[Closed] Anyone watching the Chernobyl prog on BBC4?

Just found it

I am now...

Rachel

yup, worrying stuff.

One for the iplayer list - cheers.

If Chernobyl interests you then read Chernobyl Prayer...

Thanks will catch on iPlayer. Saw a documentary recently about the guided holiday visits you can take there now.

Also worth watching

Adrian Edmonton doing a pretty good job of serious acting

Rachel

Yep, some strange fascination about this event, and the old reactor control room is like an immense time capsule, imagine that tech compared to modern tech running power stations. The future tech of that arch is amazing, will it actually last 100 years and give them time to remove the reactor itself?!

Would love to take one of those holidays there, its not like I'm having any kids at any point!! Would be the ultimate ghost tour.

imagine that tech compared to modern tech running power stations. The future tech of that arch is amazing, will it actually last 100 y

Sadly control systems like these stay the in use even after they are obsolete so it wouldn't surprise me if reactors from the '80s and '90s were still using similar systems.

working at very high heights,

working in extreme weathers

working with lots of other different trades,

working on an innovative site, using technology and equipment possible made just for that job ,

working abroad with many foreign speakers,

working on a millenium building thats going to be remebered like a modern building for many years.

whats not to love.

The risk of radiation sickness probably

Yeah, watching it.

Odd it's taken so long to get this plan together, typical.

Sounds interesting, on my iplayer list too.

Anyone fancying a holiday, this chap runs trips to out of the way places incl. Chernobyl, some great photos on his blog. - http://yomadic.com/.

Only caught the end after spotting the thread, but will definitely be watching it later. Strange fascination with the subject. Would be amazing to visit.

Did like the guy who had the H&S job title. That'll look good on his CV if they only skim read it!

I highly recommend "The battle for chernobyl" , got to hand it to them them ruskies sure were brave. Those poor Bio-robots 🙁

Those poor Bio-robots

Yeah shovelling the shattered graphite core off the roof with just leather and lead for protection 😯

Great program.
Pripyat is still high on my list of places I want to visit..

For those interested in the nuclear legacy of USSR

I saw this documentary on 4 a few years ago - horrifying and fascinating. They were studying the people living around their nuclear testing sites in some bizarre experiment

There's some awesome recent reports on 28dayslater from people who've been to the various sites around Chernobyl:

[url= http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/going-shopping-in-pripyat-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-ukraine-oct-2016.t106629 ]Pripyat[/url]

[url= http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/nuclear-reactor-no-2-v-i-lenin-nuclear-power-station-chernobyl-oct-2016.t106539 ]Reactor #2[/url]

[url= http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/pripyat-river-cranes-and-vehicle-dump-pripyat-ukraine-chernobyl-zone-oct-2016.t106520 ]Vehicle Dump[/url]

[url= http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/search/1224960/?q=pripyat&o=date&c ]lots of other stuff[/url]

Will record this at 2.35am cheers. Remember the liquidators or whatever they called them,first people in for the clean up, enter hell do a shift come out to a handshake ,a certificate, the equivalent of £70 and an uncertain future, scary!!

Bookmarked

The yanks history of waste disposal is more than a bit suspect when you look into it. They had navy personnel unprotected booting barrels of waste over the side of ships in deep foreign waters back in the day!

Fact is nobody can be trusted with it. All governments have lied/covered up/played down accidents, contamination incidents and waste disposal.

adjustablewench - Member . Thanks for that , pretty harrowing stuff 😐
That's going to stay with me for a while.

You used to be able to do tours of a chernobyl style reactor in lithuania and walk on its roof - the same type of roof that blew off in Chernobyl.

vongassit - Member
adjustablewench - Member . Thanks for that , pretty harrowing stuff
That's going to stay with me for a while.

Sorry I did say it was horrifying - when I originally watched it I couldn't believe it didn't get more of a reaction.

A different level to an 'accident' such as Chernobyl

STW group visit and bike ride around pripyat 😀 Really is a fascinating place, it skates a little bit close to disaster porn I suppose but what a location, even without the reactor etc it'd be something.

Snorks aside anyway

Yep, some strange fascination about this event, and the old reactor control room is like an immense time capsule, imagine that tech compared to modern tech running power stations.

Sadly control systems like these stay the in use even after they are obsolete so it wouldn't surprise me if reactors from the '80s and '90s were still using similar systems.

Try 60's and 70's. But until someone figures out how to remote hack a relay bank I'd rather have the old tech. There's always a flipside.

You used to be able to do tours of a chernobyl style reactor in lithuania and walk on its roof - the same type of roof that blew off in Chernobyl.

I believe you actually meant to say reactor lid there. No big deal, it's a huge mass designed to contain pressure and also acts as a biological shield. It's not really any different in principle to any other PWR (or any reactor for that matter).

I'd not realised that there were 11 of these reactors (RBMK) still running.

Many thanks for the heads-up PDF.

That was a brilliant documentary. Narrated by the lovely Ms. Baxendale too!

A sobering reminder of what happened back in April 1986. In a JFK, Lennon kind of way, I can remember exactly where I was when the news of Reactor 4's demise broke. I was on an outdoor pursuits course as part of my engineering apprenticeship. We were based at Swinton Castle near Masham, N. Yorks and as the news broke, I remember looking out of the window to see if I could see any smoke. Dick 😀

Fantastic project and what an achievement in design, communication and commissioning. Moving 36,000t of steel by finely controlled hydraulic steps was an amazing feat.

They kept mentioning that it was the heaviest object ever moved on land but it is similar weight (around 36,000 tonnes) to the decking of the Milau Viaduct.

hot_fiat - Member

I'd not realised that there were 11 of these reactors (RBMK) still running.

It's actually not a terrible way to do it apparently, especially given the tech of the time- the failures that blew up chernobyl 4 were all things that could be fixed for the other reactors. Though, it took the disaster itself and the head of the Russian nuclear institute committing suicide to bring that about...)

The one that always surprised me was that the Chernobyl plant itself ran until 2000.

OTOH, probably best to keep them running since the permanent spent fuel storage facility for the RBMK fuel assemblies, er, doesn't exist. So at the moment all the fuel is sat in spent fuel pools. Well, except at chernobyl obviously.

The actual disaster was a combination of poor design, very poor operation (they were doing safety tests but the paperwork was hideous with bits missing and crossed out etc) and operating the reactor on the edge of its design limits.

Whilst I think it would be much harder to happen today computer controlled systems are not infallible.

...and also russian secrecy meant that the operators of the plant didn't have complete knowledge of its limitations and flaws, which is genius. When you read the combination of factors and the fact that all the risks were known beforehand, it's proper facepalm stuff but at the same time, total standard human operating procedure.

Always seems unfair that people talk of human error so much though- most of the bad decisions made in the plant were a result of bad training and information. Human factors rather than human error.

The design of the plant was'nt so bad, it's a direct copy of UK designs though certain features are missing. The whole containment project has been pretty much funded by the EU, with some of the kit manufactured in the UK.

very interesting place to see.
so surreal to walk round a city thats been abandoned and looted for the last 25 years
some pics from a visit a couple of years ago.

www.flickr.com/photos/mhampshire/albums/72157643964846173
if anyone is considering going I recommend this guy.

He lives in chernobyl and knows more about the place than pretty much anyone.
excuse the bad links but I dont post on here much anymore

Whilst I think it would be much harder to happen today computer controlled systems are not infallible.

It's a similar design process to the oil and gas industry, called SIL/LOPA.

You start with a process and determine the probabiblity of an event (simplistically say: opperator sets reactor to 150%), happens once a year due to human error when he meant to type 15%.

You then have a PC that's supposed to warn him, one in 10 he ignores it.
You then have a relief valve thats meant to prevent overpressure, one in 10 it fails to lift.
So your probability of it blowing up is 1in100 years. Which is probably acceptable for something like a water pump at a utility company when the only cost of the failure is a loss of face.

That's your LOPA (layers of protection analysis).

Then you add SIL systems (safety integrity levels).

You can't trust a temperature probe not to fail, or a control valve, so you add 3 of them (voting 2oo3) to the reactor, and 2x shut down valves on the inlet, so now you've got say a 1 in 100 year failure rate for the SIL system, 1x10^2 = SIL2. You can go SIL 3,4,5 etc, either with more sensors and valves or independant systems.

Usually nuclear plants are a level higher than oil refineries/petrochemicals, which is why almost every year sees one of them explode, but we only get a nuclear problem every 10 or so (3 Mile Island, Winscale, Chernobyl, Fukushima).

ah, makes sense tinas -- we've been trying to promote a Bowtie style way of working / program assistance, but I don't have sufficient industry experience to properly understand it - just the coding 🙂

Fascinating, thanks.

Programme downloaded to watch later.

It was quite interesting on an engineering scale, mildly interesting on a politics scale but extremely interesting on a devistation scale.

The tin hat ought to be painted a light blue/grey colour to blend in with the sky.

MT wasn't the RBMK an indigenous design developed from the Soviet AM1?

The design of the plant was'nt so bad, it's a direct copy of UK designs though certain features are missing.

i watched the program last night and it was fascinating but very unsettling.

What was unsettling?

Fascinating to see such abundant wildlife settling in. Of course in 200 years time we'll all be devoured by massive two headed flesh eating elks.

for me when they were filming the inside of the reactor after the explosion. you could see the film being affected by the radiation of the reactor. the unsettling part for me was that it was probably filmed by a person and not a robot, the thought of standing next to the blown reactor releasing all that gamma radiation and filming it.

i was trying to add a picture of somebody stood next to the elephant's foot taking a photo not long after the disaster. i couldn't get the link to work unfortunately

Oh yes all the initial cleanup they did was mad. Some guys made a hell of a sacrifice.

racefaceec90 - Member

i was trying to add a picture of somebody stood next to the elephant's foot taking a photo not long after the disaster. i couldn't get the link to work unfortunately

Probably Korneyev... Pretty fascinating character, and still alive- he worked tracking down and sometimes tidying up fuel and corium but mostly seemed to pretty much fall in love with the reactor, he ended up having to be banned from it for his own sake after making hundreds of trips into the sarcophagus. "Russian radiation is the best radiation!"

A lot of the earlier photos were taken with a camera on wheels being pushed by a dude, or by Korneyev doing selfies- it'd kill you in days if you got too close but it's an inverse square deal so you could be just a few more feet away and be relatively safe. .

They went to a lot of trouble to protect the structural steelwork so they wouldn't need to go inside and repaint due to radiation but what about having to change the ropes, sheaves and drums on the cranes? We have to change our (wire) ropes every two years on our Demag overhead cranes at work.

I guess they've gone with massive over-capacity.

I.e. They expect to need to lift 20 tonnes, so everything's rated for 50...

(Or whatever)

I guess the requirement to pro-actively replace cables is for health and safety o the basis if they fail then something will fall on people working below. That's not the case here - if the cables fail then nobody will be underneath. And I know from installing overhead cranes (not physically obviously) anything to do with overhead cranes have a huge factor of safety applied.

I suspect they'll be able to shuttle the crane into a maintenance access area or something where they can carry out maintenance on the crane and the robot on the end of the cables.

It'll still need constant maintenance. There is no way those foam or rubber seal that were sealing the canopy to the building will last 100 years. Also the de-humidifiers and units managing the moisture levels protecting the structure will need replacement and maintenance.

An interesting engineering issue.

@raceface post the link here, we'll find a way even if its via a screen shot and repost.

OP brilliant PSA. Excellent programme. Next time I am putting some silicon sealant around the kitchen/bathroom or spraying some lube on the bike I'll think of it.

this was the pic link http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KxRuWaD0sXg/U7MHoNyBuiI/AAAAAAAAJhs/qyyqpQXmDQY/s1600/The+Elephan t's+Foot+of+the+Chernobyl+disaster,+1986+(1).jpg

Elephant's foot

[img] [/img]

Edit - I tried to link the shot raceface did but it doesn't work, I think it's because of the spaces

There's also this one which I think is a long exposure as you can see Korneyev ghosted twice and some torch trails. [img] [/img]

IME Russians have a different outlook on risk, life and bravery. Their nuclear, aviation, military and space programs are littered with people who went beyond what normal westerners would consider doing.

They had a marksman shot bits off the elephants foot in the early days so they could work out what it was composed of. The geological name for it is: corium.

This website is fascinating too: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

Elena Filatova is the daughter of one of the reactor technicians, who taught her all about radiation exposure. She used to ride a very fast motorbike on the deserted roads inside the exclusion zone.

Thanks

Raceface's link - it turns out most of url wasn't needed for the link to work here

[img] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KxRuWaD0sXg/U7MHoNyBuiI/AAAAAAAAJhs/qyyqpQXmDQY/s1600/ [/img]

kcal - Member

ah, makes sense tinas -- we've been trying to promote a Bowtie style way of working / program assistance, but I don't have sufficient industry experience to properly understand it - just the coding

Ive never done bowtie but my understanding is its a bit like a swiss cheese model in a SIL/LOPA methodology so you put one event in the middle, and have a whole probability tree on one side of initiating causes. So the event can be something more general like 'fire', whereas LOPA needs something specific like 'spilt fuel ignited'.

Exellent PSA - thank you.

Really interesting.

They went to a lot of trouble to protect the structural steelwork so they wouldn't need to go inside and repaint due to radiation but what about having to change the ropes, sheaves and drums on the cranes?

Crane maintenance? Read all about it:

[url= http://www.par.com/files/9013/6605/8015/Lift__Hoist_International.pdf ]Cranes at Chernobyl[/url]

Crane maintenance? Read all about it:

Surely the radiation will cause fatigue of the cranes though.

Amazing engineering in that prog, interesting if the release any of the footage of the deconstruction of the reactor roof and debris over time

This website is fascinating too: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

Elena Filatova is the daughter of one of the reactor technicians, who taught her all about radiation exposure. She used to lie about riding a very fast motorbike on the deserted roads inside the exclusion zone.

FTFY 😉

Surely the radiation will cause fatigue of the cranes though.

Not in any meaningful way, the steelwork inside our AGR's has been getting bombarded at full power for over 40 years now, not including erosion from displaced graphite and CO2 travelling at bugger knows what speed (I forget, but it's pretty damn fast).

Lift and Hoist International - that must have been on Have I Got News for You 🙂

Steel in operational reactors ages by a combination of stress and neutron bombardment. Gamma doesn't affect steel significantly and there will only be a very small number of neutrons from the corium, since there's no chain reaction.

IME Russians have a different outlook on risk, life and bravery. Their nuclear, aviation, military and space programs are littered with people who went beyond what normal westerners would consider doing.

Ok cool thank you. I wasn't aware that the different forms of radiation affected the steel differently.
Seems like a good job.

Was basing my comment on conversations with a satellite designer who said that radiation affected the materials, not enough specifics clearly

In the Soviet Union You did as you were told.

She used to lie about riding a very fast motorbike on the deserted roads inside the exclusion zone.

It was a fascinating programme. Early nuclear safety in this country was pretty haphazard too - OH's grandfather was a senior engineer at Windscale, he was there for the fire and that was pretty touch and go. They were trying to wallop the burning fuel rods out using lengths of scaffold pole - when everyone had reached their exposure limit, they went down the local cinema and dragooned as many men as they could find to take turns walloping the rods.

Lena's stuff is pretty interesting, nobody seems to know what's true and what's not now. And the "debunking" is classic conspiracy theory stuff, there's at least 3 variants of the "true story" and people seem happy to believe them all, as long as they contradict hers.

I'm 40 years old and totally fascinated by this disaster, it came at a time in my life when I didn't appreciated the force of nuclear power. But now I can see what a massive issues this is and what a huge implication it had of the globe and nuclear industry.
I'd love to go to the site but don't think I'll get a chance.

I found the website fascinating, what parts were lies?

Riding around the exclusion zone, it never happened. Was debunked over ten years ago when the site first did the rounds.

Liquidators have my complete respect, they weren't as clueless as many like to believe, nor were the fire crews that attended that night. A good few of them knew what they were going into.

I've downloaded the programme, I'll be following up the links over time. Fascinating subject.
Thanks for the heads-up.

In the Soviet Union You did as you were told.

Is this a bad attempt at 'in Soviet Russia' joke or are you trying to be serious?

Most of the people who died cleaning it up didn't do it because they were told to. Yes, there wasn't a full disclosure of the truth, but you have to remember that firemen or the scientists who waded into the radioactive water knew full well this was not safe. They were heroes. They sacrificed their lives. I wish Soviet system was not built on so many sacrifices, but don't drag your 'they did it because they were told to' bullshit into this. They were raised with stories of people sacrificing their own lives for the common good. Any schoolchild knew of many heroes and they were universally admired. So, what you're saying is that they didn't know better, and did it as mindless drones - this is simply unfair and not true.

Just watched it, fantastic programme, what an extraordinary feat of engineering, talk about the bleeding edge of technology, having to pretty much make it up as you go.
Thanks for the PSA, I'd have been disappointed to have missed it.
Lardcore - while you may be correct, it's certainly a fact that the military sent in were promised that any exposure over 10 roentgen would result in an honourable discharge. They were lied to; they were then told they had to carry on because there was nobody to replace them.

Just watched it now, top programme and impressive engineering !

Maybe it's not so bad edf building our new reactor!

Interesting times for EDF
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988433/french_taxpayers_face_huge_nuclear_bill_as_edf_financial_crisis_deepens.html

Thanks for that link

Fairly old link but yep, EDF are a zombie company, have been for years. Arguably was inevitable from day one, since everyone worked very hard to produce favourable cradle-to-grave costs for nuclear without worrying very much about whether they were realistic...

Hurrah for too-big-to-fail though, they can keep issuing dividends right up til they sink, and be used to buy out shares in Areva, and then taxpayers can take over. Only question there is how much we'll have to put in.

Only question there is how much we'll have to put in.

Yup will be interesting as EDF bought UK Nuclear business so is liable depending on contracts, could get very sticky between UK and French governments. I didn't realise the French production was all above today's wholesale cost.