Chernobyl -Fred Pohl

[kladner]

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.

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

And I just got owned by the mods for being a spammer!

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by Loyola Moses

I've always been interested in Chrenobyl ...

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"

Not really; it really means 'common artemisia'. Apparently that place had a lot.

[LaurV]

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

[tServo]

Originally Posted by kladner

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.

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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU4fT2P104k

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by tServo

<snip>
Gorbachev gets the news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU4fT2P104k

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 not die of acute radiation sickness.

[storm5510]

Originally Posted by tServo

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"...

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.

[tServo]

Originally Posted by storm5510

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.

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.

[storm5510]

Originally Posted by tServo

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.

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.

[tServo]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

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 not die of acute radiation sickness.

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.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by tServo

about 32,000 to 35,000 megawatts.
...
Can anyone convert this amount of thermal energy to equivalent megatons of explosive energy?

Googled and found this site https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-...html?val=35000
35,000 MWh = 30.11 kT TNT

Originally Posted by 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).