Situated on the northern reaches of Ukraine in what was once the heart of the western Soviet empire, the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone now consists of nearly 3,000 square kilometers of pristine forest that is eerily devoid of any sizable human population. At the heart of this atomic wasteland sits the now defunct and still highly radioactive husk of what was once the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The core meltdown that occurred in the middle of the night in April 1986 spewed radioactive dust and steam several kilometers into the air, sending a cloud over all of central and northern Europe, tripping alarms at power stations as far away as Sweden. Before the dust had even settled, over 500,000 workers had to be dispatched in an attempt to seal the burning reactor from further contaminating the surroundings. Not only did this place an enormous physical and financial burden on the Soviet Union, but also a psychological one, in many ways bringing about the end of the USSR and casting a grave shadow of doubt over the nuclear energy industry throughout the world.
— Brought to you by —
Very special guest Titus Flavius
@mirthismight
— References —
– Odds of Meltdown ‘One in 10,000 Years,’ Soviet Official Says, Associated Press (1986) – https://apnews.com/ce2dbd47080ff1cc91d5ba851bd03942
– Zero Hour: Disaster at Chernobyl, Discovery Channel (2004) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITEXGdht3y8
– S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, GSC Game World (2007)
– Nuclear Explosion Can Heal the Bleeding Wound in the Gulf of Mexico, Sudakov (2010) – https://www.pravdareport.com/world/113370-oil_leak/
– Dark, Odar and Friese (2017)
– Chernobyl, Mazin (2019)
– Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster, Higginbotham (2019)
– The Chernobyl Disaster May Have Also Built a Paradise, Rogers (2019) – https://www.wired.com/story/the-chernobyl-disaster-might-have-also-built-a-paradise/
– India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93United_States_Civil_Nuclear_Agreement
– The Chernobyl Gallery – http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/
If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. -Francis Parker Yockey
Graphite accelerates the reaction. Boron slows it. The “tips” everyone talks about is more like the bottom half of the rod while the upper half was the boron. Here is a good video explaining this in a lot better detail. I am of the opinion it wasn’t so much a nuclear explosion, it was a steam explosion and a dirty bomb after.
https://youtu.be/q3d3rzFTrLg