this might be a little off-topic, but I don't know where else to ask

i saw a video simulating the real time unfolding of the chernobyl disaster and it blew my mind how much the engineers ignored every warning and security measure possible

(yt link for those interested: https://youtu.be/WMr3-ShzB08)

why would they do this? i'm not a nuclear engineer, but i'd much rather risk my job, my career and leave millions of people without electricity than push the safety thresholds even by the tiniest bit. trying to look for explanations online leads to liberal, anticommunist bullshit like "russian incompetence" or "they wouldn't dare question the generals" or whatever. i want an actual, technical (and social) explanation without any liberal bias, which is why i'm asking it here

  • multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    18 days ago

    it blew my mind how much the engineers ignored every warning and security measure possible

    Iirc, it was because they were running a test and they expected warnings. But it was something about one shift not telling another that the safety valves were actually off (or something like that). Even though wikipedia is a terrible source I think they have a minute by minute breakdown of the events leading up to it.

    • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      18 days ago

      This, and also the fact that the reactor had an outdated design. I can't entirely fault the USSR for that design, and I'm not a technical expert, you have to make do with what you have. But the way the shutdown method supposedly worked, was that it would cause a temporary spike before the cooling could begin. Even if they did try to shut it down earlier, it might still have failed.

      • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
        ·
        18 days ago

        The AZ-5 system doesn't cause significant power excursions in most cases

        The reason it did on the night of April 26th is because the operators had negligently removed so many control rods completely from the core that the graphite tips of the removed control rods were able to displace water in the core upon being reinserted and make the already extremely dangerous power excursion situation even worse

        There are still many RBMKs operating safely in the world and I think they have an undeservedly bad reputation, but yeah, they should be shut down and replaced lol. They lack many modern safety features, the worst omission being the lack of an outer reactor containment building (which may have prevented the disaster from being so bad). The design is impressive for the time and place where they were developed but yeh