowing it would kill him, he is 'treading on dangerous grounds' just shows how utterly incompetent these people were.
Agreed. The best retort would have been "Comrade, I am already under a death sentence, which will be carried out all too soon".
This is the same force of beurocratic government that allowed Andrei Chikatilo to murder countless victims because they were convinced a serial killer couldn’t possibly exist in the Soviet Union
It's not about being competent or incompetent due to individual flaw, it's an entire system that creates this, communism is a system that has this as the only logical conclusion, everyone in government is there not due to competence but due to the people they know, there is zero way of voting them out of power and they control every single aspect of people's lives under threat of death so they have to answer to no one, they have to project an image of perfection no matter of flawed everything is or else their head is the one that will roll, a system of useless, violent people that abuse their power is the only conclusion of a system like this, there is no accountability for anything and the only get to stay in a position of privilege is by kissing the ass of the people at the top all the way up to the guy in charge.
Did he say they were 20km from Chernobyl right in this very trial room???? They really ARE stupid and incompetent.
That's not the point that guy was pushing.
If a country lies. But then magically the truth comes out from someone that knows about the reactors in all the facilities of Russia. Yeah, it's not necessarily the life that is threatened. It's his name. Credibility is the target.
The goal that Russia was trying to do. Is to be the most effective or proficient country for independent nuclear power. By using cheaper fuel and to have both the facilities and the rods to be built cheaply.
“Every lie we incur is a debt to the truth, sooner a later that debt is paid” that line is absolutely insane.
That is how...... and RBMK reactor core explodes
Finally he was prepared to say it
It is. Given that what is portrayed in this series is diametrically opposed to the truth.
Just gave me goosebumps
Lies
By the next administration
As far as anyone's concerned, Legasov was the whistleblower of the entire Soviet nuclear program and should rightly be named a hero, even posthumously.
He wasn't exactly THE whistle-blower. He's still indeed a hero for what he did along with the other scientists who worked alongside him, but he actually never testified at the trial. Hell, in real life, Legasov wasn't at the trial of the three men Fomin, Dyatlov, Byuchanov, and 3 other plant staff. He actually expose the flaws in his tapes that circled around the scientific community after he committed suicide. Many other scientists were actually the real whistle-blowers publicly. And his words on lies and the truth were due to the fact that he was forced to lie on televised interviews and while he didn't lie during his Vienna testimony, he was forced not to tell the entire truth.
Still a hero, just some discrepancies between what actually happened and this scene in the series. The show is still relatively accurate to real events.
Boris Yeltsin awarded him the Hero of the Russian Federation. He is indeed a Hero. It would be better if Gorbachev awarded him The Hero of the Soviet Union
The funny thing is, in reality it was actually Dyatlov who discovered the truth about the design flaw and attempted to present it at the trial, he was silenced by the judge. Legasov assisted the Soviet government in covering it up and scapegoating Dyatlov/etc, it wasn't until years later at a conference he publicly admitted the truth.
@@llynellynhere we go, modern Putinists trying to change history again lmao. Sorry Boris, you didn’t try hard enough, you are now reassigned to the summer meatwave. Take your rusty Mosin and chinesium helmet, and not one step back!
@@llynellyn You know, I really wonder if the change here in the show was done to give Lagasov a more "traditional" heroic outing, one that emphasizes even further his truly deserving heroic status. Taking away Dyatlov's one and only chance to do something redeeming as, even according to Lagasov's tapes, he didn't deserve it, "The man deserves death". Even though it wasn't what really happened, having more of the world see Lagasov's testimony, and Scherbina for that matter, is a worthwhile change to the story.
That “it’s cheaper” line is such a simple but effective dig at the state.
Its scary how something that is literally fact, can be taken as an “insult”. The soviets did what they did to cut costs, and simply acknowledging that fact is offensive to them.
@@lucasrhys0363 it's almost religious to that point. Any type of truth that looks bad is heresy to the cult.
It sidesteps the question. Why _did_ the designers use graphite tips?
“You’re treading on dangerous ground”
“I’ve already trod on dangerous ground, we’re on dangerous ground right now”
Amazing bit of script here contrasting the metaphorical ‘dangerous ground’ of criticizing the state with the very literal ‘dangerous ground’ that that state’s policies helped create.
best part is " Lies... That is how a RBMK Reactor explodes"
And also where they are physically: within the exclusion zone
The silence when he says, "Because its cheaper", always gets me.
Only the capitalists were supposed to cut corners like that for profit 😂
@@oFinalSolution somewhat proven by a bunch of conspiracy theorists missing this point recently. Why would anyone build a bridge where any one support failing causes the whole structure to fail? because it's cheaper. An innovative engineering technique, provided you don't consider what would happen if a continuous through truss bridge suddenly had one less support, which is 'the whole thing falls in the sea all at once'. Separate/non continuous trusses are safer, even just in theory.
@@oFinalSolution Well ... they often do :/. Terrible accidents are not only limited to the Soviet Union after all.
@@oFinalSolution Soviet Russia didn't have the funds and resources to build a non-cheap nuclear reactor though
@@oFinalSolutionYeah... we don't. You can, but it usually backfires hard against the regulator element of capitalism-competition.
"It's cheaper" has never hit harder nor will it ever hit so hard again. Truly brilliant. Legasov was a truly brave man. Knew what would happen, and did the right thing anyway. He deserved better. Pruitt deserved better. Russia deserved better. How much cheaper was it really? How many lives would it have cost? How much suffering would have been avoided if only they spent the state money to get the proper tips? It really makes you think...
So many disaster in history are caused by humans going the route of
“It’s cheaper”
@@bingus99 I am sorry but is Dyatlov a hero? He might not have been a villain, but he certainly did not do anything to earn a title of "hero". Meanwhile, Legasov worked tirelessly to get better safety procedures and equipment on reactors, only to end up haging himself two years after Chernobyl because he was stalled and rejected at every step.
The Chernobyl cleanup costed over 75 billion USD adjusted to 2022 inflation.
American soldiers feel the same way about the majority of their equipment being produced by prison labour. The reasoning is that it keeps the costs down but no soldier likes to know their safety relies on the quality of products produced by slave labour.
@@DomWeasel What's wrong with Prison labour?
2:20 love dyatlov's shocked face that someone is actually defending him in a legitimate manner. Even though he still was wreckless and irresponsible for his management at Chernobyl, he simply did not know that RMBK reactor could explode because the Soviets official stance is that it couldn't. Had he known what was possible, he would have certainly done everything to make sure the disaster could not have happened.
He knew some but not enough to risk going past the kgb and the CC.
That's the problem, the fear and the terror.
He knew what he was doing was dangerous and was against the rules. He also knew what the party demanded was so far beyond the rules he didn't have many options.
Break the rules and keep your job your life or die in siberia.
The funny thing is, in reality it was actually Dyatlov who discovered the truth about the design flaw and attempted to present it at the trial, he was silenced by the judge. Legasov assisted the Soviet government in covering it up and scapegoating Dyatlov/etc, it wasn't until years later at a conference he publicly admitted the truth.
@@llynellyn It's hard to say confidently that that is the full truth, but yeah, Dyatlov's role was certainly exaggerated to a large degree, to be a scapegoat for countless others.
He SHOULD have known. As a director it’s his JOB to know!
@@nickdalessandro1191How would he know how the rods were covered? They were stuck inside the reactor, how would see that?
One of the worst things about Chernobyl, was the denial that anything was the goverments fault, to save face.
Same case with Fukushima.
The USS Liberty,the Gulf of Tonkin,WMD in Iraq,Lee Harvey Oswald killed our president,etc. Governments lie that's what they do.
@@neilpuckett359 I'd rather trust a rabid wolf, than a politician.
@@GriffonGaming8888 There are plenty of reactors near an ocean.
@@mikkelnpetersen You might as well say you'd rather trust a wolf than a human being.
Politicians don't belong to a different species than us. CEO's lie just as much. So do celebrities, religious figures, police officers, military leaders, soldiers, everyone lies to avoid consequences for their actions. It's one of the more disgusting traits of humanity, this desperate and selfish desire to outrun and avoid anything which disrupts our own sense of comfort and contentment.
Dyatlov’s face when the conclusion is read out really says it all.
Best series I’ve watched in years & likely the best for a long time yet.
The actor sells it so well too. After Legasov' breakdown of events, all the missing pieces have fallen into place for him and he's horrified by it.
Honestly my favourite thing about this show
This. If you could only recommend 5 series or shows in a lifetime, this would be one of them
Boris's face when he realizes his friend has become a nonperson
It's like a mix of surprise, anger, denial, and fear bombarded at his mind at once. He might be ignorant about his fault and play a part in the accident, but he was also a scapegoat. He realize that the goverment will pin it down on him.
Legasov’s presentation was brilliant. How to present technical information to a non technical audience. Fascinating
The "lie's speech" he gave was definitely great, but what really brought shivers down my spine was when he said "It's cheaper." It's the one phrase that I realize can make a lot of people take any kind of risk.
SAAAAME! Even now, years after I watched this when it first aired, it the 'It's cheaper' that stll resonates with me. It was like a punh to the gutt, knowing how costly that 'cheaper' option had become. That perect delivery is also increedibly effective- the shoulder shrug, the flippant tone that conveys the excuse used in their going that route... only after the disaster, realizing that saving money had actually created an astronomical debt.
And the result is almost always bad.
2:22 Bryukhanov looking at Dyatlov with a questioning face "beyond 33.000?"
Bryukhanov was an oaf, only sitting there as Plant Director for the prestige of having that Big Job, with the Big Paycheck, the honors and influence that came with it. Only to climb the party-ladder.
In the first episode, they already showcase the ambitions; Bryukhanov mentioned to be promoted to a BIG position in Moscow. Fomin to advance to his position. Dyatlov informing Fomin he'd like to be considered for Fomin's job after that: they were handing out the honors amongst themselves already.
That's why Dyatlov pushed that test: he wanted that promotion.
This kind of ambitious ignorance and negligence happens everyday everywhere in the world, only not with such an obvious catastrophic consequence.
My one criticism of this series is that its scorn is a bit too focused at the USSR and seems to suggest that western society and institutions are somehow not capable of this level of negligence, self-interest and corruption. I assure you they are.
@@basilyang7777 There's another detail: Bryukhanov wás already awared several honors by the Communist Party for 'delivering the entire Chernobyl Facility ón time, and with ALL the required tests, completed succesfully'...
Bryukhanov had LIED about that part, because that stability test, for when Reactor 4 would fall out due to any circumstance, and to tést if the still-running turbines could bridge the gap till the backup-generators would take over the cooling fór the reactor, was never concluded! Bryukhanov fumbled up that 'report'. When there was pressure from Moscow on the detailed report of that, Bryukhanov hád to quickly come with actual test-results, hence there was immediate NEED to perform that test anyway!
Moscow was informed that this test had long been completed, so they just wanted the report for their files and administration.
Another example of Bryukhanov's corrrupt lies, merely to serve his ambition.
As for Legasov's testimony: a CRITICAL part of RBMKreactors was withheld from even the most knowledgable experts on nuclear energy:
A similar reactor in Kallingrad had experienced a similar Powersurge, when they engaged the AZ5 failsafe, on a poisoned/xenon-saturated core: Instead of instantly shutting down, they first saw the reactor produce a hígh spike in power!
This alarming finding was covered up by the Communist Party, most likely the KGB itself, to hide the fact that the USSR had buil 'sloppy Nuclear Reactors', merely to keep up the prestige-race with the USA.
Reactor no4 had been running at half power, for the entire eveningshift, so when the nightshift, under Dyatlov was to perform the test, Reactor 4 was sáturated with Xenon byproduct, due to incomplete reactivity.
Usual procedure would be bringing the reactor up to full power, so reacticity would burn away the Xenon at a normal rate.
Purely due to the pressure of the report by Bryukhanov, and hís promotion to a cushy seat in Moscow, Fomin advancing to Bryukhanov's office, and then Dyatlov becoming Chief Engineer of Chernobyl: Fomin's job, there was recklessness, and arrogance: Dyatlov was already decorating his new office in his mind, and gruesomely ignored the CORRECT analysis of the young and barely graduated nuclear Engineer, Toptunov: Toptunov suggested, that due to the Reactor 'behaving oddly', he believed the Core to be poisoned.
Toptunov was 100% right. Dyatlov, with all of his 25 years of experience, should have taken Toptunov, wáy more seriously. Dyatlov's arrogance was the reason the test was still pushed, instead of slowly bringing the reactor up to power, let it clean itself, so the test could be performed on a STABLE reactor.
Imho, half the fault of this disaster lies with Bryukhanov, Fomin and Dyatlov. The other half lies with the officials that omitted those 2 crítical pages from the RBMK-reports.
That critical information was even kept from Chief-Engineers that were running the RBMK reactors in the Soviet Union: they didnt know! They thought it was all good and their reactors were stable and indestructible. they only had their promotions in mind. Not the dangers of fumbling around with a poisoned reactorcore.
@@Snugggg because... The secrecy and the rules being utterly disregarded to do the thing was... A very soviet mindset the layers upon layers of secrecy researchers in nuke power not able to even access books if they were ruled as a problem by the Kgb.
@@basilyang7777also, Bryukhanov was starting to get impatient, he’d lied to the Soviet government, and he *needed* the test complete, and as his subordinate, Dyatlov was going to be the one who got the blame regardless. He got the blame for the explosion, and if the test had simply failed normally, he’d have gotten the blame then.
I will never blame Dyatlov for the actual explosion, but I *will* fault him for his abject denial that the disaster was as bad as it was.
"Nobody in that room knew that the shutdown button could act as a detonator".
That is a nightmarish line.
Edit: I'm starting to think that people can't seem to realize that all I'm saying is that I like *that specific* line. Seriously, wether this series is accurate or not doesn't matter, I just liked that line!
"They didn't know it because it was kept from them" is worse.
Especially when that's not how it happened. This series is pure fiction.
@@snakey934Snakeybakey I didn't say if it happened or not, I said it's a nightmarish line.
@@snakey934Snakeybakey Of course, it is not a documentary and has some fiction in it, but please enlighten us. How DID it happed?
@@sobolanul96 my main problem isn't the scientific inaccuracies, my problem is how the ironically used the same Soviet propaganda for their fiction.
Dyatlov and Brykhankov especially, who were nothing like the villains they were portrayed as here, and who had their lives destroyed by the false accusations libeled against them, are viciously maligned by the show, sometimes in ways that are diametrically opposed to what actually happened.
Legasov is also portrayed as a victim, despite the fact that his main job in the midst of this disaster was to cover up for the Monopoly that made all the reactors in the Soviet Union... The one for which he was second in command.
And to answer your question, the disaster was caused by A perfect Storm of events, and some of it is indeed the fault of the operators, but it was mainly the fault of NIKIET, the Monopoly that I previously mentioned for which Legasov was second in command to their CEO.
It was this company that had been trying to get nuclear power plants throughout the Soviet Union to conduct this test. However, most power stations refused. Chernobyl, which was the most successful power station in the Soviet Union, and therefore, the flagship nuclear power plant, accepted the responsibility, but on the authority of a different director. I'm not sure whether or not it was Fomin, but Brykhankov was completely unaware of the test, and was in Kyiv for a family emergency at the time.
As for why the test ended in disaster, it is due to the opposite of what was said in the show. The rbmk reactor was built with a positive void coefficient (Legasov's character in the series claimed that it wasn't, and in real life, it is the West that typically builds reactors with inhibitions on this positive void coefficient, for reasons of making the reactor easier to control in exchange for some efficiency) this increased reactivity, but also led to a runaway reaction when the operators, following the faulty instructions of NIKIET and Kurchatov institute scientists; attempted the experiment, which by the time the failsafe button was pressed; had evaporated almost all of the water in the core.
The control rods were indeed tipped with graphite, but not for the silly reasons stated in the series. I'll explain further if you're interested.
Legasov was an incredibly smart and brave man to expose this. May he RIP.
None of this happened. This scene was totally made up for the series.
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse This just proves half the people who comment about this series doesn’t actually know anything about the actual disaster
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse tell me what really happened then, please… I’m curious but don’t care enough to do the research myself
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse if you don't have something useful to say, keeping quiet is usually the best option.....
The man's tapes were found and much more
@@classicskrt2422 legasov probably didn’t even have a major role in the clean up of Chernobyl. He was a chemist. I forget the name of the guy scientists credit as having a similar role to Legasov in the series but he was an actual physicist.
Let's also remember that everything that was described in this scene all happened within a window of 6 to 10 seconds.
To put the 33,000MWh into some perspective 1MWh of heat energy in a normal fossil fuel plant could power an electric car for over 3,500 miles or run a home for six weeks.
It was 33,000MW, not MWh.
It would have to run at 33,000MW for an entire hour to produce 33,000MWh. It only ran at 33,000MW for a few seconds.
The most powerful reactor core in the world, the French's EPR produces 1650MW, and if left at 100% capacity (very rare) would only produce 39,600MWh per day.
Hahahaaaa someone looked up some statistics on Google and still got it wrong
@@pierzing.glint1sh76 Then give the correct statistics and prove them.
It's 33 gigawatts, enough to timetravel 27 times in a DeLorean.
3200MW to produce 1000MW of electricity, which makes it almost 33% efficient, the rest 2200MW is energy lost through heat.
The fact that this really happened is just haunting
Actually this particular scene didn’t happen, not as portrayed anyway. Legasov and Shcherbina were not present at this trial.
The outcome he talks about in this scene was arrived at and it became common knowledge amongst the scientists in the Soviet Union, yet Legasov still had to fight for many years afterward to have the fatal flaw in all the RBML reactors modified.
@@con10001I think he's referring to the reactor detonating, not the courtroom scene.
@@con10001They're talking about the entire situation, not this scene
Lol
Long story short: The emergency shutdown button (AZ-5) that was supposed to stop an explosion ironically caused a explosion.
No, that's the thing. It wasn't supposed to stop a nuclear explosion, that's not what it was designed for. This information was redacted.
It wasn’t technically a nuclear explosion. It was a pressure/chemical explosion caused by uncontrolled nuclear reactions.
A nuclear explosion requires critical mass, which was not present in the reactor (the fuel is not pure enough). In a nuclear explosion, a huge number of atoms are split all at once.
Sort of. AZ5 is meant to prevent a meltdown. The premise the operators are working IS a pleasurable assumption... reactor cores don't explode. Legesov goes at great length directly in this speech to address that it was only possible due to the extreme conditions created by the operators. Frankly the way those control rods are designed, it's not even really a flaw if you were to understand that completely withdrawing a control rod was completely out of operating parameters. The graphite ends made the control rods more effective in that slightly withdrawing them not only reduced boron moderation but increased reactivity by introducing the graphite. This was the intent. It makes the core more reactive to control rod changes, They only even call it a flaw because this scenario was made possible by idiots who decided to completely withdraw them. Remember they were trying to increase power in the core, leaving the rod halfway in would have had thier desired effect, it makes zero sense to completely remove a control rod with what they were trying to achieve. The fix essentially removed the graphite tips. The same level of safety could have been achieved by software or hardware limiting the upper travel of the control rods.
I liked the long story better.
@@kuban_fpv5461 The safety system was badly designed from the start. It should not have allowed complete removal of the control rods under any situation during operation, be it normal or tests. Also the AZ5 would have been triggered automatically anyway by the sensors a few seconds later even if the operator did not use it. The only way in which the reactor would not have exploded was to completely disable the AZ5 safety system. This way you would still get a catastrophic meltdown, but not an actual explosion and the biological catastrophe we have to deal with today. Of course, these are all "ifs" and are of little importance now.
One more word about safety. An operator will always find a way to bypass the safety systems. It is a race between operator and engineer. This is why all kinds of procedures are implemented for flaw finding in early stages of design and production. I heard a story from many years ago about operators being chained to the floor so they would not reach too deep with their hands inside some presses and get their hands crushed, yet one dude still tried hard and managed to loose some fingers.
2:36 - look at this well made explosion. If you keep it paused, you can see down the lid are rods, going up and breaking in the same time.
Oh yea. That's realistic. Perhaps they knew people would pause and make sure
The first explosion was caused by the rupture of just a few fuel channels, but that hurled the 2,000 ton reactor lid a kilometer into the air, along wIth the control rods, chunks of graphite and pieces of fuel rods. That ruptured all the other fuel channels, and the hydrogen ignited, causing an even larger second explosion. The bottom of the vessel was shoved down, and the runaway remnants of the core turned into 3,000 degree C plus molten Uranium that turned into the infamous nuclear lava now in the bottom of the building.
Probably reading too much in to symbolism, but at around 4:31 we pass the glass board with red signs. Each red sign displays a different scientific process which increases reactivity in a nuclear material (used in Chernobyl). Earlier, he explained using blue signs what decreases reactivity. Note how all of the blue signs are now removed, leaving only the red signs. Our guy is wearing a blue suit. Given the context of the scene, and what he's achieving here, he's the yin of truth to their yang of lies, which if left unchecked would over-react and cause mayhem.
What he was saying is was Actually true if u watch the full movie as he was explaining the Reason for the failure step by step he took out the Blue's !!!
GOAT level TV. "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid"
I wish these gender groomers would understand this
The explosion still gives me chills, that is probably the closest thing to seeing the explosion recreated under the circumstances surrounding it.
Respect to Valery Legasov, Boris Tscherbina, General Pykalov, the firefighters, the miners, the divers, the liquidators, and everyone that were involved in the catastrophe that still affects our world.
That still affects our world...that's the honest 100% truth.
I can’t believe it took an American TV show all these years later for the world to know what a brave, brave man he was
It didn't. The world already knew.
It took an American TV show all these years later to show America Russia isn't just a bunch of vodka drinking KGB mooks.
They are still denying some facts
@@melhupby actually it showed exactly that. A bunch of vodka drinking incompetents messing with technology that was quite clearly beyond them
British-American TV Show*
@Laurel Rivera he was real, the woman was the composite character
The balls to call out an authoritarian and secretive state from its hiding of critical information from the implementers of that states policy, and exposing the effects of that policy and the hiding of those effects - is heavier than all of those fuel rod caps combined.
He's dying from radiation poisoning anyway so it's not like he has much left to lose.
I bought this series two years ago and I consider it the most chilling 5 hours of television I have ever seen.
This guy is an unsung hero to man kind
“ when the truth offends we lie and lie and lie like it’s not even there but it’s still there. “ we couldn’t possibly relate to anything like that in America now could we? 😕
... and now Russia is back at it.
“It’s cheaper.”
Two words that almost literally destroyed the world.
The fact that Chernobyl disaster was an enviroment and economic cost for the next generation (still ours rn) means the world completly changed forever
This is a powerful scene but fyi to people who watch - this scene in 'court' didn't actually happen, it's representative of a group of a scientists who exposed it.
"If you mean to suggest the state is responsible for what happened then I must warn you you're treading on dangerous ground."
"Bitch I've been exposed to lethal doses of Radiation already."
It's funny they think they can threaten him to silence. Like dude he's going to be dead soon anyway so he has nothing left to lose anymore.
How would say the joker: "“You have nothing! Nothing to threaten me with! Nothing to do with all your strength." - th-cam.com/video/P9ZpmJ0IrL0/w-d-xo.html
A typical light bulb runs on 75 watts and 1 Mega Watt is equivalent to 1,000,000 watts of power so multiple that by 33,000 and you could power 440,000,000 bulbs for however long it held that power. If your interested on what else it could run look up the rated wattage of a device and divide (1,000,000x33,000) by that number.
Now with LED lamps it would be 2,750,000,000 lamps. (The 12w lamp)
@@GasparKvarta yeah LED'S are wild. I was doing a remodel in a grocery store and we had over a 100 of the LED lights on one circuit. I kinda wonder what lighting is gonna look like in the next ten years in regards to how much energy it take to run it.
2:07 gives me chills every time
The realization that the reactor is completely out of control despite the so-called "emergency shutdown". Pure horror.
All reactor mimic lights off -> all lights on in a matter of seconds, if it did happen that way, would probably be the most horrifying moment
There is a grotesque beauty to how this series circles back to the question posed at the beginning: "How does an RBMK reactor core explode?"
Classic example of "you get what you pay for".
They saved money, no matter the cost.
@@Talon3000 Oh damn
I noticed, when I watched this series the first time, that when Legasov chooses to make the truth known and called out the USSR the blue ish filter disappeared and turned brighter right as the camera passes the light behind him. Very subtle but brilliant.
If only everything complex can be explained with this simplicity.. I come back often to just listen to the way he explained the working of the nuclear reactor..
"You're treading on dangerous ground."
Legasov: "Been there, done that. Comrade."
Absolutely amazing acting all around on this programme. Truly harrowing but eye opening.
“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Soon or later that debt is paid.”
I’ll never forget that comment. Everyone should be learning from this.
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth" best quote of the movie.
0:29 Once AZ-5 (A simple button to shut down the Reactor) was pushed, there was no turning back.
Watched this scene at least a thousand times. Each viewing as gripping as the last.
_looks at American government and television now_
“Sooner or later that debt is indeed paid.”
In some countries, they have a state-run media.
In America, we have a media-run state
built to run at 3200Mw went beyond 33,000... (that's running at 1030% or 10.3x capacity)
0:48 Love the acting ! Their faces say so much when asking why. When he says “its cheaper Lagasov faces expresses -do you need me to say it of course we all know this !!! And the judges facials read - oh shit..im sorry i asked that question !!!
At 2:43, the wreckage almost looks like an alien being, like Chernobyl has become some eldritch horror out to punish mankind for its hubris.
Ever since the beginning, Legasov had been asked how an RBMK reactor core could possibly explode.
It is here, at the very end, where the answer lies.
Shot from 3,200 to 33,000 megawatts.
Right at the moment before the blast the wattage was 330,000. The meter couldn't go that high that fast.
That's a lightning storm on Jupiter for one second. To put this into perspective that same storm in one minute will produce enough power, 18 terawatts, to run every powerplant on Earth for one day.
330,000 megawatts will do that for 24 minutes. It's also the same amount of energy produced by a 6.6-magnitude earthquake, or a 350-kiloton hydrogen bomb.
Or every nuclear power plant on Earth combined.
Have you ever considered checking your math? Your conversions are all wrong.
33,000 megawatts is not 330000 watts. Its 33,000,000,000 watts. Just like how 3.6 Roentgen is not equivalent to 1, but 400 chest X-Rays.
Assuming 1W = 1J/s
33,000,000,000 Watts is roughly equivalent to a blast yield of ~0.0078 tons of TNT. That’s 1900 times weaker than the Little Boy atomic bomb (15000 tons of TNT or roughly 62,760,000,000,000 Watts).
From NASA JPL: a lightning storm on Jupiter at its brightest “emit as much light energy as 30 million 100-watt light bulbs burning for one second”. That’s 180 Gigawatts in a minute, or 0.18 terawatts; which is enough power for less than half of all the nuclear power plants on Earth.
This whole scene reminds me of the big courtroom scene in JFK. Specifically, it reminds me of how that scene was edited. We get a man narrating, re-telling what happened at a major historical event as we cut to a recreation of said event. And both scenes deal with the manipulation of truth, the danger of lies pushed by those in power, etc.
It's been long enough since JFK that I wouldn't doubt that "Chernobyl" was at least partly inspired by that film.
this exactly the same chernobyl management is in charge for russia now
let me tell you that the SAME leadership is running the USA today. lies, they define us too. thanks to google, facebook and amazon.
Jared Harris is incredible here.
While the show does an excellent job at breaking down some pretty hardcore nuclear physics for a general audience, the one thing I think it underexplains are the graphite 'tips'. While Legasov saying "It's cheaper" is a pretty succinct reason, in reality, it's more complicated than that. If you want to know the actual reason, I recommend Scott Manley's breakdown of the explosion.
Yes! I'm curious how "graphite tips" became the go to descriptor for these things, given they were nearly as long as the control rods themselves. The Scott Manley video is excellent at describing the real problem, and there are only a few others that even bother explaining what the "graphite tips" were.
Even in this clip, Legasov says "the first part of the rods to enter the core are the graphite tips" which is wrong. They were already in the core: that's the point. I wonder whether this was just for ease of explanation in the show, or if the writers just didn't research properly.
@@fortranwarrior8716 but wasnt the rods with graphite tips fully withdrawn to achieve low reactivity for power failure test?
0:22 cut out "it had a fatal flaw"
I wounder why this eddit was made to the original clip
Jeez I got chills when he said so simply why a soviet reactor would have a safety system that should shut down the reactor power has a design that instead causes power to spike
"It's cheaper"😳😳😳
One of my favourite TV shows of all time
1.49” - Never has a Soviet engine run so smoothly. 😆
1:49
I think they pulled the audio from this ..
th-cam.com/video/Tvrtn_47bGA/w-d-xo.html
This scene gave me chills even though in real life Legasov wasn't present in the court.
This scene defines the truth of poor managment and when people with stubborness who never listen takes charge (talking about Dyatlov), and people with true competent rarely heard of until it was too late (talking about Legasov, Akimov, Teptunov, and others).
This historical drama teaches people how a poor management can lead to catastrophe. How a simple lie can lead to catastrophe. How people wouldn't accept a truth that offends.
Once again, HBO never dissapoints us
Keep rewatching chernobyl. What a series
“every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth, and sooner or later that debt is paid” is such an incredible line
Great movie great acting. This whole thing had me in tears
"Its cheaper"
*smiles in American*
Irl, Dyatlov (the scapegoat for the deadly mistakes of Soviet scientist like Legasov) defended his men vehemently in court. This series is good fiction but the way they tried to portray innocent men as the villains and villains as victims/heros is disgusting.
This is up there with the best science as breaking bad and entertainment. And acting. As a science teacher. I will forever show this to my students
I’d learned the clip notes version of what happened at Chernobyl in school and from others but not until this show did I realize the depth and the depravity of the whole situation. I left this series thinking it was nothing short of criminal that I’d never heard the name Valery Legasov until now.
A 2 million pound lid was just yeeted like a bottle cap
2:22 dyatlov looks like he sharted hisself 😂
God Bless they who are brave enough to Tell The Truth.
The TRUTH is more important than the narrative.
watched this series 2 times. i can keep watching. soo damn well scripted, great cast.
It’s such a good scene that subverts the expectation. You want Dyatlov to be convicted, you hate him for the things he did. But in reality, while the things he did were horrible…not only he but many others were completely unaware of the fact that RBMK reactors could be pushed to exploding. The way his face widened at the fact that Legasov was essentially saying “What you did was fucked, but it all traces back to the men at the top”
What’s ironic is had they used normal control rods to start up the reactor the disaster would have never happened.a meltdown but not a explosion.that’s the cost of cheap in the machine sector of business.
the only thing that can make this scene better is if he does a mic drop after he says "that is how a RBKM reactor explodes"
He never told anyone to push the AZ5 button. The positive void coefficient was widely known. RBMK reactors were preferred because they produced plutonium that was used in nuclear weapons. The document with redactions was the one in the library, not necessarily the version available to reactor chiefs.
Lies always incur a debt to the truth, and the debt is always paid. The most infuriating part of that statement isn't that it's true. It's the fact that throughout human history, the people paying that debt are almost never the ones who told the lie in the first place.
0:41 "but not the hull. It was made of carbon composite material..."
"Why?"
"The same reason we use old construction pipes as ballast.
The same reason or sub lighting came from a hardware store.
The same reason we use a Logitech controller to steer our submersible.
It's cheaper."
What could go wrong?
That fact remains though that the cheaper Graphite tipped fuel rods wouldn’t have been an issue if the reactor hadn’t been pushed to its limit by a lying incompetent bully. Yes the Graphite temporarily raises reactivity but at 3200 output the reactor could withstand that increase. Dyatlov and Fomin were still responsible. Bryukhanov asked if the test should be scrapped but Fomin said it could go ahead and Dyatlov performed it with incompetence and arrogance.
The point of the fail safe button is for situations like these. Even tho they did push it to the limit, they did so under the knowledge that they could shut it down if needed. So yes, while they foolishly created the circumstances for this to happen, the point is that its not their fault it exploded.
There are 16 reactors with the same detonator that is such a deep quote as to my knowledge at least 3 rbmk reactors are still in use
1:04 That's not the whole thing. You cut parts of it out.
I’ve watched this special several times. And while there are a lot of pieces of it, that have to be altered for the sake of drama and stuff like that. For instance, the appearance of some of the firefighters and stuff from the exposure to radiation didn’t look like they had just gotten dumped with chemicals. But I digress.
One thing that I really enjoyed about this thing is they didn’t have any of the actors speaking English with Russian accents. They simply have them speaking with their native accent. The best thing about this in my opinion is they’re using what’s called at least what my film teacher called it. “base language theory” and that is in layman terms, essentially while while, in reality, the actors are speaking, one language in the context of the production, they are speaking the other language.
Another part that I’ve always liked about. This is when Legasov explains why the Soviet Union has reactors in the design that they do, and goes on to say, with a completely straight face “it’s cheaper“ the fact that you very quickly begin hearing murmurs and such really sells the scene. He just told probably some of the more powerful individuals in the Soviet union, at least in terms of Soviet Ukraine, that their nuclear technology is nowhere near up to snuff.
Now, I’m also willing to bet that when he said this, he probably knew in the back of his mind that the secret police were probably going to pay him a visit at some point.
After all basically saying that the government system doesn’t work in terms of really any aspect in countries with a system of government like this was pretty much a death sentence.
One thing I should also mention is that not only was this event, the result of the cost cutting. But it was also a result of what happens when you put an individual who is clearly not fully qualified in charge of what is probably one of the most complicated systems to exist at the time.
It makes it clear how the Chernobyl disaster led directly to the end of Soviet rule
Truth is always the first casualty in ANY war
What I find insanely hilarious about this scene is the actor they played to act as the judge (if that’s the proper term) of the hearing. He bears a shocking resemblance to Hymen G Rickover, an Admiral in the U.S. navy who was in charge of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear reactor program, and who had an reputation for being absolutely ruthless when it came to nuclear safety in the navy.
Very late but i hope everyone understands that every nation with nuclear reactors uses materials that are cheaper to save money
In all fairness, the reason the rods are tipper with graphite is because when they are completely withdrawn, the graphite tips of the rods help form the graphite "ceiling" of the reactor (not that that matters in regard to the explosion, just there **is** a reason for it lol.)
That line about lies at the end is just a 100/10
If Legasov had seen Soviet Union dissolution he would have been very proud 😢
If Legasov had seen how the former head of the KGB has become emperor, he'd be sickened.
2:22 the perfect faces of the "oops"
What understood from these series is that it was a matter of time for the accident to be occured. It wouldn't the 4th time it would be the 10th time.
0: 0:47 The person who asked "why" was like putting himself and the soviet in death sentence
The great thing to remember is he's being irreverant and contrarian to the government, because he's already pulled out a clump of hair - he's dying, just not quite quickly enough to stop him reporting why.
It is absolutely mind boggling the USSR didn't educate the staff about the danger of AZ-5 acting as a detonator, just to save a little money. Had they known about that risk, they would've never tried that safety test, which of course isn't safe at all for an RBMK reactor. Had they known about the risk, this would've never happened and the reactors would be able to safely operate to this day, I suppose. I think that's what makes Legasov's statement at the end so perfect, "that's how an RBMK reactor core explodes... lies."
Watching this scene, I can't even begin to describe how I feel, having seen communism from the inside. There are no words. One can only understand by living it.
1:23.42 the guys sees the caps leaping up and down on the reactor. 1:23.45 the AZ5 button is pushed and the reactor exploded. That guy must have used the speed force to see that and run outta there in the 3 seconds it took AZ5 to be activated and still not get killed or injured.
Any physicists in the comment section please feel free to respond. What would’ve happened if they didn’t press the emergency shutdown button? Would it have been a meltdown instead of an explosion?
It would take longer meaning it would have melted down before exploding
Yeah, it would have just taken a bit longer, but would end up in an explosion anyway. Legasov's point was that Dyatlov did all this thinking that he has the AZ-5 safety net. It just turned out to be the thing that causes the explosion to occur immediately
@@apu341997 was the explosion inevitable then? or could it have been prevented in the time before the explosion if they didn't press AZ-5?
@@fluffartistt i think the elements would have melted eventually and ate through the bottom of the core. Maybe the pressure would be lowered?
АЗ-5 was like a protection that at the end did not work but made it worse
Valery legasov was acc killed by the ussr he didn’t kill himself because the soviets were embarrassed
I don't know.. kind of backfired on them if they did infact do that. Surely they'd have known that by killing him on the two year anniversary of the incident and the day before he was due to report their version of events as official findings, it wasn't going to look good
@@redluca56 they were very good at covering up tbh
@@alexstatham5806 how do you know?
@Anonymer Nutzer u dumb use ur logic he knew too much
@Anonymer Nutzer the world? That’s mega cap
The fact is in short due to a combination of cheap cut backs and gross management incompetence of the highest order leads to a potentially world threatening disaster, 40 years later what’s changed …. Absolutely nothing the world will never change and that’s what terrifies me
The operators took every control rod out . . . When there were specific rules against that . . . All for a safety test, that "had" to happen.
The root cause was pushing ahead, when things got weird.
”I do not need excuses, I need results" . . . Forgot yo say "good results".
This is generally funny because there was no such rule. It was created after the explosion and used to put 100% of the blame on Diatlov.
I was a 16 year old kid living in Wisconsin, and after watching this, seeing the radiation burns, and all the lives effected, I’m so embarrassed to say that I remember thinking Chernobyl was a “nothing event”. But then again, the USSR treated it as a non-event too!
Tragic the dozens of lives lost at Chernobyl. Yet compared to other disasters, compared to other things the Soviets/Russians did like the 4000 dead in the Hungarian uprising to the half million dead in Ukraine war today, then Chernobyl was trivial in comparison. No HBO show about Hungary 1956 though.
million dead in Ukraine today
Those radioactive pieces of graphite made a better villain then the White Walkers.
“Sooner or later that debt is paid.” Chills.