POST 4: CHERNOBYL

The run-up to the Chernobyl disaster began shortly after the Soviet Union began its military nuclear weapons program in the early 1950s. By its very nature, the program was declared top secret and accidents were therefore not reported to the IAEA (even though Russia was a member). This created the impression in the West that the Soviet Union's nuclear industry was accident-free and that its reactors were extremely safe. ERROR, BIG ERROR.

Soviet nuclear agencies were even forbidden to share information about accidents, design errors etc. with each other!! Thus, operators could not learn from each other's mistakes.

The Soviet Union's nuclear program was initially military in nature and was only used to generate electricity for civilian use much later.

The RBMK-1000 reactor (which was used, among others, in Chernobyl) is a descendant from a military reactor. To save time and cost, the designers did not put the RBMK-1000 through a prototype phase. It was immediately put into production and operationally deployed.

One of the drawbacks of the RBMK-1000 was its sheer size. The core had a height of 7m and a diameter of 11.8m! The reactor carried a fuel load of 192 tons enriched uranium.

Looking at a photo of a Western NPP one will notice one or more dome shaped structures. These are very specialised structures that not only protect the reactor cores, but contain them in case of accidents.

The size of the RBMK-1000 reactor simply made it impractical and too costly to enclose it in such a special containment. The RBMK-1000 reactors of the ChNPP were housed in typical industrial structures. The two powerful explosions simply blew the reactor and the surrounding structures apart.

🇺🇦 @ukraine_report 🇺🇦