The Story of Chernobyl

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Nuclear power continues to be a source of fantasy for Hollywood and ultra-green types. Nevermind the hundreds of people killed over the years mining coal, rare-earth metals for solar panels, men who died digging the Panama Canal, etc. Big endeavors take some risk, and trying to provide reliable electric power on a mass scale involves some risk. Natural gas lines can explode (and often do, without folks parading the streets calling for gas plants to be shuttered). Wind and solar are just not reliable or efficient enough, and indeed there is a “soft” hazard associated with power interruptions that affect a large population. Three Mile Island did not kill anyone despite the conspiracies floating around on the internet. People who fear nuclear power instantly think of meltdowns and cancer, assuming that a terrible disaster is only a snap of a finger away. There are over 400 operating reactors in the world, and only three nuclear accidents over 40 years really stand out as noteworthy. Not a bad record at all.
 
Last night on the show I wanted to grab the wife who could not stop touching her husband and shake her for being so stupid.
Did I hear her say she IS pregnant after denying that fact to the nurse when she was begging to be let in?
HBO programmimg is awful anymore, however, this is kind of interesting. Because of the accents I am missing some
things.
 
AHapka said:
But how many people die slowly from emissions reduced from other sources of power production? Since it’s slow and not all at once, it tends to be ignored.
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I don’t know, but I do know some people who were near Chernobyl at the time of the meltdown and for a year or two after that. In any case they are in excellent health today.
 
I know what you mean about HBO and starz.
So far I have not seen any sexual scenes that are offensive. There was some nudity last night, but they were all men. The scene showed the miners taken to Chernobyl to work
underground to keep something from
sinking. It was hot working underground so they chose to work
naked.

I think there are only 2 episodes left.
 
Typos: known for know and now for not. (why does my laptop play tricks?)
 
We were all set to watch the episode and for some unknown glitch the download stopped after the story got started - the wife had been with her husband, etc. (slipping the comrade some rubles got her in). Next little blue dots repeated and would not continue the episode. Over and over we tried to get it - maybe later today. It had to be a problem at the source. Love this IT age. :crazy_face:
 
Chernobyl should return this evening - will probably watch tomorrow since we DVR it. It was a bit confusing last week when the men that were working the nuclear power plant were exposed when it blew were asked if they could describe what happened by the woman scientist. They both kept to the story they were ordered to report - they had done nothing to cause it. They could not - even in the shape they were in - able to tell the truth. How ingrained with never opposing the need to be above criticism. The depth and width of the nuclear penetration below ground and the airborne spread is beyond grasping how this will be handled.
 
Of course if they were really close they can’t go back. U like other forms of power, when nuclear screws up, there’s multi millennial consequences.
 
I believe the men she interviewed were telling the truth, and as she and the others investigate the cause of the accident some of the plant design flaws will come to light. So even though the men inserted the control rods, the RBMK design had some peculiarities where, in certain instances, the rods inserted to shut down the reactor actually caused power to increase.
 
I am going to have to watch it tomorrow too.
Tonight I am watching The Hot Zone. It is really good.
 
One more episode left. This week’s episode is
not that good.

I hope an event like Chernobyl never happens
again. Russia was not prepared!
 
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I personally believe that we should continue to maintain and update most existing nuclear plants, at least in the US because the investment has been made. Replacing these plants with any alternative right now is just simply unrealistic.

The industry and the government have a lot to answer for though. The storage of waste is serious issue. Yucca Mountain looked like the safest place in the US to store this stuff until Los Vegas said no, just as it was close to opening. Modern nuclear plants are quite safe, but come with a staggering price tag. That is a problem too.

There are a lot of interesting possibilities out there, but one thing is certain, things like the new green deal are NOT the answer. Politicians just snuck in the NGD or whatever it is called under the radar in New Mexico under a different name. If you live in beautiful NM you have some real bad news on the way in the form of power bill.

www.foxnews.com

Daniel Turner: Stealth AOC ‘Green New Deal’ now the law in New Mexico, voters be damned

And that’s exactly how radical green groups want it.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com

We all would welcome something better than coal and nuclear waste, till then Chernobyl stands as an important reminder of how cutting corners can be disastrous as evidenced in places like Russia and NewYork.
 
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This is very true. And we could standardize designs thereby making them both safer and less expensive.
Chernobyl is truly a fascinating story. The book I reference above is one of the best books I have read in a long time. But it teaches us nothing about inherent problems in nuclear power, it teaches us a lot about the corruption and incompetency of a Communist regime. Make no mistake, the disaster resulted from a cascade of several human errors and design problems, every one of which can be laid directly at the foot of the Soviet government.
 
I’ve done some reading lately about the Chernobyl accident. The type of nuclear reactors used in the West, including the US, are quite different from the RMBK reactors used at Chernobyl. I think the takeaway of the miniseries is not so much about the safety of nuclear energy so much as it is the idea that government needs to be transparent and truthful, and to care more about what the lives of its people, which we seem to be moving away from.
 
Agree - it appears that we mere mortals are not up to sustaining, maintaining, securing and disposing of nuclear instruments. Having this theory proved requires thoughts that I do not wish to have.
 
There should be one more episode left. Sad for the young Mother - and all who suffered. The reality cannot be captured in a played out story but it provokes us to consider what we have invented.
The mindset of the authorities is scary - how the people got so down with it - has their everyday lives today become less subject to control? Do they still fear being identified by their co-workers and neighbors for “infractions” or non-compliance? It has not been that long (in years) for environmental betterment; a look back at the depressing housing, buildings, hospitals, etc. - has it all been made good or better?
Tourists probably frequent the highlights, the last Olympics held was revealing in the hurriedly prepared facilities.
 
For tourists visiting the Ukrainian capital there is an opportunity to go on tour to Chernobyl, and see and hear from the guide about the history of those events with their own eyes.
 
I wasn’t sure what the point was of concentrating on the small group of men killing the homeless pets. It seemed like an odd thing to focus on these characters so much with just one more episode left. The high point of the episode was the end, when the men with the 90-second stay times began to manually shovel the debris off the roof. When the one group went up there and was able to move off only a few chunks, then with the camera panning out to show how much work had to be done, it definitely emphasized the massive task ahead of everyone.
 
You are right. The dog shooting went on for too long, the viewer would get the gist of how many there were. The emotional tug of the ordered task would have been just as clear with less dragging it out. The clearing of the roof by “human robots” could have been more educational if they had revealed how the 90 second limit “relay” took to do the job and how many men. Plus, did they all cut it within 90 seconds and did they suffer from radiation poisoning afterward.
The core meltdown released itself under the ground, there wasn’t too much mention of how they handled that. The water supply was said to be destroyed for a thousand years if I recall correctly and it extended for miles and miles through Europe. Did I miss something?
It is said that tourists can now visit the area - really? There must be limitations?
Well, next episode may have some answers - or not.
 
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