Scherbina's character arc was my favorite part of this entire series. When we meet him, he's a bit of an arrogant ass, your typical Party Boss. Not that different from the one Kholmuk encounters in Kiev. But the second he gets eyes on what's happened at Chernobyl, his bullshit detector goes into overdrive and he starts listening! They made the mistake of sending the one good man.
The passion with which he learned how a nuclear reactor works. So sure of what he knew, that he asked the committee if they had any questions, and if they did, he was ready to answer. All this considering that at the beginning, he did know anything about how a nuclear reactor worked.
yeah that's what I was thinking too I like Scherbina even when he threatened to throw our hero out of a helicopter because there's just something funny to me about communist flying out of moving helicopters
He asked if they had any questions to cover his cough. It’s symbolic of both the damage done (cancer aka radiation), and the character foible of this dude essentially giving it all (his life) for justice, contrasting his feelings of failure seen elsewhere in the show
I remember hearing as a young kid about Chernobyl and thinking, like COVID, oh it's just a small problem, it will go away in a couple of weeks lol , how wrong I was!!
to think that scherbina had to learn how a reactor works from scratch and was able to put it so simply to everyone and was ready to shut the fuck up anyone that would dare accuse him of not knowing what he was talking about absolute chad
If you can understand something to the point where you can put it in simple terms it’s much easier to teach it to other people. It helped his testimony that he actually knew what he was talking about but could also go into detail if needed
Unfortunately it's not entirely accurate either. Later investigations found while some safety protocols were overlooked or changed on the fly in the moment the primary cause of the meltdown was design flaws in the MKRB reactors. The plant workers and supervisors did contribute to it but were rail roaded by the Russian government as the fall guys so they didn't have to admit the design of the reactor was flawed
@@Drizzlybear1 I appreciate the additional insight. Do you have a link or two highlighting the new understanding? I do wonder about the people dynamics involved as well as the actions of the supervisors are all too familiar and aren’t limited to one nation or system of government. Whether it’s people trying to gain influence in “the party,” or managers trying to win bonuses or curry favor with the leadership and shareholders, the pressure applied seldom works out in the long run. I guess I can see the acts of the supervisors fitting what I know of high pressure power structures.
@@mikemcaulay9507 Links really work well on TH-cam comments but if you look up the IAEA report about the Chernobyl meltdown it's a good report. The issue is Russia tried to cover so much up it's hard to FULLY understand how much you can blame the human factor and how much you can blame the reactor. The general consensus is that the reactor had several key flaws that were the primary cause with the human errors being a secondary factor that contributed but without the inherent flaws likely wouldn't have caused the meltdown
@@Drizzlybear1 tone can also be tricky on TH-cam. I wasn’t trying to say, “prove it,” though I do try to ensure what ever I take on has solid evidence. I just wanted to ask for it in case you did. I’ll follow up on the search you suggested. I’ve noticed some videos allow links and others don’t so I thought this might be one where it was allowed. :)
@@224dot0dot0dot10order of crap ideology pushed by BolshevikJews to control and indiscriminately murder nonjews. Communism is and always has been a Jewishplague on the rest of the world
The most perverse irony that has ever existed. The greatest nuclear disaster was a safety test. It would have prevented everything to have just to say the test was successful and carried on.
Are you asking if Bryukhanov, Fomin, and Dyatlov could have lied and pretended to have completed a successful safety test? If so, they probably could have gotten away with the deception for a short while. But eventually, the KGB would have found out and heads would roll. You would not want to get on the KGB's shit list by deceiving the State.
Realistically this design was doomed from the start. They are extremely unstable at low power. They havw since made some modifications to that type of reactor so its less likely to melt down now.
Stellan Skarsgard was fantastic in his role as Shcherbina. He started out cold, indifferent, somewhat arrogant. But after he saw things for himself he was ready to move heaven and earth to support the people trying to clean the mess up. Once we get to this point in the story, you can tell he had zero f__ks left to give, would not gloss things over, and spent his entire presentation almost daring someone in that room to challenge anything he said. His grim determination to support the Liquidators, combined with Legasov’s stubborn persistence to get the truth out may have saved more lives than either man ever ultimately knew. And even after Chernobyl, Shcherbina, already slowly dying at that point, went on to coordinate recovery and relief efforts following the 1988 earthquake in Armenia.
Something I hadn't considered before is this. Why was the test never conducted on the other reactors that came online over a decade before the disaster?
It most likely was run on other reactors, but under different circumstances. The problem was not in the test itself on that 4th try, it was in the reactor. Reactor had Xenon poisoning from running on low power during day shift. The test even should have been done by< the day shift, but was not possible due to the low power setting. In the nigh shift, Djatlov ordered the power to be raised, which did not work because of the Xenon, so the test was impossible and they should have waited for the Xenon to be burned in a controlled way. But he did not know about the Xenon poisoning and also not about the positive void coefficient of that reactor type and its effects. The cranked the reactor to its maximum, void bubbles formed, Xenon was burned and it became uncontrollable. This chain of unfortunate events could have been stopped in different ways: - if the Xenon poisoning would have been recognized for what it was - if the events during day shift were different (no lowering of power output -> no xenon) -if Djatlov had listened to the concerns of his team or if the team had stood up against him and stopped the test - Maybe if the design of the reactor and or of the control rods would have been different/safer (no positive void coefficient, no graphite tips on the control rods) there might have been a chance to divert disaster in the last moment by triggering the emergency shutdown. In the end, they tried to shut it down, but it was too late, the control rods gut stuck due to extreme heat and their graphite tips made the core go berserk even faster...
@@BlacKHellCaT78 the West normally doesn't need to speed things up to match the East. The East, for most of history, was catching up to the West That was the case until Deng Xiaoping
They were never able to successfully run this test at any reactor of this design. After the disaster and the issues with the reactor design were fixed, they still did not try it. They found, like any computer farm or power plant that you would build an uninterrupted power supply, basically a pile of batteries hooked in to instantly power the critical infrastructure until the generators kicked in. After seeing the scene in the cabinet room where they tell Gorbachev that if the water underneath gets hit by the"lava" and destroys the other reactors, kills probably 70 million or so and makes, what, 25% of the planet uninhabitable, I always wondered, if there was a nuclear war and these plants were all destroyed, as I am sure they were targets, how much radiation and fallout would they throw into the atmosphere.
They probably would throw less than chernobyl as the explosion force came from inside the reactor itself. The water explosion is an overstatement but it would have severely impacted Ukraine
@@benedekhalda-kiss9737The water thing was an exceptional overstatement, the 2 to 5 MT yield exceeds the largest bomb in the current US arsenal (the B83, with a 1.2 MT yield). The decimal should be moved at least 7 places over, and realistically there wouldn't even be an explosion at all. Also the three engineers who went in didn't consider going in to drain the bubbler tank particularly hazardous, here's part of an EX UTOPIA interview with one of them from 2019: > everything went okay - we opened the valves, and heard the water rushing out of the tank. When we returned to the surface I gave my dosimeters back. I don’t remember the measurements at that point either, but there wasn’t any kind of high radiation reading there.
I don't know how accurately this court proceeding is portrayed, but it's really awesome how they explain us, laymen, the things in a way we can easily understand them.
Schcherbina had the best character development of the series. From a calcified bureaucrat that didn't understand anything about nuclear powerplants and radiation to explaining exactly how everything works.
It would not have been that difficult to have kept the diesel powered pumps running in a "jockey" mode so if main line power failed they would have already been running and the response time would have been - maybe - 10 seconds.
I don't understand why it takes 60 sec for backup generators to power the pumps. If normal power is lost to the buss, the generators should immediately start and the ABT roll to the emergency buss.
because generators are big hulking pieces of machinery that take time to speed up. they're not talking about lil baby backup generators that people might buy for their house.
there are currently nuclear reactors operating on board USN submarines that take longer to start up. now, before you freak out, they also have emergency systems that occur automatically that more than compensate, and they're tested with extreme regularity. i can't speak to why those systems take time to start as opposed to just being able to be pushed on....well thats not true, i know that its partially because of all the valves and such that need to be manipulated. what i should say is i can't speak to why they're designed like that, considering we have diesel engines attached to trucks that just...start up. Likely it has to do with some tradeoff in efficiency or cost. It may also be related to how much power those generators put out, as opposed to a MAC truck. i've not seen the numbers, but i wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were way more powerful. My point is that that is a practical reality. what "should" be doesn't factor into it. @@xomthood
Sure it would. Once they spin up, they need to warm up enough to keep going when you start drawing power. Even in a 5-7KW generator on a boat it needs 20-50 seconds to run before to start drawing power from it. If you don't they stall out because the actual converter slows the engine down too much. @@xomthood
One problem with this scene is that the test was run in multiple Soviet nuclear stations over some time and the people on trial were ordered to run the test, while another order came in to keep the reactor running longer than usual.
I was 5 years old when it happened. I remember that our street tested all fruits and vegetables with a Geiger counter before consuming them. That was in Germany, many many miles away from the desaster. And yet, we had some fall out. Not much, but enough to not eat anything without testing it. Crazy times
I grew up a little closer in Hungary. In that socialist era they tried to keep it secret as long as it possible. I was 16, often was listening Radio Free Europe from Munich in short wave capable radio. I had heard it here about the disaster first. The socialst officials didn't care about our health at all, there was no Geiger-Müller counter, you'd better not talking about it, beacause they figure out you listening the forbidden radio. 1st of May as students we had to march in their fucking parade under the sun and under the radioactive air. I knew at least dozen people around me (classmates, friends, neighbours at my age), who died in their 20's, 30's, in cancer.
I've read that things like truffles that people would dig up from the ground to sell or eat themselves had to sometimes be discarded due to unacceptable levels of radioactive contamination from that fallout. They did the right thing by testing the food first.
@@Cooz. lol okay. I definitely don't support Russia's actions in Ukraine but to say that Russia has been left out and has no history is an ignorant and salty statement to say the least.
It wasn't the crew that was at fault, Dyatlov was merely a scapegoat for the disaster he did everything he was told and the safety test would end with initiating the instant shutdown button AZ-5, the test itself required the reactor to be pushed into its limits and people in the control room already knew that, what they didn't know was if all the control rods were pulled back, initiating AZ-5 would have disastrous consquences due to the tips of control rods being made of graphite.
Not sure, remember the diesel submarines used batteries to power the electric motors and other systems on board for hours. I find it hard to believe they could not power water pumps for a minute.
@@jeep146that's actually pretty accurate motors have an intense surge of a rush of power and high amperage when they first come online after a status of being turned off and completely cold They then have to come back down from this huge surge and afterwards they can begin to supply their constant output at a more stable rate If you want back up motors to power something you need to either adjust for this huge influx of power at the beginning of the back up motor's start cycle so it doesn't fry whatever it is the motor will be powering Or you must already have the backup motors running in tandem at a constant output that matches the primary motors used to supply your power
I think you guys might be underestimating just how large power plant nuclear reactors are and just how much water needs to be pumped through it. Using even the largest batteries available back then would have been akin to filling your swimming pool using a turkey baster.
When I was younger, I genuinely thought that the nuclear core was the one being siphoned for the electricity. Then I've learned that it's purpose is the same for coal to generate steam in a steam powered vehicle. My reaction to that is just....seriously? That's very very dangerous with a chance of having unimaginable damage and for what? Steam powered turbine electricity?
Even if we do fusion or antimatter neutronic scifi fantasy thingy, electricity will be generated by making hater hot which make a turbine spin. It's all about making the most efficient system to make water turn into steam. Also coal plant are way more dangerous and kill way more people each year than nuclear power plants
My frustration is why wasn’t it designed so that some of the power coming from the turbines could always be feeding the pumps. Then no need to shutdown the reactor. If they did need to shut it down they could do so in stages. Furthermore you had other reactors in the same location. Why couldn’t plant 4 get power from plant 3 if it needed to?
I'm no nuclear physicist or engineer, but the RBMK reactor designed was flawed, and well out of date by 1986, with its origins dating back to 1954, with little in the way of safety measures or consistent redundancy. The final design of the most "modern" RBMKs that were first used in the 1970s was rushed in order to "get it out the door". They had to operate exactly as designed with no basically no room for deviation from protocol or room for error, otherwise a major stability issue could rear its ugly head and quickly become unrecoverable. Chernobyl was not the first RBMK disaster, as you can see in a documentary about it here on TH-cam, but it was the most serious one by far. As far as getting power from other reactors is concerned, I think this test was supposed to be conducted as sort of a "worst case scenario", as in, assuming that all other reactors were shut down for maintenance or something, or otherwise damaged or inoperable for some reason, meaning that reactor number 4 was carrying the load by itself until there was a new emergency that would facilitate the need to use the diesel generators. They knew about the diesel generator flaw discussed in this video, and they were banking on using the "spin down" power to keep things going until the generators could take over. That was a very tight window of time, and like the RBMK reactor design itself, left essentially no room for error. These issues weren't exclusive to RBMK reactors either. Design and operating oversights like these were very common in nuclear submarine reactors of the time, and shortcuts were taken all over the place in the design and implementation of new technology, in both the military and civilian sectors. See some of the other Soviet era technology botches of that time period, such as the K-19 "Windowmaker" submarine with a bad safety record up to and including a reactor issue, the Tupolev 104 civilian jetliner which was the first one made in that part of the world, being hastily derived from a military bomber plane and as a result of safety not being a priority, being involved in a number of crashes and other accidents, the Tupolev Tupolev 144 supersonic jetliner airshow disaster and poor overall design and performance, like needing a parachute to land or making so much noise in the cabin that the passengers had to write notes to each other to talk, or the fact that it couldn't make a trans-Atlantic journey, often referred to as the "Concordski" or the DUGA early detection radar array, which could be jammed by amateur radio operators in other countries. They just did everything they could to beat the west to the punch in technological or military might, or at least keep up with them, that they kept throwing safety guidelines out the window, to their detriment.
@@unr3alGaming Thank you for your comment, was very informative and I think you have hit the nail on the head. They did “get it done and working” over safety then tried to Work some safety in after the fact and ironically that’s what got them in the end.
Because in the first three tests they didn't even come close to finishing the test to begin with, the safety test was supposed to end by initiating AZ-5 after the backup generators were up and running, they actually *COMPLETED* the test the 4th time they tried, but nobody knew the control rods were graphite moderated because it was classified as a state secret.
What, why is there a bright dot? Why is there a bright line on the right of the screen? Why is the video jumpy like it was filmed on 2s? Are we trying to dodge copyright strikes?
The problem is that the nuclear power plant (any base load power plant, really) generates an absolutely massive amount of energy compared to what it consumes, cannot change its power output very quickly, and cannot operate at the sort of power level it takes to run the plant itself. It relies on the grid consuming most of its power. Once the grid connection is lost, the reactor has to shut down because there's nowhere for all its power output to go. For short-term operations after loss of external power, the pumps can operate off batteries and/or flywheels, and the PWR and later designs allow for at least a few hours of passive cooling to allow for any backup diesel generator issues. So use of the main turbine isn't really necessary. Note that, at Fukushima, the flood-protected backup diesel generators were fine. Fukushima would have had no issues except for TEPCO deciding to save money by not connecting the flood-protected generators to the reactors, rendering the generators useless. (Well, one reactor was wired up, as it had an existing backup power input. Connecting the others would have been expensive so it wasn't done.) For long-term operation, neither the steam turbine nor the reactor can safely operate at such a tiny fraction of their normal operating output. Even if you had a backup steam turbine sized to drive the pumps, the reactor would be well outside its safe operating area, and the power output would rapidly oscillate out of control if you tried to keep it in this unsafe regime. Basically: Nuclear power plant reactors are not designed to operate while isolated. Loss of grid power is an abnormal condition, and the only suitable response is to shutdown the reactor, and focus on cooling systems to manage decay heat in the core and spent fuel in the pool. If there are problems with the backup generators, or access to portable generators, the consequences are not minor, but they are less severe with every hour the reactor has been shut down.
@@Alchemy-yr3sw'Fukushima, the flood-protected generator is fine.' Meaning the generator can work under water? I ask because this's not the information out there. They said that the generator is underground and can't work because sea water filled that basement. That would be cover up by T3pco.
@@Alchemy-yr3swno, I mean this: plant is running normal, power cut happens. Drop control rods, disconnect turbine, steam direct to condenser for cooling loop. Use the steam generated in the core to turn backup steam powered pumps. A steam powered turbine pump would move more than enough water to keep the core cool. If steam level falls so far it won't turn the pump...good that means core is put to sleep.
@@aymuhspunjturbine off, steam direct to condenser. Control rods in. Steam powered turbine pump uses steam from core to pump water. If core cools pumps slow, if heats up pumps increase. Natural feedback loop.
There is only one thing I dont get. Why was the reactor put into a low power state for thr test. Wouldnt a spontanous piwer loss usually occur under nornal power generation and thus full reactor power?
Because that was part of the safety procedure it was a conducted simulation of what would have happened if reactor had all its power shut down, the control rod tips being made of graphite was hidden from the people working in the control room that day, they didn't know initiating AZ-5 would be the reason causing the explosion.
@@wilhufftarkin5852 No, they performed the test at low power because it was exactly what the safety test was all about. But they had no idea a reactor with no power would result in such a catastrophy due to its design flaws.
@@wilhufftarkin5852 RBMK reactors are notoriously unstable when run at low power that's why the safety shutdown test was delayed and failed so many times and when they actually finished the test by initiating AZ-5 to do a complete shutdown, it caused the disaster as we know today. The reactor needed to be brought to its limits for the test to be done and that resulted in massive steam explosion which caused the reactor core to be exposed.
A bit of a late idea, but couldn’t they just spin a separate turbine (one not in operation within a fucking nuclear powerplant) and see it’s electricity output?
just a bit late, yah xD but probably not. at a guess the point wasn't just to test that they could actually get enough power out of the spinning turbine, it was to test the facility as a whole and make sure all systems were working. but also, were they to ask for help, they'd have had to admit that they'd lied about the test already being complete. so they needed to keep the test in house.
1:59 "What if a power plant has no power?" What? It's a POWER plant!! That's like asking what if our farmers die from starvation. Why can it not power itself? Surely the plant makes more energy than what is required to pump some water? Who would make ANY kind of engine or generator that requires external energy to operate? Anything like that should always be designed to be self sufficient/regulating and should be able to work in a closed system.
just because it's self sufficient doesn't mean it's free from potential problems, literally 10 seconds after that quote he states two more possible things that could fully disrupt the operations of even the most self sufficient power plant, hence the backup generators.
That was literally the reason for the 4 test he mentions at the end. They tried to do it and failed. It's simple in theory but in practice obviously not so much.
Right - they knew that. They tried that. They failed. They were unable to get enough power to bridge the minute from generator shutdown to the required diesel backup speed to power the pumps.
The reactor requires a CONSTANT flow of water.... the back up generators take 1 minute to start. By the time those generators were started, it was to late...
a few reasons : 1. a reactor needs cooling even when its shutdown. it needs less cooling. but still requires cooling. 2. even when the reactor is operating, its possible for power to the pumps/building to get interrupted. breakers blowing out, switchgear fires, etc. 3. idk...its probably a dumbed down version of what the real test was meant to do that's missing some key details.
Guys make sure to sub!!!🫡🫡
Why? You have done nothing other then copy/paste and you want to take credit for someone else work?
lol you cant even copy things with competence
Episode 1: Idk how a nuclear reactor works.
Last episode: "Any questions?"
👏🏽
"Now I know how a nuclear reactor works" - Boris
now i dont need u, throws legasov out of the helicopter
An excellent callback to when 'comrade' Kruschev (I think) asked him if he knew how a nuclear reactor worked.
@@xanmontes8715it was Gorbachev.
Scherbina's character arc was my favorite part of this entire series. When we meet him, he's a bit of an arrogant ass, your typical Party Boss. Not that different from the one Kholmuk encounters in Kiev. But the second he gets eyes on what's happened at Chernobyl, his bullshit detector goes into overdrive and he starts listening! They made the mistake of sending the one good man.
Oh I so loooooooove how he ended his testimony. “They tried 3 times and they failed.” And the last time they tried they created a nuclear catastrophe
mic drop
April 26th 1986
The passion with which he learned how a nuclear reactor works.
So sure of what he knew, that he asked the committee if they had any questions, and if they did, he was ready to answer.
All this considering that at the beginning, he did know anything about how a nuclear reactor worked.
yeah that's what I was thinking too I like Scherbina even when he threatened to throw our hero out of a helicopter because there's just something funny to me about communist flying out of moving helicopters
He does know concrete though
Worth knowing is that Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina after Chernobyl also got to handle the 1988 Armenian earthquake before his passing in 1990.
And even said as much.
He asked if they had any questions to cover his cough. It’s symbolic of both the damage done (cancer aka radiation), and the character foible of this dude essentially giving it all (his life) for justice, contrasting his feelings of failure seen elsewhere in the show
That cough landed on the crowd like 5 tons of boron and sand.
Landed on the USSR like Glasnost and Perestroika
I remember hearing as a young kid about Chernobyl and thinking, like COVID, oh it's just a small problem, it will go away in a couple of weeks lol , how wrong I was!!
@@therandomytchannel4318 It'll only go away in couple of thousands of years
Bazinga!
That'd be 5000 tons of sand and boron...
boris is hands down the best character in the series, very well written
Character?…
@@nicholasogburn7746yes a character in the show
@@providedyeti1518 while dramatized, he was a real person. I think that was the point they were hinting at.
to think that scherbina had to learn how a reactor works from scratch and was able to put it so simply to everyone and was ready to shut the fuck up anyone that would dare accuse him of not knowing what he was talking about
absolute chad
If you can understand something to the point where you can put it in simple terms it’s much easier to teach it to other people. It helped his testimony that he actually knew what he was talking about but could also go into detail if needed
Especially cause it's very easy to get lost in the minutiae of nuclear physics when explaining the context
It was really a good thing that Shcherbina knows how a nuclear reactor works.
I hear he can also fly a Haul Craft.
Stellan Skarsgard is incredible in this role.
Skwisgaar Skwigelf wasn't in this flick you silly boy.
He’s amazing in every role I have seen him in…that voice is powerful.
The fourth time they failed, was April 26th, 1986.
*Mic drop*
This the best explanation I've heard of what set this catastrophe in motion.
Commissar Ambatakum took the blame.
Unfortunately it's not entirely accurate either. Later investigations found while some safety protocols were overlooked or changed on the fly in the moment the primary cause of the meltdown was design flaws in the MKRB reactors.
The plant workers and supervisors did contribute to it but were rail roaded by the Russian government as the fall guys so they didn't have to admit the design of the reactor was flawed
@@Drizzlybear1 I appreciate the additional insight. Do you have a link or two highlighting the new understanding? I do wonder about the people dynamics involved as well as the actions of the supervisors are all too familiar and aren’t limited to one nation or system of government. Whether it’s people trying to gain influence in “the party,” or managers trying to win bonuses or curry favor with the leadership and shareholders, the pressure applied seldom works out in the long run. I guess I can see the acts of the supervisors fitting what I know of high pressure power structures.
@@mikemcaulay9507 Links really work well on TH-cam comments but if you look up the IAEA report about the Chernobyl meltdown it's a good report.
The issue is Russia tried to cover so much up it's hard to FULLY understand how much you can blame the human factor and how much you can blame the reactor. The general consensus is that the reactor had several key flaws that were the primary cause with the human errors being a secondary factor that contributed but without the inherent flaws likely wouldn't have caused the meltdown
@@Drizzlybear1 tone can also be tricky on TH-cam. I wasn’t trying to say, “prove it,” though I do try to ensure what ever I take on has solid evidence. I just wanted to ask for it in case you did. I’ll follow up on the search you suggested. I’ve noticed some videos allow links and others don’t so I thought this might be one where it was allowed. :)
The model builder needs an award.
A "Order of Lenin", maybe.
@@marcotolomio5269How about an "Order of the Red Banner" award or hero of socialist labor?
@@224dot0dot0dot10order of crap ideology pushed by BolshevikJews to control and indiscriminately murder nonjews. Communism is and always has been a Jewishplague on the rest of the world
The look at 3:25 "So proud of you Boris. I taught him everything he knows."
Legasov: "That's my fucking comrade!"
That cough is so subtle…
not really subtle at all though.
About as subtle as a neon sign saying "HERE BE SUBTLE" with sirens going off.
Bravo Vince
They say that the mustard colored dot is still in court to this day.
I think that's there to stop copyright strikes but idk
That mustard coloured dot is a symptom of radiation poisoning comrade
That’s radiation ionizing the air xD
@@MinhNguyen-ps8lothey gave us the propaganda color..😏
You didn't see a mustard colored dot because it isn't there.
I didn't realize until this scene that Boris actor is also Luthen in Andor. He can monologue like no one else sometimes.
He also plays Baron Harkkonen in Dune
he’s also bootstrap bill turner in pirates of the Caribbean
I love both of them 😭
And Linus Mosk in Andor was the naked shit-talking miner in Chernobyl.
Also Fomin is the doctor in Narkina 5 prison
The most perverse irony that has ever existed. The greatest nuclear disaster was a safety test. It would have prevented everything to have just to say the test was successful and carried on.
Are you asking if Bryukhanov, Fomin, and Dyatlov could have lied and pretended to have completed a successful safety test? If so, they probably could have gotten away with the deception for a short while. But eventually, the KGB would have found out and heads would roll. You would not want to get on the KGB's shit list by deceiving the State.
Realistically this design was doomed from the start. They are extremely unstable at low power. They havw since made some modifications to that type of reactor so its less likely to melt down now.
That yellow dot throughout the whole clip on screen should be nominated for an Oscar for staying in character.
That’s a nice model of the plant.
it doesn't have any fins, release the hounds.
I want that prop to display at home!!!
He did such a good job. He almost forgot he’s acting the way he’s talking in this room.
Stellan Skarsgard was fantastic in his role as Shcherbina. He started out cold, indifferent, somewhat arrogant. But after he saw things for himself he was ready to move heaven and earth to support the people trying to clean the mess up. Once we get to this point in the story, you can tell he had zero f__ks left to give, would not gloss things over, and spent his entire presentation almost daring someone in that room to challenge anything he said. His grim determination to support the Liquidators, combined with Legasov’s stubborn persistence to get the truth out may have saved more lives than either man ever ultimately knew. And even after Chernobyl, Shcherbina, already slowly dying at that point, went on to coordinate recovery and relief efforts following the 1988 earthquake in Armenia.
Something I hadn't considered before is this. Why was the test never conducted on the other reactors that came online over a decade before the disaster?
It likely was, but on Reactor 4 the test was modified on the fly to a lower power state of 200MW.
It most likely was run on other reactors, but under different circumstances. The problem was not in the test itself on that 4th try, it was in the reactor. Reactor had Xenon poisoning from running on low power during day shift. The test even should have been done by< the day shift, but was not possible due to the low power setting. In the nigh shift, Djatlov ordered the power to be raised, which did not work because of the Xenon, so the test was impossible and they should have waited for the Xenon to be burned in a controlled way. But he did not know about the Xenon poisoning and also not about the positive void coefficient of that reactor type and its effects. The cranked the reactor to its maximum, void bubbles formed, Xenon was burned and it became uncontrollable.
This chain of unfortunate events could have been stopped in different ways:
- if the Xenon poisoning would have been recognized for what it was
- if the events during day shift were different (no lowering of power output -> no xenon)
-if Djatlov had listened to the concerns of his team or if the team had stood up against him and stopped the test
- Maybe if the design of the reactor and or of the control rods would have been different/safer (no positive void coefficient, no graphite tips on the control rods) there might have been a chance to divert disaster in the last moment by triggering the emergency shutdown.
In the end, they tried to shut it down, but it was too late, the control rods gut stuck due to extreme heat and their graphite tips made the core go berserk even faster...
Because the Soviets had a habit of speeding things along to make themselves look better than the West.
@@chriswatters1049 saying that as if the west isnt guilty of the same
@@BlacKHellCaT78 the West normally doesn't need to speed things up to match the East. The East, for most of history, was catching up to the West
That was the case until Deng Xiaoping
They were never able to successfully run this test at any reactor of this design. After the disaster and the issues with the reactor design were fixed, they still did not try it. They found, like any computer farm or power plant that you would build an uninterrupted power supply, basically a pile of batteries hooked in to instantly power the critical infrastructure until the generators kicked in. After seeing the scene in the cabinet room where they tell Gorbachev that if the water underneath gets hit by the"lava" and destroys the other reactors, kills probably 70 million or so and makes, what, 25% of the planet uninhabitable, I always wondered, if there was a nuclear war and these plants were all destroyed, as I am sure they were targets, how much radiation and fallout would they throw into the atmosphere.
They probably would throw less than chernobyl as the explosion force came from inside the reactor itself. The water explosion is an overstatement but it would have severely impacted Ukraine
@@benedekhalda-kiss9737The water thing was an exceptional overstatement, the 2 to 5 MT yield exceeds the largest bomb in the current US arsenal (the B83, with a 1.2 MT yield). The decimal should be moved at least 7 places over, and realistically there wouldn't even be an explosion at all.
Also the three engineers who went in didn't consider going in to drain the bubbler tank particularly hazardous, here's part of an EX UTOPIA interview with one of them from 2019:
> everything went okay - we opened the valves, and heard the water rushing out of the tank. When we returned to the surface I gave my dosimeters back. I don’t remember the measurements at that point either, but there wasn’t any kind of high radiation reading there.
After the 3rd failed test they should have just said "you know what? We'll cross that bridge if we get to it"
And this is how he was given control of Arrakis
Nice link
I gotta rewatch this series....again
You don't see a yellow dot because it isnt there.
Anyone who sees the yellow dot is delusional
The simplicity and control of his spoech/voice simply brilli
The last time they failed was April, 26, 1986.
>walks in dropping a bottle of vodka
>today we shall talk about
>HIC
>how dyatlov blew up chernobyl
>points finger at fomin
>HIC
>falls down
Chernobyl was such a good series it felt like an HBO's apology for the Game of thrones last season.
There are but four seasons. What is this poor last season of which you speak?
I cried at Boris and Legasovs last scene. Boris was a good man. An honerable man. .... That's the saddest thing about Russia. Great and strong people.
Goddamit, now I have to watch the series again tonight.
Makes me mad they only had 10 year sentences and formin worked immediately with russia after his release
Captain Tupolev is still one of my favorite actors......
“Go to 105% on the reactor!”
Nah, he's just an arrogant ass.
You arrogant ass! You've killed us!
@@lebojay105% is possible but absolutely not recommended.
I don't know how accurately this court proceeding is portrayed, but it's really awesome how they explain us, laymen, the things in a way we can easily understand them.
Stellan Skarsgård could play any character in any film and make it riveting.
Roose Bolton seems to have recovered from that stab wound.
The Leninists send their regards.
It began with of all things a request to be considered for promotion.
He was the one who mattered most😥
Schcherbina had the best character development of the series. From a calcified bureaucrat that didn't understand anything about nuclear powerplants and radiation to explaining exactly how everything works.
It would not have been that difficult to have kept the diesel powered pumps running in a "jockey" mode so if main line power failed they would have already been running and the response time would have been - maybe - 10 seconds.
No way. You may ask why? The answer will be given in the following testimony: back in the day in USSR we wanted it to be CHEAPER
Water tower, BIG water tower, would be easier.
A town need water tower anyways.
@budisutanto5987 They had the SAOR tanks but those were only intended to be used if generator power never comes on.
I don't understand why it takes 60 sec for backup generators to power the pumps. If normal power is lost to the buss, the generators should immediately start and the ABT roll to the emergency buss.
Soviet engineering, I guess. They have to cut an apple into 3 pieces first.
because generators are big hulking pieces of machinery that take time to speed up. they're not talking about lil baby backup generators that people might buy for their house.
@@sillyking1991 I know. It still shouldn't take 60 sec.
there are currently nuclear reactors operating on board USN submarines that take longer to start up. now, before you freak out, they also have emergency systems that occur automatically that more than compensate, and they're tested with extreme regularity.
i can't speak to why those systems take time to start as opposed to just being able to be pushed on....well thats not true, i know that its partially because of all the valves and such that need to be manipulated. what i should say is i can't speak to why they're designed like that, considering we have diesel engines attached to trucks that just...start up. Likely it has to do with some tradeoff in efficiency or cost. It may also be related to how much power those generators put out, as opposed to a MAC truck. i've not seen the numbers, but i wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were way more powerful.
My point is that that is a practical reality. what "should" be doesn't factor into it. @@xomthood
Sure it would. Once they spin up, they need to warm up enough to keep going when you start drawing power. Even in a 5-7KW generator on a boat it needs 20-50 seconds to run before to start drawing power from it. If you don't they stall out because the actual converter slows the engine down too much.
@@xomthood
I take it the safety test was a failure.
Nah all good
There were some readings...
3.6 reontgen. Not great, not terrible.
One problem with this scene is that the test was run in multiple Soviet nuclear stations over some time and the people on trial were ordered to run the test, while another order came in to keep the reactor running longer than usual.
"The fourth time they tried, they blew up an entire city in a delayed reaction explosion that we still do not fully comprehend."
You would think that after three times a failure, they would try another method, right? Perhaps batteries
You overestimate the Soviet Union
Look at my Boris go talking and explaining about how a nuclear reactor works ❤❤❤
That last line was perfect.
At least they found out it wasn't safe. That is the point of a safety test, after all.
Mi desierto, mi Arrakis, mi Duna 🥵🥵
The fourth time they tried, the entire nation failed....
I was 5 years old when it happened. I remember that our street tested all fruits and vegetables with a Geiger counter before consuming them. That was in Germany, many many miles away from the desaster. And yet, we had some fall out. Not much, but enough to not eat anything without testing it.
Crazy times
I grew up a little closer in Hungary. In that socialist era they tried to keep it secret as long as it possible. I was 16, often was listening Radio Free Europe from Munich in short wave capable radio. I had heard it here about the disaster first. The socialst officials didn't care about our health at all, there was no Geiger-Müller counter, you'd better not talking about it, beacause they figure out you listening the forbidden radio. 1st of May as students we had to march in their fucking parade under the sun and under the radioactive air. I knew at least dozen people around me (classmates, friends, neighbours at my age), who died in their 20's, 30's, in cancer.
I've read that things like truffles that people would dig up from the ground to sell or eat themselves had to sometimes be discarded due to unacceptable levels of radioactive contamination from that fallout. They did the right thing by testing the food first.
@@unr3alGaming yes, wild mushrooms or herbs have been the same.
We have been lucky that our neighbor had a good Geiger counter
dat yellow dot bro makes me nervous
Well...now I need to rewatch this. Got recommended clips from this show too many times.
same actually
Shocked at the high quality of the miniature. Thought it would be made of Soviet knockoff Lego’s.
Roose Bolton could play Putin 😂
We need that
@@GermanConquistador08 no we don’t. Russia is the same as it’s always been, bitter and left out with no history.
@@Cooz. Russia has no history ? C'mon now. You can hate the country or it's governments without saying such bullish*t.
@@Cooz. lol okay. I definitely don't support Russia's actions in Ukraine but to say that Russia has been left out and has no history is an ignorant and salty statement to say the least.
@@Cooz. you’re very ignorant. Do some research and come back to correct your false claims.
Question remains if that crew was failing this whole time.
Why were they still allowed to run nuclear reactors!?
It wasn't the crew that was at fault, Dyatlov was merely a scapegoat for the disaster he did everything he was told and the safety test would end with initiating the instant shutdown button AZ-5, the test itself required the reactor to be pushed into its limits and people in the control room already knew that, what they didn't know was if all the control rods were pulled back, initiating AZ-5 would have disastrous consquences due to the tips of control rods being made of graphite.
I want that model in my house
У него красивый голос. Низкий, хрипловатый.
🦇
So a safety test blew up the reactor, I think it fair to say that this test was a failure.
Fine example of Russian design, engineering, and maintenance.
Couldn't they just had a large battery bank to supply the 60 seconds for the pumps?
I assume an electrical battery could not do the job in 1986 compared to diesel fuel generators. Perhaps today the technology is more advanced.
Not sure, remember the diesel submarines used batteries to power the electric motors and other systems on board for hours. I find it hard to believe they could not power water pumps for a minute.
@@jeep146that's actually pretty accurate motors have an intense surge of a rush of power and high amperage when they first come online after a status of being turned off and completely cold
They then have to come back down from this huge surge and afterwards they can begin to supply their constant output at a more stable rate
If you want back up motors to power something you need to either adjust for this huge influx of power at the beginning of the back up motor's start cycle so it doesn't fry whatever it is the motor will be powering
Or you must already have the backup motors running in tandem at a constant output that matches the primary motors used to supply your power
I think you guys might be underestimating just how large power plant nuclear reactors are and just how much water needs to be pumped through it.
Using even the largest batteries available back then would have been akin to filling your swimming pool using a turkey baster.
3:59
comrades left the chat :)))
When I was younger, I genuinely thought that the nuclear core was the one being siphoned for the electricity. Then I've learned that it's purpose is the same for coal to generate steam in a steam powered vehicle.
My reaction to that is just....seriously? That's very very dangerous with a chance of having unimaginable damage and for what? Steam powered turbine electricity?
The best possible way to change water into steam and create electricity that we have...
Even if we do fusion or antimatter neutronic scifi fantasy thingy, electricity will be generated by making hater hot which make a turbine spin.
It's all about making the most efficient system to make water turn into steam.
Also coal plant are way more dangerous and kill way more people each year than nuclear power plants
Takes a whole bunch of coal to do what one measly 1kg of U235 can do. And coal releases more isotopes than a nuclear plant
My frustration is why wasn’t it designed so that some of the power coming from the turbines could always be feeding the pumps. Then no need to shutdown the reactor. If they did need to shut it down they could do so in stages. Furthermore you had other reactors in the same location. Why couldn’t plant 4 get power from plant 3 if it needed to?
I'm no nuclear physicist or engineer, but the RBMK reactor designed was flawed, and well out of date by 1986, with its origins dating back to 1954, with little in the way of safety measures or consistent redundancy. The final design of the most "modern" RBMKs that were first used in the 1970s was rushed in order to "get it out the door". They had to operate exactly as designed with no basically no room for deviation from protocol or room for error, otherwise a major stability issue could rear its ugly head and quickly become unrecoverable. Chernobyl was not the first RBMK disaster, as you can see in a documentary about it here on TH-cam, but it was the most serious one by far. As far as getting power from other reactors is concerned, I think this test was supposed to be conducted as sort of a "worst case scenario", as in, assuming that all other reactors were shut down for maintenance or something, or otherwise damaged or inoperable for some reason, meaning that reactor number 4 was carrying the load by itself until there was a new emergency that would facilitate the need to use the diesel generators. They knew about the diesel generator flaw discussed in this video, and they were banking on using the "spin down" power to keep things going until the generators could take over. That was a very tight window of time, and like the RBMK reactor design itself, left essentially no room for error.
These issues weren't exclusive to RBMK reactors either. Design and operating oversights like these were very common in nuclear submarine reactors of the time, and shortcuts were taken all over the place in the design and implementation of new technology, in both the military and civilian sectors. See some of the other Soviet era technology botches of that time period, such as the K-19 "Windowmaker" submarine with a bad safety record up to and including a reactor issue, the Tupolev 104 civilian jetliner which was the first one made in that part of the world, being hastily derived from a military bomber plane and as a result of safety not being a priority, being involved in a number of crashes and other accidents, the Tupolev Tupolev 144 supersonic jetliner airshow disaster and poor overall design and performance, like needing a parachute to land or making so much noise in the cabin that the passengers had to write notes to each other to talk, or the fact that it couldn't make a trans-Atlantic journey, often referred to as the "Concordski" or the DUGA early detection radar array, which could be jammed by amateur radio operators in other countries. They just did everything they could to beat the west to the punch in technological or military might, or at least keep up with them, that they kept throwing safety guidelines out the window, to their detriment.
@@unr3alGaming Thank you for your comment, was very informative and I think you have hit the nail on the head. They did “get it done and working” over safety then tried to Work some safety in after the fact and ironically that’s what got them in the end.
chernobyl only had heroes.
the hardest mic drop
If it failed the other three times then why was it only on the fourth time that disaster happed
Because in the first three tests they didn't even come close to finishing the test to begin with, the safety test was supposed to end by initiating AZ-5 after the backup generators were up and running, they actually *COMPLETED* the test the 4th time they tried, but nobody knew the control rods were graphite moderated because it was classified as a state secret.
@@Atajew Thank you
What, why is there a bright dot? Why is there a bright line on the right of the screen? Why is the video jumpy like it was filmed on 2s? Are we trying to dodge copyright strikes?
Most likely against copyright yes
Does anyone else see the yellow dot?
Yes I see it too
What's with the yellow circle in the middle of the screen? it's really distracting.
Sounds like my Cal 2 transcript
Never understood why plants dont have steam turbine powered pumps? Use the steam from the core to spin a genny plant powers itself.
It would incur a loss in energy generated and distributed. To keep up, they'd have to go for a more powerful generator to nullify the loss.
The problem is that the nuclear power plant (any base load power plant, really) generates an absolutely massive amount of energy compared to what it consumes, cannot change its power output very quickly, and cannot operate at the sort of power level it takes to run the plant itself. It relies on the grid consuming most of its power. Once the grid connection is lost, the reactor has to shut down because there's nowhere for all its power output to go.
For short-term operations after loss of external power, the pumps can operate off batteries and/or flywheels, and the PWR and later designs allow for at least a few hours of passive cooling to allow for any backup diesel generator issues. So use of the main turbine isn't really necessary. Note that, at Fukushima, the flood-protected backup diesel generators were fine. Fukushima would have had no issues except for TEPCO deciding to save money by not connecting the flood-protected generators to the reactors, rendering the generators useless. (Well, one reactor was wired up, as it had an existing backup power input. Connecting the others would have been expensive so it wasn't done.)
For long-term operation, neither the steam turbine nor the reactor can safely operate at such a tiny fraction of their normal operating output. Even if you had a backup steam turbine sized to drive the pumps, the reactor would be well outside its safe operating area, and the power output would rapidly oscillate out of control if you tried to keep it in this unsafe regime.
Basically: Nuclear power plant reactors are not designed to operate while isolated. Loss of grid power is an abnormal condition, and the only suitable response is to shutdown the reactor, and focus on cooling systems to manage decay heat in the core and spent fuel in the pool. If there are problems with the backup generators, or access to portable generators, the consequences are not minor, but they are less severe with every hour the reactor has been shut down.
@@Alchemy-yr3sw'Fukushima, the flood-protected generator is fine.'
Meaning the generator can work under water?
I ask because this's not the information out there.
They said that the generator is underground and can't work because sea water filled that basement.
That would be cover up by T3pco.
@@Alchemy-yr3swno, I mean this: plant is running normal, power cut happens. Drop control rods, disconnect turbine, steam direct to condenser for cooling loop.
Use the steam generated in the core to turn backup steam powered pumps. A steam powered turbine pump would move more than enough water to keep the core cool. If steam level falls so far it won't turn the pump...good that means core is put to sleep.
@@aymuhspunjturbine off, steam direct to condenser. Control rods in. Steam powered turbine pump uses steam from core to pump water. If core cools pumps slow, if heats up pumps increase. Natural feedback loop.
I think I have radiation poisoning three's a yellow dot on the video
😂 haha you're right
There is only one thing I dont get. Why was the reactor put into a low power state for thr test. Wouldnt a spontanous piwer loss usually occur under nornal power generation and thus full reactor power?
Because that was part of the safety procedure it was a conducted simulation of what would have happened if reactor had all its power shut down, the control rod tips being made of graphite was hidden from the people working in the control room that day, they didn't know initiating AZ-5 would be the reason causing the explosion.
@@Atajew So they tested at low power because they knew the test was dangerous?
@@wilhufftarkin5852 No, they performed the test at low power because it was exactly what the safety test was all about. But they had no idea a reactor with no power would result in such a catastrophy due to its design flaws.
@@Atajew Ok, but would the scenario, that was tested, not occur under full power, if it had happened by accident?
@@wilhufftarkin5852 RBMK reactors are notoriously unstable when run at low power that's why the safety shutdown test was delayed and failed so many times and when they actually finished the test by initiating AZ-5 to do a complete shutdown, it caused the disaster as we know today. The reactor needed to be brought to its limits for the test to be done and that resulted in massive steam explosion which caused the reactor core to be exposed.
What's with the yellow circle?
It is the mouse cursor
@@viralrealm007 Okay, whats with the mouse cursor?
It’s a small circle, not great, not terrible.
@@JustSomeCanadianGuy man no offense but thats not the question
@@PsicosisYT r/whoosh?
why the yellow dot?
I want that model kit lol
Chernobol?
Why is Pac-Man on my screen?
What is that yellow spot doing?
that's the radiation ☢ 🫡
whats with the stupid dot?
A bit of a late idea, but couldn’t they just spin a separate turbine (one not in operation within a fucking nuclear powerplant) and see it’s electricity output?
just a bit late, yah xD
but probably not. at a guess the point wasn't just to test that they could actually get enough power out of the spinning turbine, it was to test the facility as a whole and make sure all systems were working.
but also, were they to ask for help, they'd have had to admit that they'd lied about the test already being complete. so they needed to keep the test in house.
-Graphite is a
-The Bullet
Autsch....
urmilii sharmeeli
1:59 "What if a power plant has no power?" What? It's a POWER plant!! That's like asking what if our farmers die from starvation. Why can it not power itself? Surely the plant makes more energy than what is required to pump some water? Who would make ANY kind of engine or generator that requires external energy to operate? Anything like that should always be designed to be self sufficient/regulating and should be able to work in a closed system.
just because it's self sufficient doesn't mean it's free from potential problems, literally 10 seconds after that quote he states two more possible things that could fully disrupt the operations of even the most self sufficient power plant, hence the backup generators.
There's not a single system that doesn't require energy input to generate output
@@vulpes7079 the world would be a very diffrent place if there was!
self sufficient? dude, your dreaming? there is no such thing. wouldn't you think that if there was, we all would have free and abundant energy by now?
This is what happens when people skip the Thermodynamics classes at school
1:58 "But what if a power plant has no power?" What? It's a POWER *PLANT* !! That's what it is!! Just use the power from the generator...
That was literally the reason for the 4 test he mentions at the end. They tried to do it and failed. It's simple in theory but in practice obviously not so much.
@@DarkNexarius mainly do to reaction design
Right - they knew that. They tried that. They failed. They were unable to get enough power to bridge the minute from generator shutdown to the required diesel backup speed to power the pumps.
The reactor requires a CONSTANT flow of water.... the back up generators take 1 minute to start. By the time those generators were started, it was to late...
a few reasons :
1. a reactor needs cooling even when its shutdown. it needs less cooling. but still requires cooling.
2. even when the reactor is operating, its possible for power to the pumps/building to get interrupted. breakers blowing out, switchgear fires, etc.
3. idk...its probably a dumbed down version of what the real test was meant to do that's missing some key details.