Chernobyl -Fred Pohl
 

I stumbled on this piece of dramatized historical fiction somewhere in the piles of paper products littering this hideout. I have become quite engaged with it.

It has also led me to read up on the various sources available on the web about the event.I
I note that Wikipedia still rates Chernobyl as the worst nuclear disaster, even though it mentions Fukushima Daichi. I consider the latter to be a much more active site, considering the large amounts of ground water passing through the ruined plant, and contaminating the Pacific Ocean.

I have to say that Pohl's representation of Chenobyl jibes pretty well with the various accounts and analyses I have pursued.

Pohl
 

I've always been interested in Chrenobyl and at one point was devouring information from all sources (some junk) [COLOR="Red"][spam link removed][/COLOR]. I agree on Pohl's take being in line with others.

[COLOR="Red"]And I just got [B]owned[/B] by the mods for being a spammer![/COLOR]

[QUOTE=Loyola Moses;572221]I've always been interested in Chrenobyl ...[/QUOTE]
Amusing: A tell-tale typo!

Chernobyl = Чернобыль = "Black tale"
Chrenobyl = Хренобыль = "хреновая быль" =(is a universal euphemism for:) "х...вая быль" = "f...ing bad tale"

[SPOILER]Not really; it really means 'common artemisia'. Apparently that place had a lot.[/SPOILER]

how about "chenobyl" hahaha [see the (current) thread title] - interesting, Murphy showing off, the errors are cleverer than us, they pop where you expect them less, and no-one sees them unless someone else makes a similar error in the same place :lol:

[QUOTE=kladner;448641]I stumbled on this piece of dramatized historical fiction somewhere in the piles of paper products littering this hideout. I have become quite engaged with it.

It has also led me to read up on the various sources available on the web about the event.I
I note that Wikipedia still rates Chernobyl as the worst nuclear disaster, even though it mentions Fukushima Daichi. I consider the latter to be a much more active site, considering the large amounts of ground water passing through the ruined plant, and contaminating the Pacific Ocean.

I have to say that Pohl's representation of Chenobyl jibes pretty well with the various accounts and analyses I have pursued.[/QUOTE]

I thought the HBO mini series was excellent. Not sure where to find it, but there are plenty of significant snippets on youtube that show the excellent quality of the series.
My favorite is when they are giving Gorbachev the bad news.
The one of the trial in which the accident is explained blow-by-blow is great also.
One last neat scene was "Not 3.6 roentgen, it's 15000 roentgen"

Gorbachev gets the news: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU4fT2P104k"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU4fT2P104k[/URL]

[QUOTE=tServo;572293]<snip>
Gorbachev gets the news: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU4fT2P104k"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU4fT2P104k[/URL][/QUOTE]I have to wonder at the multi-megaton estimate of the steam explosion that would have resulted if the slug of radioactive core material had hit the full tanks of water. I just don't think it would have been anywhere near that large. I doubt it could have managed a kiloton. But it might have been enough to take out the other reactors and spew plenty of radioactive material into the environment. We're talking about heating water into steam, and perhaps also exothermic chemical reactions involving the reactor fuel. How big an explosion could occur would be limited by how big the slug of magma was, how much heat it had to give, and how fast it could turn the water to steam. The steam explosion could have thrown a lot of the liquid water around. It could have blown the slug of magma to smithereens and launched the fragments all over creation.

Curiously, the three divers who opened the valves that allowed the tanks to drain did [i]not[/i] die of acute radiation sickness.

[QUOTE=tServo;572293]I thought the HBO mini series was excellent. Not sure where to find it, but there are plenty of significant snippets on youtube that show the excellent quality of the series.
My favorite is when they are giving Gorbachev the bad news.
The one of the trial in which the accident is explained blow-by-blow is great also.
One last neat scene was "Not 3.6 roentgen, it's 15000 roentgen"...[/QUOTE]

It is not often that I will watch something several times, but I did with this to absorb it all. I watched it on Hulu Live with the HBO Max attachment. As far as I know, it still available to watch.

I do not know if what the coal miners did while digging the tunnel is factual, no clothes, only shoes and hats. It would not surprise me if it was. The man coming in with the light blue suit certainly did not leave with one. Each miner patted him with some vigor on this shoulders and rubbed his face. One miner says, "Now you look like the minister of coal."

I had a hard time dealing with the killing of animals in the fourth episode. I know it was done, but too much time was devoted to representing it.

I found the minister ripping his office trailer up while yelling on his phone quite comical with others standing just outside listening to it all. The man walks out of the trailer dragging his phone by the wires and calmly says, "Get me a new phone," or something to that effect.

[QUOTE=storm5510;572438]It is not often that I will watch something several times, but I did with this to absorb it all. I watched it on Hulu Live with the HBO Max attachment. As far as I know, it still available to watch.

I had a hard time dealing with the killing of animals in the fourth episode. I know it was done, but too much time was devoted to representing it.

[/QUOTE]

Indeed it WAS difficult to watch. I think it was necessary to show the cost of the disaster in emotional terms rather than completely in physics terms. The toll on that young soldier must have been repeated thousands of times.
Another quick scene that brought it home, I think it was in an earlier episode, was a little girl standing by the side of a road looking up to see some empty busses going by. She then looks down the road and sees dozens and dozens of them, hundreds, all the way to the horizon, Of course, this represented the evacuation of Pripyat, the nearest town and the destruction of a community.

Also, following the young pregnant wife of one on the fireman brought the story back to human terms. Especially when she attended the "entombment" of her husband's remains and the other first responders in lead coffins in a pit filled with concrete.

[QUOTE=tServo;572511]Indeed it WAS difficult to watch. I think it was necessary to show the cost of the disaster in emotional terms rather than completely in physics terms. The toll on that young soldier must have been repeated thousands of times.

Another quick scene that brought it home, I think it was in an earlier episode, was a little girl standing by the side of a road looking up to see some empty busses going by. She then looks down the road and sees dozens and dozens of them, hundreds, all the way to the horizon, Of course, this represented the evacuation of Pripyat, the nearest town and the destruction of a community.

Also, following the young pregnant wife of one on the fireman brought the story back to human terms. Especially when she attended the "entombment" of her husband's remains and the other first responders in lead coffins in a pit filled with concrete.[/QUOTE]

The young girl was leaning against a stone wall. Her boyfriend was working on a motorcycle as the caravan of buses rolled by. If accurate in time, the evacuation was only ordered after radiation was detected at another nuclear plant in Sweden.

Whoever did the makeup depicting the young firefighter deserves an award. I had never seen a human so gruesome in appearance.

In the first few minutes of the first episode, there is a man speaking, but not seen. I was quite stumped because it sounded like Richard Harris. Then, his face is shown, but I did not get the connection. I later learned it was Jared Harris, his son. Then I noticed some facial similarities. I found the vocal tones and patterns very amazing. It fooled me.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;572429]I have to wonder at the multi-megaton estimate of the steam explosion that would have resulted if the slug of radioactive core material had hit the full tanks of water. I just don't think it would have been anywhere near that large. I doubt it could have managed a kiloton. But it might have been enough to take out the other reactors and spew plenty of radioactive material into the environment. We're talking about heating water into steam, and perhaps also exothermic chemical reactions involving the reactor fuel. How big an explosion could occur would be limited by how big the slug of magma was, how much heat it had to give, and how fast it could turn the water to steam. The steam explosion could have thrown a lot of the liquid water around. It could have blown the slug of magma to smithereens and launched the fragments all over creation.

Curiously, the three divers who opened the valves that allowed the tanks to drain did [i]not[/i] die of acute radiation sickness.[/QUOTE]

The reactor normally produced 3,200 megawatts thermal energy as steam to produce 1,000 megawatts of electric power.

At the instant the reactor blew up ( explosion #1) it was producing at least over 10 times that,
about 32,000 to 35,000 megawatts. Some estimates say it was 120 times normal max power. storm5510, since you just saw it do you remember the figure? Of course, the instruments that measured the power may not have the range to go high enough or might be too slow to give a final reading.
Can anyone convert this amount of thermal energy to equivalent megatons of explosive energy?
Explosion #1 was the one that blew the 1000 ton lid off the reactor, exposing the core to the atmosphere. The core then reacted with the air to produce hydrogen which caused explosion #2.

[QUOTE=tServo;572535]about 32,000 to 35,000 megawatts.
...
Can anyone convert this amount of thermal energy to equivalent megatons of explosive energy?[/QUOTE]Googled and found this site [url]https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-energy-from-MWh-to-kT.html?val=35000[/url]
35,000 MW[FONT="Arial Black"][COLOR="DarkOrange"]h[/COLOR][/FONT] = 30.11 kT TNT

[QUOTE=wikipedia]The Hiroshima bomb, "Little Boy", is estimated to have been between 12 and 18 kilotonnes of TNT (50 and 75 TJ) (a 20% margin of error), while the Nagasaki bomb, "Fat Man", is estimated to be between 18 and 23 kilotonnes of TNT (75 and 96 TJ) (a 10% margin of error).[/QUOTE]

I remember that we had the first wave of the series' impressions; I will not repeat what I wrote there. In short, it was heart-touchingly accurate (I'd lived in those times, though not in Chernobyl; I've been to a Chernobyl twin sister town, too). The bus was accurate (Ukrainian bus assembly, they composited dozens of the same (real) bus into the landscape); we had this make of buses in central Russia too. The whole setting is very smartly chosen - it is yet another twin sister station in Lithuania iirc. It is a remarkable series. Character development is outstanding; the characters don't look like cardboard cutouts. The actors were brilliant. Accuracy and mise-en-scene details are strikingly good.

[SPOILER]Maybe we should merge those two discussion threads. (this thread predates the series by years; it was about a book!)[/SPOILER]

[QUOTE=tServo;572535][COLOR=DimGray]The reactor normally produced 3,200 megawatts thermal energy as steam to produce 1,000 megawatts of electric power.

At the instant the reactor blew up ( explosion #1) it was producing at least over 10 times that,
about 32,000 to 35,000 megawatts. Some estimates say it was 120 times normal max power.[/COLOR] [B]storm5510, since you just saw it do you remember the figure?[/B] [COLOR=DimGray]Of course, the instruments that measured the power may not have the range to go high enough or might be too slow to give a final reading.
Can anyone convert this amount of thermal energy to equivalent megatons of explosive energy?
[/COLOR][COLOR=DimGray] Explosion #1 was the one that blew the 1000 ton lid off the reactor, exposing the core to the atmosphere. The core then reacted with the air to produce hydrogen which caused explosion #2.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[I]Valery Legasov[/I], played by Jared Harris, stated in the trial, either "32,000" or "over 32,000," I do not remember his exact wording.

In recent years, I have seen two different actors play [I]Anatoly Dyatlov[/I]. Both portrayed him as having extreme hubris. During his career, he received two large doses of radiation. The first while installing reactors in submarines, and the second at Chernobyl. With all that, he managed to live until December of 1995.

Question: Why are thermal energy units expressed at "megawatts?" If this is heat, then Kelvin or Celsius might be easier to comprehend.

[QUOTE=tServo;572535]The reactor normally produced 3,200 megawatts thermal energy as steam to produce 1,000 megawatts of electric power.

At the instant the reactor blew up ( explosion #1) it was producing at least over 10 times that,
about 32,000 to 35,000 megawatts. Some estimates say it was 120 times normal max power. storm5510, since you just saw it do you remember the figure? Of course, the instruments that measured the power may not have the range to go high enough or might be too slow to give a final reading.
Can anyone convert this amount of thermal energy to equivalent megatons of explosive energy?
Explosion #1 was the one that blew the 1000 ton lid off the reactor, exposing the core to the atmosphere. The core then reacted with the air to produce hydrogen which caused explosion #2.[/QUOTE]I tried to find out how much power a slug of corium produces, without much success. I read that a lot of the heat is produced by the radioactive decay of short-lived isotopes. When the stuff hits water, a number of interesting chemical reactions are likely to ensue (zirconium grabs the oxygen from water molecules and releases hydrogen gas, for example).

I did however notice that temperature estimates were fairly consistent, somewhat above 2000 C. I had some idea of how big the slug of magma was, but wasn't sure what to do next.

Then, I recalled from physics that there is a formula for power that depends [i]only[/i] on temperature - the power radiated per unit area of a "perfect blackbody." The Stefan-Boltzmann Law says

[tex]\frac{P}{A}\;=\;\sigma T^{4}[/tex]

that is, the power per unit area is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature. For a BOTE calculation I'll treat the slug of magma as a perfect blackbody, take A = 10 m^2, T = 2500 K, and the known value 5.6703 x 10[sup]-8[/sup] W/m^2/T^4. (For a less-than-perfect blackbody, there is a fudge factor called the "emissivity," which is between 0 and 1.)

The above gives P = 22 megawatts, or 2.2 x 10[sup]7[/sup] J/sec, approximately. That would be enough to vaporize almost [color=red][strike]a ton[/strike][/color] 10 kg of water per second - if it could transfer the heat to the water that fast, which I'm pretty sure it couldn't.

A kiloton is about 4.184 x 10^12 J

re: hiroshima vs nagasaki bombs, we recently started following a Spanish (team?) youtuber as we ran into their "comparative" videos which we liked. [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxKfOOqCgs4"]One of them[/URL] debates exactly this, the two bombs being actually... small, by comparison. :razz:

[QUOTE=LaurV;572652]re: hiroshima vs nagasaki bombs, we recently started following a Spanish (team?) youtuber as we ran into their "comparative" videos which we liked. [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxKfOOqCgs4"]One of them[/URL] debates exactly this, the two bombs being actually... small, by comparison. :razz:[/QUOTE]

They measure explosions by height?
Granted, you can make your presentation anyway you want but that still seems odd.

Indeed, if you think about, you are right it is odd, but initially I didn't think about, I assumed it is kinda radius, or, if you take the wind into account, spreading area, whatever. We are not explosion experts (and the guys who made the videos are neither).

We don't remember why they are measured by height, but we do know that is how it is done. In a previous life we attended a military school to learn about nuclear and chemical weapons. One of the main things we studied was how to do downwind hazard predictions and how to calculate yield. This was almost 30 years ago so we don't remember much.

:mike:

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;574419]We don't remember why they are measured by height, but we do know that is how it is done. In a previous life we attended a military school to learn about nuclear and chemical weapons. One of the main things we studied was how to do downwind hazard predictions and how to calculate yield. This was almost 30 years ago so we don't remember much.[/QUOTE]My guess: The bigger the explosion, the bigger the fireball. The bigger the fireball, the higher it rises before "mushrooming out." Of course, if the fireball is big enough, it can hit the tropopause, which is like hitting a lid. The effect is seen in the "anvil tops" of thunderstorm clouds.

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;574419]In a previous life we attended a military school to learn about nuclear and chemical weapons.[/QUOTE]
[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PCVHtukS7Y"]The Big Bus safety briefing[/URL]

[QUOTE=tServo;572535]...storm5510, since you just saw it do you remember the figure?...[/QUOTE]

I watched some of the trial on YouTube recently. He said, "Over 33,000."

After watching the series for the first time, I was curious about where it had been filmed. Latvia, as it turned out. Naturally, the buildings and landscape were not exact. All that was really necessary was to put a mock-up of the red and white exhaust tower on top of a similar building. Everything else fell into place.