Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
Some things I didn't know about either, like the risk of a larger secondary explosion.
The steam explosion averted by three heroic divers would not have been so devastating
Much of the tension from the second episode comes from the fear that a steam explosion was imminent as soon as the core meltdown reached the groundwater underneath. That's what brought Ulana Khomyuk into the lives of the main characters, after all—she warned Legasov of the approaching danger and miscalculations that led Legasov to neglect it. Khomyuk claims that the follow-up explosion would involve a force of 2 to 4 megatons, wiping out Kiev and most of Minsk in the process. The radiation released by that secondary incident would also devastate much of the continent, carrying a lethal cloud all across Soviet Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and most of East Germany.

Unfortunately, there was nothing as dramatic brewing after the initial catastrophe. Though it was technically possible that would happen, it wasn't really a likely scenario, as Jan Haverkamp, a senior nuclear energy expert, points out. If all of the melting core were to hit groundwater at once, then yes, it's plausible an unprecedented radiation leak would damage most of Europe. But since core meltdowns happen very unevenly, that would not have really been a worry. Also, the 2-to-4 megaton range seems to have been a gross exaggeration.
See how gross exaggeration scares and misleads people?

As an engineer I would love to know how to create a 2-4 megaton steam explosion using groundwater, which most people think exists as some huge underground lake, but in fact is really damp soil.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-06-17 17:49:32)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5329|London, England

DesertFox- wrote:

Jay wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

All they had to do was not invent new people and events, not lie about existing people and events within living memory, and not champion legitimately harmful pseudoscience. But it's people pointing these things out, these "sensationalistic academic gatekeepers in ivory towers," who are out of line for not showering it with an "enthusiastic reception?"

Thanks for the essay on HBO being a for profit outfit, by the way. Also, I never knew that some movies were inspired by real events. Definitely learning new things today. Like how you apparently can't establish mood and the human element without lying through your teeth.

I, the "edgy teen," am supposed to learn how to read, but you needed this HBO schlock to unlock some higher understanding of Chernobyl. Fantastic.
You are an impossibly difficult person to please. It's entertainment, stop being so obsessive compulsive about every little detail.
I am surprised by his reaction, as well. It'd be hard to enjoy Glory, Apollo 13, Lincoln, and the like if a disqualifying characteristic is compression of time or people.
He's like this about everything. It really has to be exhausting to be him.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5329|London, England

Dilbert_X wrote:

Some things I didn't know about either, like the risk of a larger secondary explosion.
The steam explosion averted by three heroic divers would not have been so devastating
Much of the tension from the second episode comes from the fear that a steam explosion was imminent as soon as the core meltdown reached the groundwater underneath. That's what brought Ulana Khomyuk into the lives of the main characters, after all—she warned Legasov of the approaching danger and miscalculations that led Legasov to neglect it. Khomyuk claims that the follow-up explosion would involve a force of 2 to 4 megatons, wiping out Kiev and most of Minsk in the process. The radiation released by that secondary incident would also devastate much of the continent, carrying a lethal cloud all across Soviet Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and most of East Germany.

Unfortunately, there was nothing as dramatic brewing after the initial catastrophe. Though it was technically possible that would happen, it wasn't really a likely scenario, as Jan Haverkamp, a senior nuclear energy expert, points out. If all of the melting core were to hit groundwater at once, then yes, it's plausible an unprecedented radiation leak would damage most of Europe. But since core meltdowns happen very unevenly, that would not have really been a worry. Also, the 2-to-4 megaton range seems to have been a gross exaggeration.
See how gross exaggeration scares and misleads people?

As an engineer I would love to know how to create a 2-4 megaton steam explosion using groundwater, which most people think exists as some huge underground lake, but in fact is really damp soil.
Unless there is a bedrock layer above the groundwater which would form a pressure vessel I don't see how it could happen. You'd be at atmospheric pressure with an open vessel. Boil over, sure, flash steam, sure, but not really explosive...
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Jay wrote:

You are an impossibly difficult person to please. It's entertainment, stop being so obsessive compulsive about every little detail.
I'm not being obsessive compulsive. I know it's a docudrama. I've said it's a docudrama. It doesn't have to be 100%. Nobody should expect that. I think this was something fairly important to get as right as could be reasonably expected, and that the filmmakers frivolously frittered away the opportunity to do so. If it were only an occasional stumble, or at least more on point with its disclaimers, it wouldn't have mattered to me as much.

The last page or so of this thread is a good example of how something like this can go wrong. If anything should be taken away from Chernobyl, it shouldn't be having fears whipped up and opinion influenced on nuclear policy:

but because the cost in the event of disaster is just too high a price to pay. I remember thinking Merkel was an idiot for aiming to close all nuclear plants in Germany after Fukushima, but perhaps she had the right idea all along.
The notion that pushing back against this sort of thing is just people being salty, "OCD," or fishing for sensationalism seems bizarre to me.

DesertFox- wrote:

I am surprised by his reaction, as well. It'd be hard to enjoy Glory, Apollo 13, Lincoln, and the like if a disqualifying characteristic is compression of time or people.
I don't mind any of those movies. Also, Apollo 13 didn't invent something blatantly dumb under the guise of "based on real events," like astronauts bringing space aids back to earth. Sounds like a good plot for B-material, though.

Jay wrote:

He's like this about everything. It really has to be exhausting to be him.
Unrelated specifically to this exchange, I've found it funny that some of the people I know who've viciously attacked Battlefield 5 for being historically inaccurate have spun on their heels to deflect criticism away from and defend Chernobyl as if it were the motherland.

I think the game's decent. I don't care about arguments made about its historical accuracy, because there never any reason for me to expect an ounce of it from the series. So exhausting.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858

Dilbert_X wrote:

See how gross exaggeration scares and misleads people?
Ah, the guy who needs to have everything explained in monosyllables and babytalk.

As you may have noticed I didn't quote the series verbatim or the '2-4 megaton' number. You don't need to be an engineer to understand that corium + water =/= hydrogen bomb.

I had read about Chernobyl in the context of the fall of the soviet union and knew some things about it but not the details of the cleanup & additional dangers. Edit: let me put a disclaimer here that I didn't treat the series as a trustworthy historical source before you again decide otherwise.

My argument against nuclear focuses on the human cost of such a disaster not the fucking physics of nuclear reactors. In that sense, yes, the series as a work of art deepened my insight into the traumatic/emotional experience of the people who lived it.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

I think this was something fairly important to get as right as could be reasonably expected, and that the filmmakers frivolously frittered away the opportunity to do so. If it were only an occasional stumble, or at least more on point with its disclaimers, it wouldn't have mattered to me as much.
You can't get past the event timeline and 'lies'. Uziq laments the portrayal of soviet communism & the inclusion of the female scientist. I didn't like the closing statement. Some quoted editor wrote a tirade against the depiction of ARS (though I wonder if he knew the details of Chernobyl ARS treatment in 1986 or the wife's account, fyi I don't)

Who is right? When is it 'good enough'? Understand that your opinion is wholly subjective. In the end almost the entire script was made up. A dramatisation will never leave historical fiction and the more you zoom in the more errors you will find.

Last edited by Larssen (2019-06-17 23:26:57)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX

Larssen wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

See how gross exaggeration scares and misleads people?
Ah, the guy who needs to have everything explained in monosyllables and babytalk.

As you may have noticed I didn't quote the series verbatim or the '2-4 megaton' number. You don't need to be an engineer to understand that corium + water =/= hydrogen bomb.

I had read about Chernobyl in the context of the fall of the soviet union and knew some things about it but not the details of the cleanup & additional dangers. Edit: let me put a disclaimer here that I didn't treat the series as a trustworthy historical source before you again decide otherwise.

My argument against nuclear focuses on the human cost of such a disaster not the fucking physics of nuclear reactors. In that sense, yes, the series as a work of art deepened my insight into the traumatic/emotional experience of the people who lived it.
Ah, the guy who talks complete shit and confuses fact with reality.

You didn't need to quote the series, the 2-4 megaton figure was in the series. And a hydrogen explosion =/= a 'hydrogen bomb', but I'm sure you knew that even though you just proved you didn't. For a hydrogen bomb to spontaneously create itself in the wreckage of a reactor would be something special.
I'd be very interested to know how to create a 2-4 megaton explosion with zirconium and hydrogen, that would be an awful lot of zirconium, and the physics of hydrogen explosions would need to change - the reaction velocity for one thing. Fukushima had three of those and they were fairly trivial, just enough to blow the roof off, not enough to flatten China and Korea.
I guess you didn't know that, I'm sure HBO are working on the docudrama now so hang in there.

My argument against nuclear focuses on the human cost of such a disaster not the fucking physics of nuclear reactors. In that sense, yes, the series as a work of art deepened my insight into the traumatic/emotional experience of the people who lived it.
So you base your arguments about policy in the real world on how much actors cry in TV dramas?
Well there's not an awful lot of point discussing anything with you really is there?

I think if we've learnt one thing from this its the importance of not to confusing fiction with historical fact.
In Galaxy Quest The Thermians from the Klaatu Nebula did exactly this and it very nearly cost them their entire civilisation.
Live and learn people, or suffer the fate of the Thermians
https://img.cinemablend.com/filter:scale/cb/3/4/d/2/5/b/34d25b36a2578ec36a40d10d7c589380b7e3510aa258fbab386d6cc5dbabcffc.jpg?mw=600

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-06-18 00:35:33)

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Larssen
Member
+99|1858

Dilbert_X wrote:

Ah, the guy who talks complete shit and confuses fact with reality.

You didn't need to quote the series, the 2-4 megaton figure was in the series. And a hydrogen explosion =/= a 'hydrogen bomb', but I'm sure you knew that even though you just proved you didn't. For a hydrogen bomb to spontaneously create itself in the wreckage of a reactor would be something special.
I'd be very interested to know how to create a 2-4 megaton explosion with zirconium and hydrogen, that would be an awful lot of zirconium, and the physics of hydrogen explosions would need to change - the reaction velocity for one thing. Fukushima had three of those and they were fairly trivial, just enough to blow the roof off, not enough to flatten China and Korea.
I guess you didn't know that, I'm sure HBO are working on the docudrama now so hang in there.
Thank you captain. My understanding of the physics behind it is enough to know that an explosive yield in the several megatons is something we only achieve in hydrogen bombs, not fission bombs, either one absolutely not possible in nuclear reactor meltdowns. The danger is in the release of radioactive isotopes into the air/environment. A steam explosion in a pressurised environment involving fissile material beneath a destroyed nuclear reactor could've been very dangerous in that respect.

Are we on the same wavelength now or do we need to go through the series second by second?



So you base your arguments about policy in the real world on how much actors cry in TV dramas?
Well there's not an awful lot of point discussing anything with you really is there?
I must be the first person in history to re-think certain things because of art. Shocking to a purely 'rational' man such as yourself I know.

Last edited by Larssen (2019-06-18 00:39:28)

uziq
Member
+492|3423
pretty sure a popular history book came out by a russian historian on chernobyl about 2-3 years ago. if 'you thought you knew and understood the history of chernobyl' and don't, lay off the cheesy tv dramas and pick that up.

art contains 'emotional truths' rather than objective ones. when a drama written by ted cruz's room mate at college is so stupidly anti-soviet, i think you should also consider the history of art-as-propaganda as much as the history of art-as-revelation.

Last edited by uziq (2019-06-18 01:55:06)

Larssen
Member
+99|1858

uziq wrote:

pretty sure a popular history book came out by a russian historian on chernobyl about 2-3 years ago. if 'you thought you knew and understood the history of chernobyl' and don't, lay off the cheesy tv dramas and pick that up.

art contains 'emotional truths' rather than objective ones. when a drama written by ted cruz's room mate at college is so stupidly anti-soviet, i think you should also consider the history of art-as-propaganda as much as the history of art-as-revelation.
That's a little too dismissive and somewhat beside the point I was making. I didn't reconsider an opinion on communism, but on the trauma and effect of nuclear disaster. To me the value in the visual portrayal was in giving life to the human experience of that tragedy. Until the series came about I did not consider delving further into the event than I already had - 'I thought I knew'.

I agreed with it being cheesy / ham-fisted at times, but simultaneously many scenes, visuals and characters were very well crafted. Your gripe with the portrayal of communist governance is a fair point but it hardly makes the whole piece of work some mediocre second-rate production.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
So we've moved from documentary to docudrama to entertainment to art?

And the 2-4 megaton blast has changed from steam explosion to hydrogen bomb to hydrogen explosion and back to steam explosion which was never a 2-4 megaton blast?

I'm going to need a few more beers to deal with this.
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Larssen
Member
+99|1858
Nothing changed Dilbert, you just have trouble understanding sentences that aren't command prompts or equations. Beer may actually help.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
I thought I knew and understood the history of the American Revolution until I watched the new Hamilton Broadway play about the subject. It's an entirely different experience to see the anxiety, horror and human cost of the event visualised. Simply reading about it doesn't do it justice. Some historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, it's an incredibly well made retelling of the story. Some things I didn't know about either, like the risk of a larger secondary revolution.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
+2,973|6603|949

1/10 try harder
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX

Larssen wrote:

Nothing changed Dilbert, you just have trouble understanding sentences that aren't command prompts or equations. Beer may actually help.
Hands up who here studied nuclear reactor technology as part of the Bachelors degree?

Your arguments have been demolished, time for personal insults - welcome to the forum.
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Larssen
Member
+99|1858

Dilbert_X wrote:

Larssen wrote:

Nothing changed Dilbert, you just have trouble understanding sentences that aren't command prompts or equations. Beer may actually help.
Hands up who here studied nuclear reactor technology as part of the Bachelors degree?

Your arguments have been demolished, time for personal insults - welcome to the forum.
As usual you've constructing arguments in your head I never made. When I wrote 'larger secondary explosion' I was talking about the corium hitting the coolant tanks (not the 'groundwater', like your source stated) beneath the reactors. I don't know the exact explosive yield it could've had, but safe to say it had the potential to be pretty devastating. Perhaps even to adjacent reactors. Feel free to calculate exact explosive yields and potential consequences (without knowing the numbers or layout of the coolant facilities, good luck) to see if I'm right in using the word 'larger'.

I wasn't talking 'larger' in the sense of a nuclear explosion into the megatons as portrayed in the series. That's impossible. No need for your engineering degree to establish that. The first explosion wasn't anything close to that either.

Finally, a point on constructing arguments: I don't care what you studied. 'I studied it so what I say is true' means nothing. You can't even fucking read in the first place.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
I see, so the 'larger' you quoted in your initial post is some different larger from the one in the TV series?

I thought I knew and understood the history of the Chernobyl disaster until I watched the new HBO drama series about the subject....Some things I didn't know about either, like the risk of a larger secondary explosion.
Seems to me you were referring to the one in the TV program, which also referred to groundwater apparently.

Is there anything you've said you're prepared to stand by? Your arguments are constantly changing.

I'm not seeing any coolant tanks the core could collapse into, in fact there seem to be galleries and valves under the reactor, maybe you're thinking of the bubbler ponds?
https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/Uploads/ImageLibrary/Active/2017Q3/5.PMI/NEI/RBMK-1000.png

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-06-19 01:02:24)

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Larssen
Member
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How many times do we need to go over the fact that I didn't look at the series as a trustworthy historical source? I didn't think I would need to write that disclaimer after every sentence I wrote.

The second explosion is about the 3 divers. It was in the series and has a basis in reality. You can google alexei ananenko, it's even on wikipedia. How long are you going to hammer this BS point?
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
How long are you going to depend on factoids in TV dramatisations to form your opinions?

There's no argument that a burning reactor coming into contact with water would create an explosion, like I said, it happened three times at Fukushima and it wasn't Armageddon.

Nuclear reactors sometimes explode - I guess we would never have known but for TV.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-06-19 01:22:51)

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Larssen
Member
+99|1858

Dilbert_X wrote:

How long are you going to depend on factoids in TV dramatisations to form your opinions?

There's no argument that a burning reactor coming into contact with water would create an explosion, like I said, it happened three times at Fukushima and it wasn't Armageddon.

Nuclear reactors sometimes explode - I guess we would never have known but for TV.
Where in anything I wrote was it apparent that this possible secondary explosion influenced my opinion on nuclear reactors? In several posts I repeatedly, clearly made the point that I reconsidered nuclear energy because of the traumatic effects / human cost of a nuclear disaster - visualised in the series (art). This is why I'm stating you can't read Dilbert, because you're incapable of seperating key points from unimportant or secondary details in even the smallest of texts. Your focus on this non-isue is completely off the mark.

If there was no argument, why were 3 engineers (people like you) sent down there in diving equipment to depressurise the reservoirs?

Last edited by Larssen (2019-06-19 02:17:47)

uziq
Member
+492|3423
where's our resident russian to tell me again how i'm a conspiracy theorist and a nut?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ … ine-russia

Four suspects will face murder charges for the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, three of them Russians, international investigators have said, with a trial due to start next March in the Netherlands.

Almost five years after the plane was downed over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard, prosecutors said on Wednesday there was enough evidence to bring criminal charges.

The suspects were named as Igor Girkin, a former colonel of Russia’s FSB spy service; Sergey Dubinskiy, employed by Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency; and Oleg Pulatov, a former soldier with the GRU’s special forces spetsnaz unit. All were Russian soldiers previously sent abroad.

A fourth suspect, Leonid Kharchenko, is a Ukrainian. He led a military combat unit in the city of Donetsk as a commander, it was alleged.

Girkin was minister of defence in the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). He was the commander of the DNR when the plane was shot down on 17 July 2014. Dubinskiy served as Girkin’s deputy in the DNR, and Pulatov was Dubinskiy’s deputy. Kharchenko was under their command.

Investigators said the soldiers “formed a chain linking the DNR with the Russian Federation”. This link was how the separatists obtained heavy equipment from Russia including the Buk launcher, which was used to fire at MH17 with “terrible consequences”.
can't wait for shahter to rehearse the same old lines about me being a 'sheep' and to tell me how dozens of international organisations are colluding to frame russia. and, anyway, all western courts are a joke 'because capitalism' and 'money rules everything'

Last edited by uziq (2019-06-19 10:13:53)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX

Larssen wrote:

Where in anything I wrote was it apparent that this possible secondary explosion influenced my opinion on nuclear reactors?
In your first post.
I thought I knew and understood the history of the Chernobyl disaster until I watched the new HBO drama series about the subject. It's an entirely different experience to see the anxiety, horror and human cost of the event visualised. Simply reading about it doesn't do it justice. Some historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, it's an incredibly well made retelling of the story. Some things I didn't know about either, like the risk of a larger secondary explosion.

Honestly it's also made me reconsider support for nuclear energy production. Not because I don't think it's safe or consider a repeat of chernobyl in any way likely - but because the cost in the event of disaster is just too high a price to pay. I remember thinking Merkel was an idiot for aiming to close all nuclear plants in Germany after Fukushima, but perhaps she had the right idea all along.
If Netflix did a docudrama about the use of coal and diesel, hired better actors to portray all the women and babies who choked to death thanks to carbon particulates would it sway you back to nuclear power?

These are far bigger issues than one egotistical engineer blowing up a reactor in the middle of nowhere.

Spy satellites reveal extent of Himalayan glacier loss
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48696023

Chennai water crisis: City's reservoirs run dry
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48672330

Do we have to wait for the docudrama 30 years after a billion people have starved to death - which apparently is quite traumatic and painful to watch - before people like you wake up?
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KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
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Either coal and diesel or nuclear power, no other options. Got it.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
Did I say that?
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KEN-JENNINGS
I am all that is MOD!
+2,973|6603|949

larssen: seeing a tv show that put a spotlight on the human cost of a nuclear power plant tragedy made me rethink my support for nuclear power

dilbert: that show was dumb, they tried to say there would be a 2-4 megaton hydrogen bomb, but simple physics says otherwise. Why would you rethink your support for nuclear power based on a show with bad physics

larssen: ....

dilbert: if you saw bad stuff about coal or diesel, would that blow your support back to nuclear power?

me: the only energy options are coal, diesel or nuclear

dilbert: what did i say that would make you think that?

me:

The guy is making a statement that the tv show emotionally moved him to rethink nuclear power due to the potential environmental impact to humanity, and you are telling him he's an idiot because the show was built on shoddy physics, and to prove your point you are posting nuclear reactor designs or some other nonsense and giving us all a "nuclear reactor tech 101" lecture. Uzi is giving larssen a lecture on how the show has an anti-soviet angle so larssen's opinion is invalid, despite the fact his (larssen's) sole motivating factor to discuss the show was the emotional response he had to seeing an artistic rendering of the human cost of a nuclear meltdown. UN13 is talking about how the show isn't real so larssen's opinion is invalid.

In summary - larssen is not promoting the idea that the engineering or physics as explained in the show is accurate. Larssen is not promoting the idea that Chernobyl was a good window into 1980's USSR. Larssen is not saying the show is accurate so you should hate nuclear power. Larssen is simply saying that he was emotionally moved by seeing a rendering of the very real environmental and human cost resulting from the meltdown and that emotional response has led him to rethink his support of nuclear power. It's pretty fucking straightforward.

You give a rhetorical question along the lines of "if you saw something expounding on the human tragedy of coal and diesel, would it sway you back to nuclear" that clearly infers you think the only viable methods of energy production are diesel, coal and nuclear (because your statement is a binary statement - either one or the other), and you have the audacity to question my comprehension?

The last three or so pages of this thread are a really fucking bizarre wormhole in and out of logic.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
You need to try some different drugs.
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