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[Chernobyl] In Soviet Russia....
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Modern reactors are vastly safer than the one at Chernobyl, to the point where they are sophisticated enough that they pretty much cannot break in a catastrophic way by any known method. They are far safer than coal, gas or oil burning power stations. But, the outcome of us being wrong about the design is still incredibly serious and they must be monitored by experts at all times.
I'd live across the street from one quite happily, but, I would not let a high schooler build one in her back yard.
Even at the time it would have literally been impossible for a disaster on the scale of Chernobyl to happen pretty much anywhere else. American/European reactors effectively have the sarcophagus built and installed before the reactor is ever fueled.
Fission byproducts are bad shit but we have pretty good ways of dealing with them. They're also very compact, luckily, so even if something screws up the damage is relatively contained unless it hours the water table.
The average dose to a liquidator was estimated to be 120 mSv. This is equivalent to approximately a 1% increase in cancer risk, lifetime, to a baseline of about 40% (and assumes the liquidator received the entire dose instantaneously) and is probably conservative
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
That was all the liquidators, of which they assumed there would be a huge number of them dead of radiation within years. The show guessed a hundred thousand or more dead of the 600k or so liquidators. But when all was said and done the liquidators did ok given their exposure levels.
The miners were assumed to all be dead but only about 25% died as a direct result of radiation poisoning (cancer years later is tricky to quantify as they were coal miners and their baseline cancer risk was both high already and unknown).
It's kind of amazing so few people died considering expectations and the doses of radiation.
Also since a few people have mentioned it, I'm not saying "everything worked out so the show was wrong". I'm not saying anything about the show's predictions of the risk in nearby cities if the disaster were left unchecked. I'm specifically referring to the risk to cleanup crews who were there, in the thick of it, whose lives were all but assumed forfeit.
A lot of the terminology used in these articles is just incorrect, by the way. I see ones stating the miners were exposed to “fatal doses of radiation for days on end” (not true, or they’d be dead). “Radiation poisoning” also seems to get used incorrectly a lot. It’s not radiation poisoning to be exposed to radiation, even if you develop cancer years later and die
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
There's no media to block it in space, like air.
Looking at data I don’t think it would be so bad. It’s certainly higher than on earth, but 1 rad in 9 days comes to a dose rate of 4.63 mrad/hr, only about double the legal dose rate to a member of the public
I don’t expect you’d see SIGNIFICANTLY higher cancer rates with space travel, but, who knows
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Laura Elphinstone appeared back to back in both Pripyat Hostital and King's landing within the same week. What a cursed life...
"It's okay sweetie, we've moved as far away from nuclear reactors as possible. I was sure you wouldn't make it, but it's been 5 years and you're strong and healthy and reactors dont exist here in westeros"
EDIT: Like, the fundamental failure of what happened at Chernobyl was administrative in nature.
Yes, it's quite clearly about a system designed wherein everyone simply covers their own ass ends up being horrific.
Dude kept saying THERE WAS NO EXPLOSION when there quite clearly was, because admitting there was an explosion would have been the end of his career.
They found the problem with the graphite tips on the boron rods and nobody changed a thing, they just removed it from the manual.
Nuclear power and its constituent parts can be contained through modern means quite well, but in the hands of the wrong people in the wrong system it can be absolutely catastrophic.
"In Soviet Russia, atom splits you"
And a shout to Hildur Guõnadóttir's score as well, which appropriately sounds like a giant machine in its sad death throes.
:?
After watching Ep 3 it seemed in poor taste.
It sounds like a subtle GM detector mixed in
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Now you look like the minister of coal.
Wait, they had two helicopters fall on the wreckage? One during the fire and one during the concrete pouring?
No, they shuffled that around for dramatic effect in the show. I think they wanted to illustrate the dangers of being anywhere near the core early on, and since they weren't going to highlight the construction of the sarcophagus they just pushed the incident ahead a bit.
Though it’s “ don’t exceed X seconds or you’ll surpass the NRC occupational dose limits”, not “or you’ll die”
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
If you're one of these people, you can never go suntanning.
Since I watch a lot of movies I kind of assumed it was EM interference of some kind that made the electronics on the helicopter no longer work
I realize this is probably bad science though
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
But given the subsequent interactions with the robot your interpretation makes more sense.
Little bit of dramatization in there.
I don’t agree, they represent the radiation with the radio going static and not being able to warn the pilot in time. But the helicopter clearly is shown clipping a wire with the rotor due to the smoke being a visual obstacle.
You can see the helicopter hits a crane cable in the show. There's a lot going on, but you can definitely see two loads dropping out of the sky (one being the helicopter's, the other being the crane's) when the helicopter crashes.
You can’t make that crane move it was there first
Ah, you're right I just watched it again. I misremembered.
He did, he was freaking out about it and explaining why but iirc nobody really cared that much
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
At least from the companion podcast they mention it as the radiation is too stronk and ripping the air apart, ionizing it. Which apparently makes a pleasant glow.