This is its distinctive feature, if we're not speaking of complex technical aspects. It was an integral device that had to be placed into the belly of the wrecked 4th block and would have provided continuous information about the temperature there, about radiation fields and some other parameters. But, in practice, the effort to put this needle in the right place from a helicopter was huge; and nearly no information was received from it. And if we took the accumulated statistics, then the statistics on the operation of RBMK reactors were minimal compared to the VVER. "[11], I feel sick thinking about exactly what is most likely to happen to us in the near future [Major industrial accidents will happen] unless the necessary measures are taken. This convinced us that the fuel mass that was left after the explosion was in a sub-critical state. Because, of coursethis is interestingeveryone arrives, the dosimetrists measure them and everyones clothes are contaminated. Viktor Alekseevich, SIDORENKO, a former member of our Institute, corresponding member of the, USSR Academy of Sciences, was included in the composition of the, Governmental Commission. I said that the next disaster will happen in South Kazakhstan, with phosphorus, when everything that lives within a 300-kilometre radius will die. It seemed that not absolutely everyone was fully informed, because mothers with children were seen on the streets on the morning of the 27th. For some reason, many sources state that there was one explosion, or two explosions, or a hydrogen explosion, or a non-hydrogen explosion. Adamovich: Whats his name and patronymic? [7] Legasov thought people worked together efficiently and this put them in good spirits. Another set of tasks was performed by the construction experts from the Ministry of Energy who were building a temporary village called Green Cape (Zelyoniy Mis). The first was about the population. After that, evaluate what type of energy must be replaced with nuclear energy, then assess which regions are the most appropriate for it, and then define the requirements for the devices that will optimally fit the tasks that stemmed from the fuel and energy balance of the country. They started the work. So as to not limit the plans to introduce new nuclear power capacities and considering the overload of the machine building industry, create a parallel branch in nuclear energy that would allow building sufficiently powerful reactors without using the shell concept, without burdening the machine building industry with the complex technology for manufacturing highly reliable reactor shells that are required for VVER reactors. And, indeed, in the hands of qualified people that did their job well, our devices seemed both reliable and safe to operate. The procedures established at this station were sharply different from ours. And magnesium oxide, the most heat-conducting of all ceramics, similarly carried the heat away. The station personnel was transferred to a Pioneers camp Skazochniy, that was 10 km from Pripyat. I remember an episode well when we, with General Kuncevich, arrived at Pripyat. I must resign. A lot of work was done when comrade Pologikh Boris Grigorievich led this group. Legasov: Oh well, I Thats how much we were confused by the scale of the accident. Legasov: Yes, two or three times we went by these suits. These mistakes themselves are monstrous. This design had to be done concurrently at the site and in the different design organizations located in cities across the Soviet Union, mainly in Moscow and Leningrad. The Institute did acquire a taste of it. This also was visible at the stations. Legasov: RBMK? All this created such problems that it became evident that the shift method, in this case, was certainly not optimal. We broke off pieces of facing from one of the buildings and took them from Pripyat to Chernobyl. Anyway, I called the experts with the drawings of the reactor and all the information that could be gathered. This was evidence that the temperatures were still high there. And I sit and shiver. People from Kiev took the correct measures at this time. 1 is a fire; 2 is radiation damage; 3 is a nuclear accident; 4 is a chemical hazard. If you would wish to read them, then here, we translated them for English readers: Tape 1 side A In this part Legasov speaks about his first days in the accident zone. In this particular aspect the station was rather poorly placed. The question should be thought through in such a way that the understanding of safe nuclear energy is as wide as possible and not limited only to the question of creating a safe reactor. This was the general environment in which all this work was happening. And thereafter would be the concept, developed by Vladimir Mikhailovich, about what safe nuclear energy should look like. And I have seen more than one accident. It has everything. So it became clear that the contamination sources were not widely spread, but rather there were local sources of contamination in Pripyat that created a general environment that made it seem like that decontamination was not possible. Thats why in the end, the most reliable method was to use radio-controlled bulldozers or just simple scraper bulldozers, our ordinary vehicles, cabins of which were reliably covered with lead to protect the driver. All these were some unusual questions that complemented nuclear energy. And for the last 20 years, he spoke wherever he could, at the Politburo, etc. And even scientific work aimed at solving the most important issues of further improvement of stations, both in terms of safety and efficiency did not enjoy support. Some personal impressions of the time . An unexpected problem occurred with, for example, specimens lowered into the Finnish station Loviisa. There is a lot of confusion in the international press, for example, that Velikhov was measuring something on the roofs around the 26th, Evgeny Pavlovich [Velikhov]. The Operative group itself however didnt show any tension at all. And local authorities were a part of the Government Commission. There I reported the situation. Overall, the situation was getting so complicated that it became clear that the scale of the operation had to be increased. It is commonly known that nuclear power stations are very cleanly and exactingly run, with machinery and pipes that dont exhaust anything visible into the atmosphere. And mainly, the chronology of the events themselves was not presented. The first two groups, led by Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina and Ivan Stepanovich Silayev, were occupied exclusively with the most important and urgent tasks. After Ryzhkov and Ligachev arrived at the disaster zone, journalists were allowed in. As for neutron sensors, they were the responsibility of CNIIP [Central Science Research and Project Institute] of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. These were rare cases, but they did happen. I, as a chemist, was worried about the huge potential for chemical reactions in these devices. More than that, as part of professional work, I took some part in these areas. Become a patron and make this project possible : https://www.patreon.com/prepperhubAll audiotapes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPRaak5gqMIgWF6K7oJPJymhMKvB-LJ_C Tape 1 - Part 1: https://youtu.be/rxmEaK_zzcwTape 1 - Part 2: https://youtu.be/FiCN89A0xHUTape 1 - Part 3: Comming Soon! Collaboration and voice over by Aenigmaticus Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGL5nEeM6UW9AkiDd4eTUiw This video has been made possible with he collaboration with Aenigmaticus. I must say that this work was not safe because the pilot had to hover above the reactor, drop a considerably large load, and then leave quickly so as to not get an excessive dose of radiation and most importantly, drop exactly on target. At the same time, the enormous amount of work done by the dosimetrists, the modest work of young people, say, from Kurchatov Institute led by Shekalov or Borov or Vasiliev, the work of Ryanovskaya [] group led by Petrov, the work of Kombanov who was there many times to test his dust suppression solutions, the logic of all the work, an analysis of the projects that were undertakenthis wasnt described properly. And what international measures have been taken, what conventions have been adopted, what was the Soviet position on international cooperation. In case of another situation, another team will assemble and so on. There were a lot of inconsistencies between the part of the documentation that was at the station and the reality in various places of the station and underground facilities. Adamovich: Did all the graphite there burn out? The crater in the reactor produced a column of white smoke, several hundred metres long, most likely consisting of graphite combustion byproducts. Legasov: That is why this option was discarded. A large number of construction resources was spent on creating objects that were not related to the field of the department. There is another definite circumstance to it. And all this should be collected into a group of unanswered questions, where we have the facts but no full explanations for those facts. On the one hand, it melted and we did find evidence of that. From that moment the Government Commission became only an administrative mechanism for that huge government work that was done under the control of the Operative group of the CCCPSU. These robots have played a huge role even today because many interesting things have been discovered with their help regarding the questions related to the nature and consequences of the accident. All this had a reassuring effect. Such technical means and devices which are generally used in many military systems, in missile complexes, in nuclear weapons, had not been used. So they directed all their efforts towards harmonizing these speeds to make a dry channel. That was the second line of defence- protection of the people. So we have Chernobyl. I graduated from the Faculty of Physicochemical Engineering of the Moscow Institute of Chemistry and Technology named after Mendeleyev. Under the mandatory condition of the most rigorous compliance with all regulations and such. But he acted very eagerly and selflessly. Then, no organisation would take on the development of an unconventional compressor or an unconventional, say, heat exchanger, again driven by the lack of needed material or experience. The local authorities acted according to these rules, either relocating people or letting them stay, switching to imported food, or declaring the area safe enough to live in and to use the land. Because a nuclear power plant is easily distinguishable because of chimneys that dont emit anything. This is why their actions were truly selfless and, most importantly, rational; and not just some pointless actions arising out of ignorance. And in general, all the experts, scientists, at least at different times and from different platforms, talking about individual parts, said that we are on the road to a bad accident; Anatoly Pavlovich Aleksandrov said it, repeatedly citing striking examples of carelessness in the construction of nuclear power plants; Sidorenko said it, speaking about disorders in operation and documentation; the young specialists said it; the material scientists said it. The tape was valery legasov refers to transcripts and professional. And so a generation of engineers came up who were very competent, but not critical of the devices themselves, not critical of all the systems that were ensuring their safety; but mainly knew the systems and required an increase in their numbers. The last time I saw him was in the Politburo meeting on the 14th of July [transcript of the Politburo meeting] when the cause of the Chernobyl accident was being discussed. This left an impression of disorder, and a widespread movement towards disorganized work in the field of nuclear energy. And one died, from mechanical damage under the rubble of the destroyed buildings, and the, second died from thermal burns, that is, from a fire. Slowly, once the most powerful in the country, they began to lose the standard of modern equipment. In fact, there is triple ownership, because there is also a head office, or some deputy minister, who has the last word on a particular technical decision. Slowly, once the most powerful in the country, they began to lose the standard of modern equipment. This is why Ryzhkov was constantly askingwhat is the temperature? [19] Upon returning from Chernobyl for the second time on 12 May, he was a changed man, suffering from severe grief and radiation sickness. And above that article, there was a lousy illustration, in which in front of a half-wrecked cooling tower, a young moustached Frenchman is trying to explain to a Russian bear how to build those cooling towers, while the bear has put a finger in his mouth and hardly understands that the quality of the cooling tower is as essential to the quality of a nuclear station as the reactor itself. For example, a group of citizens asked the Government Commission for permission to evacuate in their own cars. He was very angry with, say, Makuhin, the First Deputy Minister of Energy and Electrification, who, it seemed to him, was working slowly; and he even made a quick decision to fire him. However, there were such giants, behemoths, experienced people that I thought they would not allow for something unpleasant. It means adding more and more instruments to it, some additional diagnostics tools and so on. The station was 140 kilometres from Kiev. Somewhere in the middle of 1987, in the summer of 1987, finally appeared robots made by our own Soviet hands. An absolutely enormous amount of work was done by comrade Kurnosov, the chief engineer of this project and the chief engineer of the institute itself. And since the literature, the most precise, was western, comparing western devices to our own, this allowed me to conclude in various books and articles that although there are many problems relating to the safety of existing devices, nevertheless, they are still less than the dangers of traditional energy; with its many carcinogenic substances released into the atmosphere, with radioactivity released into the atmosphere from coal seams. The logic behind our process of decision-making was as follows. We went in and bought ourselves some very nice shirts. Before the start of the meeting, Nikolai Ivanovich Yermakov, the head of the 16th head office of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, under whose supervision our entire university was, walked up and said calmly but with some concern, that an unpleasant accident had happened at the Chernobyl Station. Perhaps in response to this, Legasov received criticism of his leadership and his handling of the containment of the Chernobyl reactor and was ostracized by some of his fellow scientists. In fact, because of ecological reasons, and many people do not understand this, it is impossible not to develop [nuclear energy]. Recalling this trip now, I can say that I had absolutely no idea that we were driving toward an event of a planetary scale, one that would most likely be remembered alongside famous events like the volcanic eruption at Pompei and other such catastrophes. This was very clearly seen in such an exceptional situation. This situation was not normal for a science centre. The Government Commission worked from Pripyat for the first few days. Legasov: In the morning on the 27th and at night on the 26th. Then, I graduated from the Kurchatov Institute in the field of nuclear fuel reprocessing. If the temperature is high, it melts and absorbs heat. The degree of fuel enrichment, a number of other technical measures had to be taken to make controlling the reactor easier. This share must be maintained in order to develop these energy sources but it cannot be the basis of energy [planning]. They also dont have containments because they are large. In other words, this issue was constantly under his control, as were all the other issues related to the Chernobyl accident. As our press reported, the factory was built very poorly. The work was like a well organized science team. There were no unmanned aircraft that could be fitted with the necessary measuring equipment at the time of the accident, in the beginning, to be precise. And the first time with him. Although, of course, the Compton effect had its share in the radiation environment; somewhere around 10 milliroentgens per hour and maybe even less than 10 milliroentgens per hour was radiated from reactor number 4. However, the use of robots was not successful because all the robots that were tested initially were either mechanically unable to operate among the wreckage, or they simply could not overcome the obstacles on large irregular surfaces. The Chernobyl part of this section would be exclusively official, to provide precise information from the Government Commission at the time when this section is released; and the second part should be an emotional part, narrative with personal opinions. The explosion was volumetric in nature. But it also had an impressive impact once the work was complete. leaders, specialists, or for the fact that somewhere there was a high traumatism, either for some financial omissions, or for some specific, technically inaccurate. We also spotted an increase in radiation levels in Kiev and other cities which were quite some distance away from Chernobyl. [7][1] The team began to be concerned with small areas of reactor activity, as well as the integrity of the concrete pad. Before he started, I heard that an unpleasant accident had occurred at the, Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Radioactive emissions were still going on but, of course, getting lesser and lesser until about the 20th of May. Adamovich: [HARD-TO-HEAR QUESTION ABOUT ALEXANDROV A.P. They, so to say, maintained this connection. But this reactor was not considered bad because of safety reasons. As practice has now shown, the sum of measures that have been taken for this reactor has made the vapour coefficient to be no more than one beta. Do you understand? And so, it's not about the operators . Having little information, we tried to prepare ourselves for all possible situations. But in questions of specific technical policy or improvements to this device, the designer was unwilling to accept the Institutess point of view, not considering it to be a sufficiently-developed partner for it to be useful to the designer in his work. Which button to press, how long to wait, what to do. Also, there are, of course, specific culprits. Of course, this was wrong. Tape 1 A Deeper Dive A Deeper Dive Legasov also describes how stress he was on the way to Chernobyl and how tense the Tape 2. Its clear that a human is irreplaceable when one has to perform certain complex tasks like a cargo drop or some other operation involving large devices placed on a helicopter. Because I reasoned, for example, that if we say this to the people now, the evacuation will be delayed. Another thing. The operator had detected the first crack [defect in metal] despite the fact that it could not be seen with the naked eye. And the concentration of radioactive elements in the silt under the cooling pond was up to 10-5 curie, while the concentration of radioactivity in the water was no more than 10-8 or 10-9 curie per litre. It is very important for me that you understand that had the international philosophy been adopted, had each reactor been inside a containment, then the RBMK reactor would simply not exist. It would have been very expensive. However they also compared what many specialists say. He went, had a look, and said that everything was in order and that the information was wrong. Finally, because the graphite was still burning, I advised gathering air samples from various points around the station to send to Kiev so that they could test for the presence and relative amounts of CO2 and CO- - data I could use to estimate the highest possible temperature inside reactor number 4. So that there is an understanding. 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