Pre-Chernobyl History: Rise of the RBMK (1954-1973)
Vložit
- čas přidán 12. 04. 2024
- Before the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant existed, there was a power struggle. A struggle between engineers and politicians, scientists and engineers. And at the center of it all, the rise of a reactor type that would go on to be the most infamous of them all. This is the first half of that story.
This script was written by Bobby, who has also crafted an incredible history paper exploring how misinformation and disinformation continues to impact the story of Chernobyl. You can read it here: docs.google.com/document/d/1m...
17:07 heavy-hitters :)
24:00 There is no "also". His recollections just differ somewhat.
24:05 "for some reason at proatom" was never meant to be said in the video
27:18 what is less UNcertain So in other words, there is uncertainty around the military application of RBMK reactors, although it may have factored into design decisions. What is MORE certain, on the other hand, is that safety was traded off for economy.
28:00 What follows is a quote from Karpan's book.
31:19 The absolute self-own. That was the one part that shouldn't have been shown. lmao I am no fair use expert, however, and this is an educational video...
The second video should come in two weeks. Next week is Chernobyl Week and That Chernobyl Guy is preparing some special content for you all.
For the record, the second page of Feinberg's In Memoriam was intended to be displayed:
"S. M. Feinberg made a great contribution to the development of Soviet atomic science and atomic
engineering, from the first experimental reactor to the power reactors of the Novaya Voronezh', Lenin-
grad, Kola power stations and other power stations now under construction, from series-manufactured
research reactors to unique custom-engineered heavy-duty high-load equipment. He is credited with some
of the ideas embodied by industry in living reality, and successfully developed at the present time. He
trained numerous scientific students who are now working in industry, in scientific-research institutes,
and in design and planning institutes. S. M. Feinberg was acknowledged as the leader of the Soviet school
of specialists in reactor theory.
The merits demonstrated by S. M. Feinberg were recognized by the Homeland in the form of Orders
of Lenin, the Order of the Labor Red Banner, and various medals.
Everyone who was closely acquainted with Savelii Moiseevich held his spiritual qualities, his pro-
found many-sided intellect, and his extensive erudition in high esteem.
The brilliant memory of Savelii Moiseevich will always be held dear in our hearts."
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🎉🎉top bxxee
Eetd
"It's cheaper"
(Valery Legasov)
Reminds me of the old contractors joke: Cheap/Good/Fast. Can only choose two.
But 1 is cheaper😊😊
That’s not just a contractor joke but a serious project management principle.
Let's be honest, we're all here because deep down we all want an early Nuclear Princess phase.
That's my dream
Screw that, I'm still a nuclear princess
@@oganvildevil Buuuuut, princesses don't say "screw that".
@@roderickcampbell2105 Yes they do. They say "(I'm going to) screw that (handsome rogue)"
I guess that it’s just curiosity.
What's even better than a regular saturday night ? A radioactive saturday night from That Chernobyl Guy !
Indeed :)
Funny. Weasel or not, Legasov clearly had a skill in speaking with a great deal of gravity. Those lines from the tapes...skillfull. Considering that Nuclear cleanup is a matter of radiochemistry, not reactor design and that they needed an apparatchik and skilled speaker to lie for them in public...... i realize more and more why they got him involved with the cleanup. Perfect choice, really.....
Legasov may have been more involved with reactors than he let on after Chernobyl. He was hardly an expert but he may have had some sort of leadership role. I may have been underestimating how "clever" this man was.
Don’t make the usual mistake and mix that a person being a good manager is also a good technician or vice versa. You can be an excellent manager but don’t necessarily be an excellent technician.
A colleague of mine just went from working (heavy physical labour) to diagnosis to death from cancer in under a month.
Sorry to hear that. What kind of cancer?
@@markusw7833 Spine, I believe. I don't know the details.
Did the diagnosis come as a result of an emergency visit?
You deserve many more subscribers. Your sources are really good, and your voice has a certain charm to it. And when you mention victims you treat tehm with the respect they deserve
You only lose your hair when you undergo chemotherapy. Cancer doesn't make your hair just fall out. It's also totally possible to be diagnosed and only have a few months to live, especially in the early 70's when detection and treatment were 50 years less advanced.
About one month between diagnosis and death, as far as Rumyantsev knew. The acute presentation requiring an emergency evacuation from a seminar is also interesting. Add the timing and the circumstances. It's possible it was just a coincidence, but we think it's also possible he was poisoned. It's worthwhile to bring up as something to consider further should more information become available.
If detected too late can happen. One day you lose consciousness, fall and hit head. They scan you for trauma and find cancer in head. Now its too late to do anything.
Also "radiation poisoning" (maybe with tea ?!?!) is a very rare occurrence in modern day Soviet Putinland... and abroad !
@@pie1860 Well its easy to go down that route. Like second Boeing accuser being dead from brief illness just recent.
@@pie1860 Feinberg was a very rare person.
Looking forward to the 2nd part of this video. Very much appreciated, high quality content.
Great day when he uploads
As always! :)
The name of that reactor, when translated directly, sounds like a doge meme: "Reactor, much power, channel-type" 😅
which makes it sound like something ordered off Wish.
18:55 this photo is pure vaporwave. I love the aesthetics of this building, this black and white futuristic design
Really appreciate this level and depth of context
So Polonium tea was a thing even back in the 70's
That's the suspicion. You'll see quite a bit of funny business in the second video, and that's before another pair of videos focusing on the post-Chernobyl narrative.
Khrushchev, as his party career started in Donetsk, of course was supporting coal mining to an extent. Also, Mayak incident kept party officials somewhat sceptical about nuclear enegy in early 1960s
Add:
Novovoronezh. I bet you could never pronounce it right)
Yeah, 5 times and I just gave up. The original recording is like 50 minutes long and 5 is me trying to pronounce Novovoronezh.
Well, you did it again, another fine video. 33 minutes of RBMK history goodness no less. All these reactor-y details I mostly know, but still there were a few new gems for me to discover in there. The funny thing is I'm actually reading the Sonja D. Schmid book right now^^. It was gifted to me not too long ago. Very interesting reading material, I have to say. Can't wait to see part 2 of this. You are spoiling us rotten.
Your "Novovoronezh" could do with some spit and polish, though😅
It was my 5th attempt and I just gave up LMAO
Were you able to follow the segment starting at 24 minutes?
@@thatchernobylguy2915 I think you just pronounce it the way you see it. No-vo-vo-ro-nezh. You know what novo means.
@@markusw7833
Yes, I most certainly could^^
22:59 The «export flaw» of RBMK is that it allows the extraction of the fuel elements at virtually any point of the fuel campaign. Thus, you can operate it in the mode that gives you a lot of plutonium but very little electricity. USSR was very meticulous about nuclear proliferation (remember the fuss about ‘the creative use of CANDU’ in India). Thus, VVER - the Russian vision of PWR seemed a better option in terms of non-proliferation.
What is more, VVER had and has better potential for integration with I&C systems for PWR
For a guy who invented the best reactor ever for its size and output, he sure underestimated human stupidity in pushing the reactor to the most insane levels humanly possible and even disabling every safety features.
In fact, from simulation its frankly scary to think about that tiny minuscule window they hit to make the reactor go critical, if you want a class A freak incident, look no further than Chernobyl, its surprising that DPRK was gonna build several of RBMK reactors with help from USSR but Kim Il Sung was so freaked out by Chernobyl, he genuinely forbade nuclear reactors to be built.
Inexpensive design that could be mass produced. It produced a lot of power and was good at making weapons grade plutonium as it could be reloaded while in use. The mker design is an evolution of the rbmk that was never built.
Did they ever actually use an RBMK for that.
Don't be too hard on the baby boy dressed as a girl. This was quite common practice at the time across Europe. There are many pictures of British boys before puberty dressed in a dress during the Victorian period.
Nah, can't be hard on him. It's pretty cool actually. Any negative attacks on Feinberg are intended as satire, and I hold immense respect for the man. :)
@@thatchernobylguy2915I think he deserves to be better known for his contributions to the progression of nuclear power development.
@@Play_fare ...
Happens today in the usa, only some are 30 year old men using girls bathrooms
@@rdallas81 Absolutely. I've always been a bit concerned about self-identification for gender. There is little doubt that transexuality exists, but I feel there should be some kind of "quality control" leading to a "get out of jail free" pass.
I like your videos of Chernobyl❤
Sellafield/Windescale should be warning enough against graphite moderated reactors. The decrease in reactivity with temperature should not be trusted as the lone negative feedback. Any reactor with a positive void coefficient should have more than one negative feedback factor. In fact, modern reactors are safe, and molten salt thorium reactors have the potential of being intrinsically safer.
I took a class Physics of Nuclear Reactors. Several textbooks were provided for the class. Highly recommend to use these textbooks for technical references. A lot of information about materials, sizes and etc physics.
Feinberg suddenly presenting with a presumbably stage 4 cancer and dying within a month is not so very improbable. That kind of thing still happens today... all too frequently sadly. A lot of cancers are asymptomatic until they get really, really bad and beyond the ability of modern medicine to treat, nevermind 1960s medicine. Not suprising either when you consider the high lifetime dose someone working at the heart of the early Soviet nuclear programme would have probably accumulated.
So you don't really have indicative symptoms until one day you need to be taken to the hospital with one month to live? I thought that was highly atypical. What may be "more frequent" is having months to live, from what I've read anecdotally.
@@markusw7833acute leukemia, acute pancreatic cancer, acute neuroblastocimia
You will be dead within a month, 2 months tops
@@rvanhees89 How do they catch that stuff so late? Seems strange to describe as a "relatively short illness". I also just googled acute leukemia as an example and the source I'm reading discusses treatment as taking years.
@@markusw7833 so you know then what the term 'acute' means in acute leukemia?
Yes treatment can take years, and then you can still die of the acute leukemia at the end of it.
Untreated, about a month
great subject. more of this please!
A part 2 is coming in the future :)
Great episode!
Perhaps Chernobyl would not have happened if the Soviets had continued development rather than have a 10 year pause.
This has been fascinating to see the background behind why reactors with no containment were built.
The no containment thing is Legasov's little harping point. Come the Vienna meeting and INSAG-1 that was massaged into a dome could've made no difference. Legasov was someone who spun everything in public. In the next video you'll hear a different account of him in private.
The EBR-I in Idaho was the first electricity generating NPP, wasn't it?
I think it was the first to used, it powered Arco Idaho for a little while
@@missano3856 EBR-I was the first reactor produsing electricity. Obninsk NPP was the first power station connected to the grid. In my opinion, in order to be called a nuclear power plant, a connection to the grid is necessary.
CZcams algorithms: Engaged
Thanks for the upload!
I hope you enjoyed :)
Go to the channel and watch all of the content! It’s great!
My god russian intellectuals have top beard game o.o
You're not wrong LMAO
They all had something else in common too… berg, stein… I just can’t put my finger on it. Same with the revolutionaries and high level leaders. Oy veh!
Do a review of the mker reactors that were designed but never built - based on the rbmk😊
Interesting idea... will look into it :)
I still feel that RBMK was a fine piece of value engineering in an engineering sector that has suffered economically crippling over engineering. The design required considerable amounts of hubris and stupidity to make fail. I would postulate that such levels of stupidity would likely cause the demise of most designs.
Operating instructions and procedures are as integral a part of plant as the physical steel steam pipes themselves. Ripping out a procedure will cause a failure just as certainly as ripping out a coolant pipe.
We tend to forget about the amount of energy required to enrich uranium and when power is at a premium that matters. There were four reactors at Chernobyl and three of them had uneventful lives and it took gross negligence and I flawed management structure to destroy one of them.
There will be two videos in June regarding alleged violations of operating instructions and procedures. Spoiler alert, emphasis on alleged. Also, tune in for the second pre-Chernobyl history video in early May.
This must be the archetypal comment for this channel. Just parachute in with an opinion predicated on woefully inaccurate understanding of the facts, while ignoring the content and message of half the videos that have been uploaded.
The RBMK's design violated dozens of different safety regulations. Stupidity was baked into the design, and it could blow itself up without violating any procedures at all. The accident is a story of procedures being flawed, not a failure to follow instructions...
@@MinSredMash He might not have seen some of the videos implying this. Won't be until June that the operating instructions violation allegations are tackled directly.
It’s kinda funny that I’m listening to this while playing stalker shadow of Chernobyl
You can absolutely die of cancer within a month of diagnosis. It isn’t that uncommon, especially in haematological malignancies. The median survival today for sufferers of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, for example, is six weeks in the event they cannot for some reason be treated. The treatments used today were not available in the early 1970s: in fact the initial trials for them (in the USA and Europe) were published in 1981. In 1973 only children had a reasonable chance of survival. (Needless to say, the 1981 trials form the basis of today’s treatments, but are far from the whole story.)
Interesting. I didn't know cancer could be that aggressive.
Where has the second part gone?
Second part has been rescheduled for the 11th of May :)
7:35 Novo-Vorozhnez?
Apparently it is the one word I will never be able to pronounce.
@@thatchernobylguy2915 Oh don't worry about it, half of the people here wouldn't care or even know enough to notice it :)
@@thatchernobylguy2915 try spelling it differently in the script 😁
vo-ro-nezh
Why did the Soviet Union use pencils instead of pens in space?
Because their engineers couldn't afford the gravity of the situation!
"I'm an engineer; I fix stuff..."
Cancer doesn't make someone's hair fall out. Chemotherapy does.
That is known...
And gravity ☝️
Alexandrov resembles Aleister Crowley.
Each time you say "novovorozhnev".. is like a bullet
The irony is that it took massavie user error to cause the accident
Uhm... keep watching this channel.
7:14 Profitability? That only started to exist in the USSR under Khrushchev
This informs me partially of some possible motive for Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Soviet era fanboy Putin may have been accustomed to think of Donbass as well as Crimea key parts of the Soviet empire, Donbass coal, Crimea for beaches and ports that don't freeze. I wonder if he likes tea?
Fuck yes. RBMK porn surprise Saturday morning release. I’ll take it and willing to continue living 2 more weeks. Are there any videos of an actual build, installation and configuration of the inside components and detailed video of the actual pressure vessel per say I guess the whole housing or whatever makes up the reactor pit and all the cool shielding and the crazy amount of pipes and pipes all doing different jobs. I can’t find anything. There is a short 32 min black and white YT video that shows some but really nothing. I think I am obsessively interested in there not being a large reactor vessel that houses everything together and will safely depressive In emergency SCAM and safe shut down. But the RBMK and the never disappointing Soviet crazy unsafe engendering and work conditions is fun to watch. The great High Channel type reactor (loose translation I think) with its individual pressurized fuel channels and all the rest. I think they thought they were clever because NO ONE else would or did or thought that would be a good idea. I need to see with my own eyes a reactor being built with that absolute massive black graphite block stake towering over and hundreds of fuel cells with the energetic and terrifying but beautiful, unmatched and undefined Uranium 235 waiting to quietly and efficiently do its job non stop for years on end. Clean safe energy that never happened because of unfortunate accidents and hysteria and fear mongering the public using lies and manipulation and fake information to achieve their agenda. Probably ungodly rich oil tycoon’s that own everybody and just buys people whenever needed. They can’t loose and the people that loose are us smucks that live simple but honest lives and are good people. The salt of the earth. If we could come together and work as one and talking and hashing out the fine print and disagreeable parts. That being called compromise and having everyone win. The American public making real changes because they can’t ignore 200 million adults that are nicely and coherently voicing our demands and not taking no for an answer. Can we get everyone to focus and care about one important improvement we expect from our government that is there to serve us and at the end of the day that should be the accomplishment we all feel good about. We could actually do that tomorrow if we fucking tried and no one brought their pride and ego to the meeting. Everyone could boycott the thing and they would fix the problem yesterday because we know they can and they have the money. Every single product I buy and when I go shopping has turned to a bad miserably experience no matter where I go. I have never felt this is 33 years. When Going out to buy just the essentials to stay alive turns into an existential crisis of how can I make it somehow work this week or seeing the price of basic everything slowly go up every week year on end and the quality actually noticeably going down as well and NO ONE doing a damn thing about it is fucking wild to me. We could change that trend. big biss really feels like they can add sneaky fees and surgcharge or raise price repeatedly for no logical reason, shrinkflate, AND take a Couple Doritos out of my cool ranch bag!? The corporations and fat cats definitely are taking advantage of the fact they can literally do whatever they want to profit and make their lives probably I imagine pretty damn fantastically euphorically amazing a lot of the time. Why are we letting them openly abuse and mock and to be completely honest let them laugh and think we are stupid and inferior cattle that they own and continue to profit from and do you know where all this started from and continues to this day stealthy destroying and dividing and pulling apart the very fabric that makes and endorses and holds America together. If that goes. If communities start to isolate and pull away and put their defenses up and have no desire to even understand or come to some agreement with their fellow citizens, us the US public, the good guys, you know we are all on the same damn side. It pisses me off. We could come together with a singular purpose which is for the greater good and humanity and forget the individual just for a little while…I have faith it would turn out nothing but positive and righteous. The big win win for everybody. If any sees this try to think how can this be done. Spread the word that we are tired of being taxed and old people you never met and don’t particularly like or even think isn’t allegedly doing evil things normal people can’t understand or even comprehend in their spare time spend our hard earned money on stupid shit and things we don’t want and don’t agree with. We want to invest that money 80% back in solely to making America 🇺🇸 the USA the greatest country in the history of time better. We would love you to use the trillions you print and the constantly lost or misplaced trillions flowing freely through the pentagon of all places. We will no longer stand by and enable the old corrupt geriatric and barely functioning but rich as hell politicians laughing and partying it up in Washington. We are talking action. We are bigger and also just massively bigger than you .think about it
I don't think you'll outlive the system in a mere two weeks.
@@markusw7833 I know it doesn’t make perfect sense. I just wrote everything that came to mind in an interesting alter statement and didn’t mess with one thing. And I purposely did not go back to read or obsessively rip apart Nd change. I would probably feel embarrassed and slightly ashamed if I know it as the whole. But here it will sit floating through the void aimlessly for eternity and if it’s lucky it will pop up randomly or be found by someone just going through pages of comments for no reason and maybe it will annoy or not make sense or change some kid or mother or have some sort of meaning 10, 20, 100 years from now. I don’t know. I have sent off anonymous nonsense randomly into the void for years. Is it for nothing and no one having consciousness and understanding will see it so it technically exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. I am seeking someone with answers that make sense to me.not go back aJust a train of thought for no reason that means what you make of it.
@@dways1998 How's it going?
Too many ads on your vudeo lad
There was technically a railfanning clip in here. Based.
Infants are not crossdressers.
How do you know?
@@markusw7833 That was an unnecessary addition to an otherwise excellent video, the poorly timed and unhilarious remark unfortunately calls the content into question just as it includes a trump meme out of nowhere as it's about to head into implied conspiracy with poor sourcing. This is historical content, it deserves to be treated seriously throughout.
@ImpulseNOR Seems like you have some trouble making up your mind about the content. If some parts are too distracting and upsetting to you keep it a personal issue as opposed to conflating them with everything else. People who lose their minds over trifles probably aren't getting much out of these videos anyway. Remarkable what silly and insignificant things are what stand out for some viewers. Had a couple of Trump supporters upset over the use of his image like he's suddenly Muhammad or something. Lol, talk about irony.
@markusw7833 no you didn't.
First Russian nuclear power plant.
What is going on with Russian nuclear physicist beards? That's the real question 🤔
The real biggest mystery of Chernobyl! :)
@thatchernobylguy2915 seriously. Like what is THAT? I need to know why. It's so..... square.
Suggestion for you. October ends ' song is goinna go viral. React to it and join tthey hype train!
Kurchatov was not "the father" of. He was "the stepdad". His value was just the ability, to correctly read the tons of documents and plans stolen from Manhattan project. Not a neglible thing after all.
Great documentary. Right up to the point where you decided you had to bring American politics into it. Bye bye.
Bye bye.
Many incorrect and fictional "facts" like with any video of yours.
I wrote this script. Virtually everything is sourced. Please refer to any "incorrect and fictional facts" you believe you've encountered watching the video.
Please elaborate whenever you will have time
@@Silver2004Avalhadia Don't hold your breath...
Well, feel free to educate us unwashed peasants at any time. I'm sure we're all waiting with bated breath.
When you accuse someone of spreading misinformation and bring into question the integrity of their channel as a whole, it is expected you provide some evidence that supports your accusations... it's quite ironic that you didn't provide any given the nature of your accusations.
I was really enjoying this until the snarky ridicule of Donald Trump had to be included. How stupid and immature in an otherwise informative documentary.
Get a thicker skin, buddy. It's not as if the guy you're supporting is a total stranger to snarky ridicule, although he's not exactly the best practitioner of it.
😢