What if Chernobyl was Far Worse? - Nuclear Engineer Reacts to Alternate History Hub

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T. Folse Nuclear

2 ай бұрын

Original Video @AlternateHistoryHub • What if the Chernobyl ...

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@tfolsenuclear 2 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for watching! If you want to hear more details on the real Chernobyl disaster, please check out: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/asuHbJxlyL-anZ8.htmlsi=Ijt-r6lVxpJcdHb4

@Anime7301 2 ай бұрын

@Moontrue1on1 2 ай бұрын

I read supposed newly declassified sources 1 or 2 years ago that it was a military-controlled reactor part that didn’t have to follow regular civil standards. Do you know any more about this?

@liquidpatriot4480 2 ай бұрын

The only way I see it possibly turning out way worse is if they had run the test on multiple reactors that evening and at least 2 of the 4 reactors exploded.

@justinmcgough3958 2 ай бұрын

@@Moontrue1on1 got a source for that, because that sounds like a far stretch. And even then was this a source stating for a fact that that's what it was, or was it a source speculating the possibility that it was. Just because something was declassified doesn't mean everything stated within is true, but that something within the document touched upon materials that the government didn't want public at the time.

@Moontrue1on1 2 ай бұрын

@@justinmcgough3958 thats why i asked if he know somthing about that... I don’t remember where I found it. I just remember reading it when I was down the rabbit hole about pre-70s nuclear research and why it stopped etc.

@GrantWaller.-hf6jn 2 ай бұрын

The radiation spike was so high the US Navy thought they lost a sub.

@joee-kp7qt 2 ай бұрын

Ono

@christian_mars8218 Ай бұрын

were all the submarine with nuclear weapons?

@GrantWaller.-hf6jn Ай бұрын

@@christian_mars8218no the attack subs have no Nuclear missiles. The attack subs hunt the missile subs.

@christian_mars8218 Ай бұрын

@@GrantWaller.-hf6jn thank you.

@GrantWaller.-hf6jn Ай бұрын

@@christian_mars8218sure. But many attack subs are still nuclear-powered. Since nuclear-powered do not have to surface to run diesel engines to recharge the batteries.and like the space station and commercial aircraft emergency air supply have oxygen generators

@user-ou8tg8ek1x 2 ай бұрын

4:38 did anybody catch the spot on gorbachev's head where he put just mexico? haha

@HeroinYoda 2 ай бұрын

I've been an Alternate History Hub fan for quite some time now and I love the scenarios. Cody is a huge Fallout fan which probably influenced him a lot when making this Video. I think its more important for a video to be fun than realistic when covering fictional scenarios, but hearing an experts opinion is always a good thing. I learned a lot from your reaction, much love.

@deeppal148 2 ай бұрын

Yea so it's a absolutely worst case scenario where everything wants to make it worse.

@darkerrorcode 2 ай бұрын

I mean, he didnt say "Worse Case Scenario", he just increased the amount of material thrown

@teardowndan5364 2 ай бұрын

Hard to imagine how Chernobyl could have gone worse given the number of things that had to go wrong for it to happen in the first place. As for where the extra material comes from, it could be simply from the criticality event happening closer to the bottom of the reactor core, ejecting more of it straight up. In all likelihood, the radiation doses all around would have been proportionally greater from most of the material scattering over roughly the same area, possibly less from the explosion having the same energy to lift a greater mass from greater depth within the reactor vessel, and the immediate reactor area still been a near-instant lethal dose since 30-40% of the material would still be there.

@JonatanGronoset 2 ай бұрын

I believe saying the operators being bad is a perpetuated myth, it was merely a blame shift ordered by the soviet state to hide the fact it had hidden crucial information from the operators. The Ignalina plant experienced the same power excursion caused by the positive void coefficient in 1983, but the state chose to classify this information instead of including it in the training program of its operators. Not even the experienced Dyatlov or Akimov knew of the void coefficient, the Ignalina accident nor the effect of the AZ-5. So the operators weren't nessicerilly "bad", they were working without crucial information withheld by the KGB. The _plant management_ otoh was very bad, who like the operators were taught that soviet reactors _could not fail,_ and so refused to take immediate action.

@TriNguyen-he7xk 2 ай бұрын

Nah they still ignored their own safety procedures. They still restarted the reactor after shutting it down without waiting for 3 days Even if they feign ignorance of the dogshittery of cherbobyls build quality they were still irresponsible.

@defeatSpace 2 ай бұрын

The soviets were basically asking those operators to take them to the moon with some playdough, a rubber band, and a paperclip.

@darkwinter7395 2 ай бұрын

@@defeatSpace Not asking. Demanding on pain of death.

@RM97800 2 ай бұрын

@@TriNguyen-he7xkYeah, the "spirit of OSHA" was nonexistent in Chernobyl NPP, there were so many red flags (pun intended) with this test and how the reactor was handled and still nobody decided that enough is enough, and abort the test.

@JonatanGronoset 2 ай бұрын

@@TriNguyen-he7xk, @RM97800 You do not understand how the Soviet Union worked. You simply _didn't_ walk up to your manager and said "I think something's wrong with the reactor and we should stop". They had all reason and means to make you vanish if you got in the way of promotion, so you kept quiet and did as you were told. If anything, they were just as ignorant to the facts as anyone else. And just as well, as otherwise the KGB could start asking questions where they got classified information from... Ignorance is not the same as irresponsibility. You too would do the test if you had a beurocratic gun to your head.

@petersmythe6462 2 ай бұрын

Living in modern Pripyat be like: •no rent, mortgage, or property taxes. •no HOA. •beautiful wildlife. •thriving tourism industry but no pickpockets. •many historic sites and landmarks to visit with no entry fee.

@Anonymus-ih7yb 2 ай бұрын

Living in modern Pripyat means living in a War zone

@AjZ530 2 ай бұрын

@@Anonymus-ih7yb Not really, you do realise not the entirety of Ukraine is a war zone right? Western Ukraine is mostly the same as before at this point. Pripyat and Chernobyl is north-west of Kyiv and Kyiv itself is fairly untouched (only really had significant strikes in the beginning of the invasion) let alone what is west of it.

@henrycrystal9740 2 ай бұрын

@@AjZ530 pripyat is in the belarusian border, belarussia is a russian vassal dictatorship who is in the war against ukraine.

@AjZ530 2 ай бұрын

@@henrycrystal9740 so? That doesn't mean there's active combat in the region. I am well aware of where it is

@ASlickNamedPimpback 2 ай бұрын

@@AjZ530 war zone doesnt necessarily mean active combat

@MlokKarel 2 ай бұрын

Even though I actually enjoy these alternate reality and "what if" scenarios, they have to be very well thought through to be of any value other than pure silly entertainment. And even though I wanted to stay with him from the beginning and give him as much benefit of a doubt as possible, the things you pointed out (especially the "magical dose" of radiation that wouldn't be possible in the way he described it) are pretty much bulletproof and shatter his theories - in the end, it was just an exercise in silliness, as you said. Wouldn't you want to try make similar video, but actually well researched and much more thought through? Not necessarily Chernobyl, but anything you actually take a lot of interest in? I think you'd be great man for such job, Tyler! 😀👍

@swokatsamsiyu3590 2 ай бұрын

Second that! That is one video I definitely would like to watch.

@tfolsenuclear 2 ай бұрын

Wow, thanks so much!! And thanks for your suggestion! I really appreciate it!

@UltraProchy 2 ай бұрын

I agree, that would be a treat

@stargazer-elite 2 ай бұрын

There’s all kinds alternate history KZfaqrs, some like to be less realistic for a more entertaining video and others like to be as realistic as possible

@ale-xsantos1078 2 ай бұрын

I think his point of divergence doesnt really require magic, but based on what you said it wouldnt work just by increasing the percentage of material When it comes down to it this scenario is "what if the firefighters didnt make it?" Which I believe you'd need another reason other than radiation, perhaps politics or some kind of communication delay, I dont know But I do think that a butchered response to the fires is a possibility, just not the "and then they start dying immediately" part

@soylentgreenb 2 ай бұрын

Please don't say graphite tipped. This just conjures up a completely inaccurate picture of the reactor. At no point does more graphite enter the core during a SCRAM. The flaw is more subtle than this. The graphite rods were 4.5 meters long and separated from the boron carbide control rod by 1.25 m of telescoping rod. When control rods where maximally withdrawn from the reactor the 4.5 m graphite section was centered in the 7 m tall reactor core and the boron carbide rod was just outside the top of the reactor. As soon as you start inserting the control rod the boron carbide rod starts coming in at the top of the reactor and the graphite just starts moving down through the core; no additional graphite is inserted into the core, it just moves around. After inserting 1.25 m of control rod the graphite starts exiting at the bottom of the core. The ends state is almost 7 m of boron carbide neutron absorber centered in the core, with graphite sitting just outside the core (the telescoping rod collapses so that the channel can be made 1.25 m shorter below the core). If the neutron flux density is even throughout the core reactivity drops monotonically. At first by inserting boron carbide and later by inserting boron carbide *and* withdrawing graphite out of the core. What can go wrong with this design is that the RBMK core is *huge* and you can have one part of the core critical and another part fully shut down. If most of your neutrons are at the bottom of the core, you are actually inserting more graphite into this region where there are the most neutrons whizzing around and this increases reactivity more than reactivity is lost by inserting boron carbide or withdrawing graphite from where the neutrons aren't. There's no net insertion of graphite when inserting the control rods, only when withdrawing them.

@swokatsamsiyu3590 2 ай бұрын

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Finally someone who also gets it. What's even worse is that in 1983, they secretly made adjustments to the graphite displacers by shortening them from their original 4.96 m to the now well known 4.5 m. Before this change, they did reach all the way to the bottom of the core. Why? So they could save some money because by doing this, they could keep the under-reactor spaces smaller, thus needing less steel and concrete. No testing or research was ever done on how this would affect the reactor's behaviour, especially in emergency situations🤦🏽

@GrantWaller.-hf6jn 2 ай бұрын

Lead graphite aka number 2 pencil

@soylentgreenb 2 ай бұрын

@@GrantWaller.-hf6jn Pencils graphite contains clay. You don't want some random clay in your moderator. Pure reactor graphite is actually very different than pencil graphite. It is very pure and dense in comparison. You can keep a torch on it until it glows orange for minutes and you will barely notice that it lost any mass (it does oxidize slowly, but not fast enough to remain on fire if you have a loose chunk).

@GrantWaller.-hf6jn 2 ай бұрын

@@soylentgreenbI like your handle. I was being an ass. Thanks for all the interesting information. I do know a number 2 pencil is way different. I just like in the lexicon of words one can have way way different meaning and is the butt of many jokes. Many people know more of nuclear engineering here then could hope of knowing.

@soylentgreenb 2 ай бұрын

@@GrantWaller.-hf6jn I wasn't trying to be a smartass, I just wanted to point out that reactor graphite is a very different feeling material. People tend to think of graphite as char coal that could easily catch on fire and it's not that.

@jianhongguan5366 29 күн бұрын

Imagine being that one worker standing next to next reactor 4 watching the steel lid jumping up and down😂

@Merennulli 2 ай бұрын

"Like if you pressed your breaks and it went faster-" So like a riding lawnmower. 😡I got flung about 20 feet learning that lesson. I never thought anyone, certainly not an entire industry, would be horrible enough at safety design to make a brake pedal work that way.

@darkwinter7395 2 ай бұрын

Um... just curious... what make & model was that on? And was it a geared transmission or a hydrostatic?

@Merennulli 2 ай бұрын

@@darkwinter7395 John Deere, not sure the rest. I was working as summer help groundskeeping in 1996 when it happened. I was informed by several people that was how all riding lawnmower "break" pedals work - they push you to neutral before doing any actual breaking, so it lurches forward uncontrollably if you try it downhill. Presumably because there is less between the transmission and tires than in an automobile so they're protecting the transmission instead of the driver.

@RM97800 2 ай бұрын

18:55 Attendance in celebration (the parade) of May 1st holiday was (almost) Mandatory, especially for school kids. Not only in USSR, but whole Eastern Bloc. 29:03 There wouldn't be a revolution for Poland and most of Eastern Bloc + non-independent nationalities inside USSR. Most of them would cut ties with Moscow and cede power to the people in a controlled (by communist elites) fashion. It would just happen faster, seeing that USSR would have even less forceful means or political power to stop them. Events in Lithuania might have gone more violently, sure. There would be more riots and civil disobedience, but there was already a lot of that in Poland even before Chernobyl (events of 1980 and 81). 31:21 This is absolutely silly, he's talking about 40 million Poles being casualties of this scenario - Poland currently has 38 million, so he's talking about the entire population, if not more.

@thebronywiking 2 ай бұрын

Not casualties. That over 300 million number was about effected, including by panic, not dead or hurt.

@Hamstray 2 ай бұрын

as far as i know the steam explosion was estimated at 10 tons. the number 225 tons was unbased speculation that a nuclear fizzle occurred (and the numbers were loosely based on the numbers from the operation upshot knothole tests)

@robertschultz6922 2 ай бұрын

There is a video I wish he would do that says the reactor was not actually stalled with xenon but was actually going back to normal when the incident occurred

@brainblessed5814 2 ай бұрын

Cherbobyl exclusion zone would be known simply as the Glow.

@ProlificInvention 2 ай бұрын

The "liquidators" were a virtual cleanup army that prevented a far worse disaster. Depending on who you believe there may have been a far greater sacrifice: According to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, the main organization of liquidators, "25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled", which makes a total of 60,000 dead (10% of the 600,000 liquidators) and 165,000 disabled. Estimates of the number of deaths potentially resulting from the accident vary enormously

@lexinexi-hj7zo 2 ай бұрын

7:20 "Needless to say NOT the way you want to shut down your reactor" Well Said. I think that would probably the worst way. I heard the power went 1.4 T Thats right terra watts; from 230 MWatts.

@Kansasavation 2 ай бұрын

Great video also FYI some guy is on tick-tock reposting your videos, not sure if it’s you or not but he is making money off your videos

@kstricl 2 ай бұрын

Check Tyler's community posts, looks like he successfully got that shut down.

@GhostShipBaychimo 2 ай бұрын

Althist is not really a science guy more about military and politics he does a lot of scenarios that aren’t really that grounded but he does his best.

@jlp1528 2 ай бұрын

Note that some new reactor designs call for HALEU fuel which tops out at 20% enrichment. This is primarily to allow for longer fuel cycles in smaller reactors, and also potentially hotter and thus more efficient and versatile operation. Can you talk about Gen IV, SMRs, and microreactors please? :)

@coleLoGhrin 2 ай бұрын

keep up the good work!

@Travminer123 2 ай бұрын

Chernobyl would be come fallout 5

@renscience 2 ай бұрын

The nasty radioactive isotopes are made during operation. New enriched uranium fuel can be handled until it’s set off. Some of the rods were new, while some were old in this thing so some were likely not as nasty yet. Did the graphite become radioactive over the years?

@The_Angry_Medic 2 ай бұрын

Was that a Hurricane Harvey reference? Cuz that sucked living in southeast Texas

@lukerotthowe106 2 ай бұрын

would it even be possible to cause a meltdown in a modern reaktor or is it impossible even if you would try? would it auto shutdown?

@soylentgreenb 2 ай бұрын

In a modern reactor it is the decay heat that melts the fuel. If you SCRAM a reactor the reaction is completely off in seconds. There is no longer a chain reaction happening, but short-lived isotopes still emit heat; about 7% of full power after a minute and it gradually drops over months to fractions of a percent. If you don't cool this at all the fuel will slowly boil off the water and melt. Molten fuel contains a mix of radioactive isotopes and the main ones that cause harm are cesium-137, cesium-134 and iodine-131. These are long lived enough to exist outside of the reactor and short lived enough to be unsafe. These are also flightly and will slowly boil off from the molten fuel and if they can't plate out on something they will go into the air or steam and down wind.

@11Berry113 2 ай бұрын

Question? Where did they put all the debris (Graphite etc.) from the clean up ?

@jeffwilson1394 Ай бұрын

Whenever you talk about Chernobyl, I've noticed you used the language "Defeated" Safety protocols, ratger than "Disabled". That activates the almond a little bit

@ryanheister6802 2 ай бұрын

Half as interesting did a video on a 790 mile wire from Kansas to Indiana you may find interesting. It’s not really about nuclear power but it does talk about power grids in general.

@makeomengreatagain 2 ай бұрын

I have heard that explosion was so severe that even containment would not be enough to encapsule it

@stampy2208 2 ай бұрын

9:24 S.C.R.axe man

@stampy2208 2 ай бұрын

Aside from the fun-fact An axe man would have been more efficent

@scottbogfoot Ай бұрын

11:08 isn't that what happened with the so called elephant's foot?😊

@UNuklear Ай бұрын

I'm gonna have to recommend Soup Emporium's "Chernobyl's Death Toll" for a deep dive into consequences of the disaster and how difficult it is to quantify the harm from such a disaster in deets, I think people here will find it interesting. upd: wrong video name oopsie

@GrantWaller.-hf6jn 2 ай бұрын

I am such an old guy the I played the Atari game Scram back in the early 80s

@oganvildevil 2 ай бұрын

Y'all keep giggling about blowing up the fire y'all gonna summon up a very ornary Red Adair

@thamirivonjaahri6378 2 ай бұрын

Work day in east bloc was honestly big effin deal. There were basically no other holidays, which could match it in both size and spectacle. Only most essential services such as water utilities, police, FDs, hospitals and power stations worked on that day and anyone who had to work on that day received big chunky bonus to his salary. We talk about up to 200% extra in addition to their normal fee depending on occupation. Even TV and radio were shut off for the day (because attendance for non-essential workers was kinda...well...mandatory, so why bother anyway) as far as I remember.

@EShirako Ай бұрын

Welp...that video was so dumb that I chose "Don't Recommend This Channel" for their video because this was so stupid, wrong and silly. I just...I have no interest in anything that caused this video to become a reality if it didn't have a laugh-track or disclaimer attached to it.

@swokatsamsiyu3590 2 ай бұрын

Thank you for another well-done video. I really enjoy watching them because I always learn something new. Unit 3 barely escaped disaster by the cladding of its fuel rods twice that night. During the accident itself because Units 3 and 4 _shared_ some of the auxiliary systems, and later that night when they kept it running despite the fact that all the emergency cooling water was going to its now destroyed twin. AZ-5 stands for Аварийная (=Emergency) Защита (= Protection) 5-й категорий (= of the 5th Category). The RBMK actually has multiple Scram buttons, believe it or not. They are: AZ-1: Fast reduction to 60% of full rated power AZ-2: Fast reduction to 50% of full rated power AZ-3: Fast reduction to 20% of full rated power AZ-5: SCRAM Which one would be used depended on the particular situation. In the USSR, a reactor shutdown was very much frowned upon because they thought it to be disruptive to the Unified Soviet Grid. They wanted to keep them running as much as possible.

@higamitakaro 2 ай бұрын

17:15 Mi-8 has crashed in October,2 1986. This was after all derbies was buried inside the reactor building.

@switted823 2 ай бұрын

0:20 my life in a nutshell

@mgfeedthebeast 2 ай бұрын

Hey tf could you play s.t.a.l.k.e.r anomaly? I know its unrealistic but i think you would still like it! The character from 32:37 is also from that game. I hope i was not the only person who thought if it lol

@MoparNewport 2 ай бұрын

Ok, there is an interesting hypothetical- what exactly would be the size of nuke needed to vaporize all four cores at one go? Obviously the Tzar would be massively overkill, but would 1MT be enough? 5? 15 megatons? Would it vaporize the cores enough to eliminate all the potential waste? Just a thought.

@gameingboy9541 2 ай бұрын

1:46 i got a kfc ad

@Owaaan 2 ай бұрын

He-ro-She-moh Hi-ro-shi-ma

@Dragonfire425 2 ай бұрын

I was born the day Chernobyl started... so no it couldnt be worse lol

@Mildain2000 2 ай бұрын

Bad things sure are bad

@scbl46 2 ай бұрын

Hiroshima is a tidal wave, Chernobyl is a storm surge

@PvtSchlock 2 ай бұрын

4:50 yes, but what's on the Soviet side of Afghanistan? Seems like an aerospace city complex around there somewhere...

@rockytucker7480 2 ай бұрын

Well besides a few freak accidents nuclear energy is the safest cleanest energy there is and it's been made even better because now the Canadians have designed reactors that cannot melt down like scientifically cannot get hot enough to melt down and I guess Canada also came out with a reactor that somehow uses nuclear waste and you only have to refill every 20 years this just doesn't happen anymore and even if it did the reality is that even with all of the nuclear disasters of any kind put together it wouldn't be a month's worth of those that died at due to fossil fuels

@oliversherman2414 2 ай бұрын

What if Chernobyl never happened?

@BrodyLuv2 Ай бұрын

How are 3 complete meltdowns and fires in 8 SFPs with the housing containment completely obliterated by explosions and where the corium (of 3 total melt throughs according to released FOIA requested minutes) is still untouched and untouchable, and has 400 tons of fresh Aquifer water that runs downhill and through the PP's each day ..how is this not recognised for what it is !?

@BrodyLuv2 Ай бұрын

The Water is averaging at 2.2 Seiverts an hour per liter and they supposedly are storing 1000 Gallons of this brew in 1 container, outside with 1000 others ... This is untreated water that is loaded .. you tell me if you would stand next to a container with 1000 gallons at 2.2 Seiverts per liter /h !? No logic in you guys.

@higamitakaro 2 ай бұрын

28:56 - *Counter-revolution

@subtlewolf 2 ай бұрын

This video on Soviet nuclear batteries shows, among other things, a small scale cleanup that just cycles through people rapidly. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hLpoYMVmvqvdmqM.html

@TrickerMan9000 2 ай бұрын

stalker entites were real if it got worse

@beansnrice321 2 ай бұрын

So rushin Russians made the building poorly?

@CajunReaper95 2 ай бұрын

Keep in mind the Soviet government wasn’t exactly smart so them doing stupid shit like not understanding what graphite does to chain reactions.

@waterhound4036 2 ай бұрын

Wow

@Anime7301 2 ай бұрын

@macimi 2 ай бұрын

first love ur vids❤️

@kevinavillain4616 2 ай бұрын

It seems there is example after example where being exposed to small amounts of radiation reduces the amount of cancer and improves overall health. Go figure but it is consistent. 😮🤯🤔. I have enough reasons to believe this is true that I would choose personally the exposure.

@AntonSlavik 2 ай бұрын

I don't think he was "being silly". At the very least 0.001% of his viewers will think he was being silly, so there's really no difference. It's the inveerse same reason dog whistles are dangerous

@andyblizzard8633 2 ай бұрын

Oh, look. Chernobyl is in Ukraine.

@4yUwantAxe 2 ай бұрын

Not just for you, but for everyone, I hate these alternative histories thing.. People have a hard enough time grasping REAL history, without these unnecessary thought experiments making people more afraid and paranoid than they have to be or ought to be. It just feels like fearmongering in a fearful world. Though, I greatly appreciate your take and opinion on deconstructing this particular scenario.

@HowIsAsh 2 ай бұрын

Look at me, im special and my viewpoint is the only right one, i hate hurr durr

@4yUwantAxe 2 ай бұрын

@@HowIsAsh u mad bro?

@GeneralGrievousCIS 2 ай бұрын

Alternate history isn't neccessarily fear mongering. It's an intellectual exercise that can help you make better sense of why history is important. Some changes could make the present world better, others could make it worse, and others still could make it so unrecognizable as to render such comparison impossible. Sure, THIS alt history is meant to make an event scarier (and is goofy), but many are not.

@4yUwantAxe 2 ай бұрын

@@GeneralGrievousCIS Yeah, sure General. When your advice arrives on Earth in a long, long time; I'll consider listening to it. Til then, tl;dr

@GeneralGrievousCIS 2 ай бұрын

@4yUdoDis If you think THAT is tl;dr, I can see why alt hist isn't for you... and it's not the fearmongering 🤣 Also ironic, as that reply was roughly the length of your own comment.