Chernobyl miniseries - coming to Sky and HBO in May 2019

thought it was very good. surprised it started so quick, i thought the first ep would be introducing characters etc so you felt more connection, didn't detract though.
 
I'll definitely be watching this :)

For anyone that is interested i did a case study for uni on the subject. Really opened my eyes up to the brutality some men faced to try and save the plant despite it already gone. They were wading in radioactive water trying to get the pumps working to cool the reactor.

For my engineering disaster I chose the Chernobyl power station. One could argue that the fault lies with the design, and so engineering of the reactor itself, but other similar RBMK-1000 reactors are still widely in operation today, albeit with significant improvements learnt from Chernobyl’s flaws - one of which being the control rod design.
This I would say falls into the PDP 1 - practice bracket, as although this ultimately did not prevent Chernobyl, processes and systems were reviewed, scrutinised and altered to prevent future, similar accidents from occurring with other RBMK reactors in operation.

In regards to the events that caused the accident, and how reflective practice could have helped the situation, I draw attention to Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief engineer and supervisor of the test.
The test should have been carried out according to an approved plan, with a thermal output of no less than 700MW to ensure safety.
When the reactors power dropped from 1500MW to 30MW, Aleksandr Akimov, unit shift supervisor and Leonid Toptunov, senior reactor control chief engineer opposed conducting the test when the reactor was in such an unstable and unsafe state to run.

This is when Dyatlov should have used reflection to stop and think about what was happening, evaluating the conditions, analysing his decisions and consulting with the test procedure which would have highlighted that the reactor was far below safe thermal output.
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Instead, Dyatlov ordered the test to continue, threatening job termination and ordering to boost the reactors output. The reactor was unresponsive to power increases due to xenon poisoning. All but 6 control rods were withdrawn by the operator to force increased reaction levels which stabilised at 200MW and would not rise further due to the poisoning. This again is where reflective practice could have taken place, since the reactor was not responding how it should have, and the removal of so many control rods was a violation of procedure due to the reactors instability when the core is filled with water, and therefore the test should again have been aborted.

Since the reactor was running on less than half power, only one turbine was running to take in the reduced steam. Tests began and steam to the turbine was shut off and the main water circulating pumps power was supplied by the coasting of the turbine. As the turbine decreased, so did the water flow, increasing water temperature which caused steam voids within the core and increased the reaction rate.
The raised reaction eventually burnt the xenon away causing more reaction. Control rods were dropped into the core through an emergency shutdown, but being tipped in graphite they displaced coolant, causing an explosion. Fuel rods fractured, blocking the control rod columns and causing them to be stuck only 1/3 inserted, spiking power more causing a meltdown.

He knew the reactor was unstable, and with 3 unsuccessful tests done prior to the experiment, he should have reflected and planned more into what could potentially go wrong, and communicated more, or at all, with the reactors designer and science manager.
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Really enjoyed the first episode - so horrifying and so scary how adamant they were that a meltdown hadn't happened.
 
That was intense to watch. I mean a lot of what I've read doesn't come close to seeing it on screen. Interesting they paint Akimov as the pushy person too which isn't what my research found. Pity Dyatlov lives till 1995 when most died of horrific radiation poisoning
 
JBuk said:
he knows the outcome, therefore how can any of it possibly be interesting? Heh

I watched that new Ted Bundy film yesterday, wish I hadn’t bothered as I realised I already knew the ending ffs!111
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I don't want to ruin the ending of Apollo 13 for you but....
They make it in the end :p

Watched the first episode of this last night due to the recommendations here, it was very very good
 
wolfie138 said:
bit surprised to see wiki says only 28 died, I thought most of the town would have copped it!
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The statistical death toll is extremely hard to estimate. The deterministic deaths are probably well known (the 28), but the stochastic effects of the accident (i.e. development of cancers in later life) is less well known.
 
I enjoyed it. Watching it had me reading up on the other nuclear accidents again. I find it interesting that the majority of the major incidents were caused by what appears on the face of it simple mistakes.
 
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