But, additionally, at least three major design mistakes were made in this device. He had arrived and then unexpectedly Eugeny Pavlovich Velikhov appeared in this group, I dont even know on which command. The first design mistake was that there should be at least two emergency protection systems, as required by international standards and as common sense suggests second emergency protection system must work independently, whatever the circumstances of the operator may be And finally, the third design mistake, which is hard to explain, was that all the numerous emergency protection systems were accessible to the station staff Of course, the mistakes made by the operators are well known and there is no need to list them yet again. The work of the Government Commission (GC) during the first days was as follows. Hydrogen energy became an area of my close attention. The first, the most powerful emission was the one that threw millions of curies of radioactivity in the form of noble gases and iodine at high altitude. And so when they worked using their tunnelling shield or something similar, their way would appear to be clear when looking at the underground utility drawings. But sometimes when we were at Silayevs, then Gorbachev would call. And correlations were found between the contents of individual isotopes, by using relative contents of which we could predict the concentration of, say, Plutonium that was released into the environment. russell 2000 rebalancing. If the temperature is high, it melts and absorbs heat. For example, firstly, per the thinking of the Government Commission, there was an option to not do anything and let the graphite burn. Groundwater was only 32 meters deep under the Chernobyl station. Groundwater protection became one of our most important problems immediately around May. We are all used to the fact that this elderly, but, demagogically very active, loudly confident voice within an hour sets out, our department, it is wonderful and beautiful. From that day on, the generation of radionuclides (of any considerable amount) from the crater reduced. They rushed to their cars to evacuate themselves and, in the process, 17 people died in cars. That we will need nuclear sources in an ever-increasing amount, firstly due to economic considerations, resources and secondly, environmental. But apart from that, it was still and silent. This was obvious and Komsomol themselves wrote many papers about it. Of course, this was wrong. These were some of the smaller issues. In Pripyat we could feel the tension in the air. So to save the considerable amount of expensive equipment stored there, a special workshop was constructed at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a decontamination workshop. [1] Legasov admired the leadership of Boris Shcherbina, particularly for his ability to grasp what the specialists were telling him and his decision making. Legasov: Correct. And each time we needed a hole, they did the calculations before using military engineering tools that is, shoot using a gun of the appropriate caliberbecause there was a risk of the entire structure collapsing. The pipe system of roof support would protect the sarcophagus against the possibility of radioactive dust being carried out. Legasov: Then they were destroyed, of course. It was clear that during such migrations there was no command centre prepared from which it would be possible to organise the work in such difficult conditions. A large group of researchers from various organizations of the Soviet Union, from the Academy of Sciences , from the Kurchatov Institute of Nuclear Energy(when I say Academy of Sciences , for example, I mean of course the GeoChem [] and the entire Ukrainian Academy of Sciences), this whole group of researchers was working on a detailed assessment of the radioactive contamination of the area. And I supported him. At this time, the. And I want this to be underlined. Adamovich: How much of it was there in total? And mainly, the chronology of the events themselves was not presented. The speed of introducing safety systems was, as it seemed, insufficient. Unfortunately, we came across this sloppiness quite often. This measure did not prove to be useful in practice. It had a very small share in the institute, both from a monetary and human resources perspective. We broke off pieces of facing from one of the buildings and took them from Pripyat to Chernobyl. Such and such things are planned. It must be said that all the quantitative assessments show that the power of the explosion was equivalent of around three to four tons of TNT. No one could explain what had happened. This was evidence that the temperatures were still high there. And the measures there were simple. And it seemed to him that there was also a lot of fuel. Around this time, the helicopter people found a very effective way of operating by setting up an observation post on the roof of the Pripyat party committee building. Can the Soviet Union, for example, limit the number of devices that are there, gradually put those that have no cover out of service, and hence, switch to fossil fuel. [1] Around June 1987, he attempted suicide but was saved by his colleagues. What to do next? Unfortunately, there was no local broadcasting network to announce this. Well, they are listed in the reports presented at Vienna. Additionally there were comrade Soroka, Deputy General Prosecutor of the USSR; and Fyodor Alekseyevich Scherbak, the head of one of the important divisions of Government Safety Committee (the KGB); also, the Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian government, who would be at the site already; comrade Nikolayev; and the head of the Regional Executive committee, comrade Ivan Plyusch. Because there are various ways that could lead to the addition of positive reactivity in such an uncontrollable reactor. It was a serious problem and it was resolved by the army with great intensity. This could have resulted in a terrible disaster - the rupture of a large pipeline of the VVER device. I dont think so. Thank God, I am already cured. In economy, in cost per kilowatt-hour of energy, in fuel consumption, it was about the same as VVER, better in some ways, worse in others. And they should be based on independent physical principles and one of the two systems should not depend on the operator. A group of specialists was there also; they had arrived after the first call the previous night. Although, generally, the cumulative doses were doubtless quite high due to the enormous amount of work, and the enormous number of people involved. Well there is an *abridged* transcript at which I've taken the liberty of Google-Translating (not easy due to character limits) to Valery Legasov tape recordings 7.6K views View upvotes 6 Alexander Rumiantsev B.A. I tried to establish such things that would bring the institute together, like the Kurchatov General Council, the institutes general seminar, and setting up various publications that would, on order, sit on the desks of researchers so that they could quickly get all the news from their field. [20][21] He had been involved in work on industrial safely with the GKNT (State Committee for Science and Technology), in which he had explored the risks involved in energy generation. That was the second line of defence- protection of the people. Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov had been on ChNPP many times . I invited two or three experienced journalists to it. Because even though the more than 600 rooms of the 3rd block were cleaned, washed, the radiation condition in the engine room nevertheless remained quite high. Basically, they proposed to drop explosives. This, altogether, is a serious question about how to, and to what extent, cover such large, very unpleasant and difficult events that affect and alarm almost the entire population of the country, and not merely our country. Complex research was done in the cooling pond near the Chernobyl NPP, where the radioactivity of the water, as well as silt, was measured. And a good reactor specialist was one who had mastered the design of a particular reactor, who could ably calculate, say, the zone, who knew all the accidents that happen at a station, who could come to any facility and assist in its physical and organisatorial launch, quickly figure out what was happening there, and report to the management of the institute or the Ministry. There is no standardised system of evaluation. There were 17 projects but only two or three need be described. These were the sanitary rules that existed at the time. The applied part was awarded the Lenin prize. For instance, did a one-day delay in taking action have any effect at all? [13][9] In 1967,[citation needed] he defended his thesis at the Kurchatov Institute, under the supervisor Isaak Kikoin, on the synthesis of compounds of noble gases and the study of their properties[citation needed]. Since we did not receive any, specific information here, we quickly plunged into cars and I found myself in the, 140 km. Moreover, particularly under Vedernikov, with the participation of the group leader from the Institute of Nuclear Energy, comrade Tutnov, a decision was taken that made the construction of the sarcophagus easier and quicker. And then to catch up, quickly, this option was proposed. He was in shock all of the time. And you, chemists, are now making him almost a great martyr And in Chernobyl he screwed up enough - the shelter of the fourth unit turned out to be far from optimal. Subsequently, there were a few days of active emission of radioactive particles, fuel, mainly due to the graphite burning. They did not know what to do; and if they received direct instructions, they did not demonstrate any influence, management skills or ability to remedy the situation. When someone crossed out something, the operator could interpret it as right or wrong and could perform arbitrary actions. So I was caught on the road and, after the Politburo, sent back again. But RBMK, there was only the Leningrad station initially and, yes, Chernobyl and thats all. And it still is the most common type of reactor in the world. But that it was more difficult to control became clear. The last time this was observed was on the 9th or 10th of May. Adamovich: I see, so on the 2nd of May [Unclear]. The station was under the supervision of our neighboring Ministry of Energy. In Chernobyl, I met highly organized, very precise young people who fulfilled the tasks assigned to them in the best possible manner, and these tasks were not easy. And here, at this moment, the main fundamental philosophical mistake in our approach to safety was made. There is no capability to use the theory of risk and reliability of devices to anticipate possible consequences of such events and to prepare for them in advance. And, a little later, Egorov from the Adamov Institute but he arrived a day or two later. [1] The institute members denied Legasov the position which was perhaps surprising given his seniority and public visibility. This wasn't rejected, but as far as I know, even now no such information group has been created. Early in the morning, Boris Eudokimovich Scherbina would gather the members of the GC. Although not a reactor specialist, he became a key member of the government commission formed to investigate the causes of the disaster and to plan the mitigation of its consequences. More and more resources were spent on creating facilities that were not directly related to nuclear energy. In his tape recordings, Legasov dictated: "At the station, such unavailability, such disorder, such fright. 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