Re: OT - TV Mini Series HBO Chernobyl

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.

Are you receiving treatment?

Well that is complete BS. People are living in Japan where real atom bombs were dropped about 75 years ago and they aren't dying from radiation problems.

Its amazing how people can ignore this and come up with utter bollocks about radiation from reactors.

Except that it wasn't, and I've already explained why. Once the uranium melted through the reactor room floor, it splattered on the floor below and spread out, just as a glass of water would if you upend it. Once spread out it would cease to be in a critical state, and so cease producing heat. Thus it would start to cool and solidify, exactly what happened.

They may have *feared* that it would reach the water, and cause a steam explosion, but only someone who can't do sums would ever imagine that would be a gigantic one.

So bollocks, I'm afraid, to Andrew Leatherbarrow, who seems to know as little about the matter as Andrew Wakefield knows about the causes of autism.

Its not wuite like that. Once scrammed, the chain reaction stops and what is left is decay heat.

I dont have te figures for chernibyl, but in te case of Fuku it wass about 4MW instead of 3 GW of heat, which isnt a huge amount but does need cooling or the rods melt.

That all the 'nuclear reaction' there is left. Its hard to achieve criticality at all in a reactor and the rids and moderators have to be carefully designed so that happens.

Once thaqt ophysical integrity ios compromised by ciore meltdowns the radioactive muck collects at the bottom and ceases to behave in a critical manner. It has however still got a lot of decay heat in it.

If it melts through the pressure vessel it pools underneath where it was designed to.

If it comes in contact with water int can generate stea,m explosions.

If the rods are zirconium clad and that gets hot and comes in contact with water, hydrogen is produced.

None of these are 'nuclear' explosions except the heat source is nuclear decay, and none are beyond a few tonnes of TNT max,.

Sadly this is a prime example of beliefs that end up being believed because someone read it in the new scientist, or the guardian, or heard it on the BBC and they simply do not have enough STEM education to see that it is utter drivel.

'riskier'. So not wrong as such, just Trump-like weaselness.

The potential damage to the other 3 reactors might have made things worse perhaps? or is that just another conspiracy red herring type thing?

I'm wondering if this'll be covered in the next episodes.