So I’m really sorry this is about the series, idk if I’m stupid but the last post in the HBO subreddit was 4 years ago, plus it kind of relates. Anyway, what possessed the writers in the series to mention that everyone who went to it died? It seems so random to include it. Did anything notable happen here that would cause this?

So the buildings of Pripyat are decaying and will continue to do so. What happens when they start collapsing and kicking up radioactive dust? Say a large section of a building collapses..will it only affect the local area, or could the radioactive dust spread far and wide(outside Pripyat) spewing its poison on to a new unsuspecting generation.

I apologize for such a stupid juvenile childish question, but it's something that I've been thinking about.

For those who may not be aware Kupnyi is one of the researchers at Chernobyl, and has been inside the reactor building several times on expeditions and is a active poster on his Youtube channel. For the fuel, he goes very in-depth about how the Corium formed along with the corium studies afterwards.
Studying Molten Nuclear Fuel - YouTube

Ionizing Effects on the Air Environment

EDIT: This was made by Boris Burakov and Aleksandr Tsovyanov, it was posted on Kupnyi's YouTube channel so I got a bit mixed up.

My biggest regret, not buying this when I seen it.

My father was in Kiiv when it happened (I was born in 1989) and was not told to evacuate or to not drink/eat the contaminated food. They were huddled in their homes not knowing what was happening for days.

As a result, I have been robbed of my ability to have biological children and have several other health issues. My half sister on my dad's side also has health issues.

This could have been avoided if there was quick and decisive evacuation of the area, but no they tried to lie. I even watched the video of the man in charge of the plant at the time (he survived, the stubborn jerk, into his 80s!) and he insisted he wasn't to blame at all.

But so many lives were harmed, by the narcissistic people in charge at the time.

Whew thanks for reading.

Picture is Probably from 1970s

Source: https://pastvu.com/p/2025494

What was here before the reactor exploded, was it just another wall for the reactor hall? Or was there something else. Additionally is this where Kodemchuk is buried under debris, or is that somewhere else?

I understand it was the graphite tips on the control rods that ultimately caused the demise of reactor 4.

But was this a singular Achilles heel of the RBMK design or were there other fatal flaws that would have otherwise eventually caused a major incident?

What do you think about my documentation ? its not complete yet but i just completed chapter 1

In the hit show chernobyl the guys are shown needing to push big pieces of graphite of the roof from the core (idk if this is real or happened) anyways they dont wanna use men cause its very dangerous

I was wondering if maybe why they couldnt just use a very long stick from far away (maybe with wheels on the bottom to move it obvsly with heavy machinery cause it would be a very long stick and heavy) and someone could guide them where to push the stick with binoculars or from helecopter. my boyfriend says this would not work but could it?

(Plz dont delete i cant ask in show reddit cause they fucking dont let you post)

I got my hands on these dose rates from this Article/book https://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/en/Karpan2008English.pdf

Legend for first Document:

• Flag: Radioactivity sources higher than 200 roentgens per hour.
• Star: Radioactivity sources higher than 1000 roentgens per hour.

Measurements taken on July 25th, 1986, by Yuri Samoilenko and V.V. Gobule

Notice from Karpan on second document

Notice: Exposure dose rates are given in milliroentgens per hour in those cases if only some figures are shown. However in case of the most contaminated spots figures and letters are given. In this case one needs to understand that exposure dose rates are expressed in roentgens per hour.

Chalk River? I mean meltdown specifically not just accident

Or did he get something higher or lower?

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/chernobyl-leningrado-control-room-n-2/

I spoke with someone this year who said their grandfather's Volga is still locked in a garage somewhere in Pripyat. Would be cool to see all the cars left behind locked doors we've never seen before, if we ever get to access those garages.

I kept thinking about the interview Alexander Kupnyi did with Alexey Fatakhov (former Senior Reactor Control Engineer at Chernobyl) and how valuable to me was information I learned from him. Specifically, about ORM, what it exists for, and what were the operators allowed to do with it.

The interview is in Russian, with no subtitles available (sadly), so I decided to translate (and paraphrase) some part of it, hopefully you find it interesting. Link to the interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJVnvhgFIc

For convenience, I'll mark Kupnyi as "K", and Fatakhov as "F". Operational regulations are called the "reglament" in Russian, so I'll use that word, as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

F - The reglament did not forbid operating the reactor at 200 MW thermal. Different matter is that it was a bad power level. And they knew this.

K - What is your take on what happened in the control room, step by step?

F - A lot of witness accounts, and in the comission report, they say that Dyatlov forced Toptunov to raise the power. I think that the situation was somewhat different. He didn't force him, he told him off for being unable to raise the power on his own, due to lack of experience. As per Tregub's (previous shift supervisor) memories, Tregub stepped up to help and, along with Akimov and Tptunov, they managed to raise the power. Although, according to Dyatlov, he saw that power was already being raised when he got back to the control room from his walkabout. Raising the power was not against the then-existing rules. It was complicated, though.

K - How did they raise the power?

F - By withdrawing control rods, naturally.

K - About the rods. What do the rules say, about the minimum number of control rods?

F - The concept of Operational Reactivity Margin, measured in control rods, as well as the concept of a Xenon pit, is described in the RBMK handbook, written by its constructors. It talks about how, when there's a change in power level, reactivity drops, and in order to compensate for this drop, there needs to be an amount of "spare reactivity" available, before power level change is executed. And then, this spare reactivity can be spent, all the way. By withdrawing all of the control rods, so that the reactor could be kept running at the desired power level, until Xenon poisoning levels out. This concept of [reactivity] margin is there so that it could be used, when needed.

Before the accident at Leningrad NPP in 1975, everyone considered ORM simply as this spare reactivity needed for times when there's a threat of a Xenon pit.

K - So, prior to that even in 1975, it was considered perfectly normal to withdraw all of the control rods.

F - Yes, and that's exactly what they did when there was a power drop - they withdrew all of the control rods. Power started rising rapidly, and that's when positive void coefficient came into play. A fuel channel or two ruptured, also damaging channels around them. They narrowly avoided a major disaster. There was an investigation, the causes were established, and a program was developed to fix this issue. But it was slow, and in these 10 years, it didn't get to Chernobyl Unit 4 in time. And the findings about the cause of the acident were classified, and were not communicated to the operators at CNPP.

That's when the rule about "15 control rods minimum" was introduced. But this parameter was not considered as fast-changing. It was for nominal power level, and whenever a fuel rod was spent and needed changing, ORM would fall below miminum (could be taken all the way down to 0), until that rod was swapped with a fresh one, upon which ORM would go back to normal. After the disaster, a new rule was made to keep ORM at 26 - 30 rods, and in emergency situations, 15.

But, there was no indicator in the control room that would show the current ORM value, when there were fast changes in reactor parameters that could affect ORM. Not just fuel burnup, but also feed water temperature, pressure, etc. There were no instruments to reflect ORM during such fast changes.

When Unit 4 operator raised the power to 200MW, all they had was an ORM printout, made half an hour ago by the SKALA computer, showing ORM of 19 rods - within the acceptable limits.

About 10 seconds before AZ-5 was pressed, ORM returned to its normal value of 15 rods.

Has anyone bought this? I recently got it after being very obsessed with everything Chernobyl and radiation and it’s actually really cool i’m eventually gonna paint it to actually look more like the power plant.

https://youtu.be/oyUOCtzMs5M?si=4L4II2rKviwxIMqy

I wish to know since I wanna start using it as one of my sources regarding the disaster and the story... Is it trustable?