"What's that? Oh, yeah, we did the test. Totally. Worked like a charm. Yeah, I know it never worked before, but I'm just amazing. Yup! See you tomorrow."

If i was in charge at Chernobyl, it would have exploded way sooner.

I'd shit myself.

A while back there is a simulator for RBMK-1000 made by a company that makes control softwares. You could control the reactor and see how you can save it or make it explode in the shortest amount of time

This really highlights the deficiencies in having critical information that is not available in the control room. Fancy having to make these choices based on an educated guess of the value of the ORM.

This is a tough question. I have been a nuclear engineer for 30+ years. I started university in 1986. I would like to think, I would have stopped the test. And in a western reactor, no problem. We will try again in 24 months. But in the USSR, knowing that pulling the plug might send you to prison. And remember the operators didn't really know how dangerous the situation was.

I would have conducted the test exactly as specified. If after a power change, the reactor didn't fall into acceptable parameters for the next step, then SCRAM. Trust that the engineers that wrote the test protocol know what they are talking about.

Knowing me, what I would have done is follow orders, let it blow up and then run down the golden corridor away from Unit 4. I would have then slipped out a side door, driven to Pripyat to pick up my family and belongings and driven to Kyiv as fast as possible. I would then change my name and let them believe that I was buried alive under reactor 4. That is what any self-respecting chicken like me would do!

This is an excellent video. I wish more people would make videos like this. Often when an accident at work occurs, we like to think it is the fault of the "idiots" to whom it happened and we would have done things much better (with the benefit of hindsight). It also allows one to feel how it must have been when the higher ups blamed the operators. Thank you for such an insightful video. I would love to see a similar video for Three Mile Island!

I don't know Cyrillic And I'm not a nuclear engineer so I'd just turn off the lights and lock the door and leave

Best ever assesment of the situation preceding the accident. This is a must-see video for anyone trying to put the blame on *anyone* of the operators (yes, even The Most Hated Three) from a hindsight, especially that even today, reconstruction of the events are based on the diehard KGB narrative. Hell, they couldn't even have cheated their way out of the test (e.g. report success and forge reports), due to the KGB having informants everywhere.

Imagine having a shitty day at work and then your every decision is still scrutinized 40 years later

Say what you want about the RBMK, but they do have very nice looking control rooms, compared to their western equivalents of the time. Ive been in many, so I feel like i can draw an opinion on the matter.

I would be on the toilet.

Very simple, 14:49 Shut down the reactor I would ask just before the moment the turbine disconnected to perform full insertion of the lower control rods, when full insertion was achieved then I would initiate AZ-5 Thus shifting the power distribution towards the upper part of the core and being able to control the reactor while asking for every water flow reserve we have.

I would have shouted 'Hey all look behind you ! A three headed monkey !' and then proceed to run as fast as possible out of the plant, city, country and continent.

That's a great idea to put all the monday morning quarterbacks into the driving seat. Catastrophes of this kind are as old as mankind and we learned about some of them in school and wondered why. Putting ourselves into their shoes is a strong reminder that we would have most likely pulled the short straw for our own fate no matter the outcome of the whole situation. It's pretty much a no win scenario for any individual involved.

Another excellent video. I really like the format you put this one in. Looking at that black and white picture of Reactor 4 when it is almost finished, I still can't wrap my head around just how riyoinkulously large this reactor is. Dear Lord in Heaven, they couldn't make it any bigger, could they? If you take a PWR of comparable MWe output and place it inside the core space of the RBMK, you had better give it a GPS tracker, or you'd never find it again. I would have scrammed Reactor 4 when the ORM was first violated (around 02:49 into the video). Why? As a retired Master Welder with 30+ yrs of working experience with welding machines and other heavy, potentially un-aliving you equipment under his belt, this is what I always taught the apprentice-welders; "When stuff starts to run out of bounds, you stop what you're doing, and reconsider." A welding machine, just like a reactor, is both a machine _and_ a Force of Nature at the same time. You have to respect them for what they are, and what they can do. Trust me when I say you do not want to be on the receiving end when things go pear-shaped. However, I fully appreciate that here in the west we have that option, and in the USSR not so much. So, I do not blame them in the slightest, especially when the ORM wasn't considered to be all that important (it should have been, though!). I'm currently working on a full Russian to English translation of Dollezhal's book. If you would be interested in receiving a copy of the file when it's done, let me know.

Well the Spezntas will be at my home

This is a brilliant video - thank you for putting this together. It does go to show that the decisions at the time were not done with a sense of malice but with an under appreciation of the technology, that really should have only been operated within a culture of safety and information openness. We can blame the Soviet/Russian mindset for the shortcomings that led to the accident, but this type of top down, command and control centralized thinking is inherent in so many organizations, including corporations. When local, on the ground decision making is removed completely, it is inevitable that bad things will happen.

I shutdown the reactor, turned it back on turned off the pumps and raise the power to 3200 to burn the xenon turn the pumps back on and then start TG-7 turn off the steam stabilization on steam seperator drum 1 then TG-8 then drum 2.

Whatever would happen, It would be the reason why they had to add Ines Level 8

Um, that Siberia choice is sounding better and better.

Well if you thought it was bad before… WHOA NELLY!

B) Counduct the experiment at 700 MW Now I see it - the most crucial choice. This way the reactor doesnt drop to 30 MW. It doesnt have to be mitigated by withdrawing control rods. Xenon if it builds up at all is in totally neglible quantities. By the time experiment starts there is certainly safe amount of control rods inserted. Only thing that occurs is temperature spike, which in this case decreases reactivity. Even after test concludes there is no need to press AZ-5 button - operation as normal

As an actual game, this would remind me of that JFK assassination game intended to debunk the conspiracy theories by awarding more points the closer the player got to replicating the actual sequence of events.

I think most ppl would have found themselves in a basement with a Makarov behind their ear…

Shut down the reactor then waited till the xenon burned up. Then would have slowly restarted the reactor monitoring the regions like a hawk. Then told the the people who were wanting the experiment that the danger was extreme, and have the math to back it up, and if they still decided it would be the most unsatisfyingi told you so, ever. 🙄

If I was in charge at Chernobyl, not only would reactor 4 explode, but I would possibly make all the reactors explode at once.

Ima start press buttons

I would simply intervene.

It would have been much more interesting if you explained the state of the reactor based on information you know at each step. Maybe you did but I didn't understand .

Hey Sir. Waited desperately for your new video. Thanks for uploading. And to the question in the title… being totally honest… sh.@&€t my pants. 😂

nice video as always!

Someone should make a video game where you run the Chernobyl nuclear plant a Simulator game of some kind

Question: What if at the end of the test, instead of pressing AZ-5 they lowered a few rods at a time? There would be a spike in criticality, but wouldn't it be smaller? (Love this channel by the way! Amazingly well researched)

Everything is going to be fine… famous last words.

Hey Chernobyl Guy, I really love your content and have been obsessed with Chernobyl since i was a child. I see and hear and read a lot of content and struggle to orient myself around the footage/images of the damaged reactor and associated buildings with the pre-explosion assembly. Any resources you recommend?

Raise the power.

What would happen if Toptunov just wouldnt press AZ-5? like, what would happen if they would just let the power surge continue without pressing AZ-5 at all? Would there just be a meltdown but no explosion? Or would the power climb forever causing an explosion anyway?

This is one time that I'm thankful for my dyscalculia, because it means that there's no way I'd have been allowed near that control room in the first place! The wise leaders of the Soviet Union would have instead have seen the propaganda value in my skill as a painter, and I'd have been safe(r) off in Moscow or Leningrad, teaching art in a respectable state sponsored school for young patriots who also had shown potential with a paintbrush. I'd probably be working on a masterpiece showing the glowing benefits of life in an atomgrad, all thanks to the Friendly Atom, comrades!

this actually gave me a whole new perspective

I would have shut the reactor down when the ORM fell below 15 rods, like the book tells you to. I think that when they found the reactor was poisoned, I would have shut the reactor down. I think that when Dyatlov wanted to press on with the test, after the power level fell below 700 MW thermal, I would have shut the reactor down, or at least skipped the rundown test. I think that there were many opportunities to have avoided the meltdown, that were missed, if they had only just followed the instructions for safe operation of the reactor.

If its "do the test or meet the polar bears" disaster was unaviodable due to human factor. I'm expecting a possibility of such problems in the west, with "keep it online we need profits" attitude of some people/corporations as well.

Chernobyl Speedrun any%

I'd defect.

I would've chickened out on the first hurdle, reactivity margin under 15 and no rad lab personnel onsite, az-5 and go home. At the 700mw-th I would have ran the test sending steam to the condensers instead of lowering the power. Then scram and go home. We pay for the full 700, we use the full 700... Once the reactor got bricked at no power, no idea of where the rods are and no idea of the reactivity margin, scram, go home. This was the eighties, the only thing that could happen to a qualified worker is a one minute screamo session from the local politruk, that's about it.

If I was in charge of Chernobyl I simply would’ve stopped the explosion 😎

Great video! I would actually love to know how good your russian is? Do you get info pre-translated or do you read documents in original?

Simple: Change the 4 diesel generators for MAN or MTU or Caterpillar or any reliable DG and you would be on diesel power in no time

These tests should never have been carried out on a live commercial Reactor, but in a controlled enviroment before it was even agreed to build these units, the biggest crime was the whole operation was amateur and it was asking for trouble. If there is any lesson to be learned from handling Nuclear power it is waiting for a foolish decision from an individual or over confident individuals who have forgotten to fear the immense power of splitting Atoms.

Thank you! Thank you, thank you. I'm going to be a great boss. Wow, 15 seconds in and I already feel like a million bucks! ...I also feel slightly communist for some reason. It's weird.

3:18 Question - if there were not enough control rods in the reactor, due to low power output, wouldn't it make sense to try to increase reactor power at this point a bit (key word: a bit) to burn out all the xenon? Not to mention, if those were in fact supposed to be experiments and there was a chance of a xenon buildup, why not have an occasional power increase to burn it out? If I remember correctly from the HBO series it did play a role, so it might be justified and may prevent the accident

The fact that this video is made in Roblox Studio is crazy

So I know there would have been no reason to do this for the operators, but could pumping additional feedwater into the reactor shortly before finally pressing AZ-5 conceivably have prevented the accident? Or, instead of inserting the rods via AZ-5, having the operators insert them sequentially?

I really enjoyed this “Choose your own adventure” saga.. even if literally all my answers ie. trying to abandon ship just result in catastrophe & propaganda

"2:25" - which is below insertion level - what level. Dyatlov in his book claimed there were 2.

A question here: do you know wo was meant to be making THE test oryginalny?

Seems to me that the operators got the unit into an unanlyzed condition that was outside of the test parameters and should have scrammed way earlier than they did. Granted the negative-scram effect of the horrifically designed control rods was the final straw, but i disagree with the video's contention that they were justified in continuing with the test.

If I was in charge it wouldn’t have exploded duh

What I am wondering is what if Dyatlov waited unill the end of the night shift He just needed to get it done by the end of he shift not in 1 in the morning Would enough Xenon 135 decay to prevent the explosion?

Scream at everyone as being incompetent including Fomin

I would have done the test at 3200mw termal

I would have ordered all four units to be replaced with VVERs

I’d write the turbine test out of the manual

I don't know if I would have done so much difference in the end. I did conduct a few major software and hardware updates on large enterprise computer systems in my professional career with a similar number of people involved and similar many (often quite loud) stakeholders, so I can give some views there. First, my job wouldn't have started just on that day. As much as we and smarter people would have prepared the test sequence, I would have been busy making sure that the team already knows what is planned and what tasks have to be prepared. Of course, nothing ever goes as planned. Next, I would always look for milestones that permit to return to a known safe state. And of course, I always had in mind: If I decide to abort, they CAN try to fire me. And just like "Last christmas" I will be back again soon, if I am just fired for doing my job right. And of course, I would have followed the safety rules to the letter. But I would have spent much more time communicating deviations and looking for options to return to the test process. And when we accidentially reached 30 MW that way, of course the experiment would have been dead for me. That is a "Return to a previous safe state" point already. I don't compromise there, shutting down the reactor would have been too hard, but its obvious that we can't just continue. As you said, there was a later option to safely shutdown the reactor, when another layer of swiss safety cheese was removed, but: With me at the helm, I would rather confirm a proper the reactor state for that test, have a useful new test schedule in preparation, listening with a calm smile to all the superiors and other stakeholders complaints about me. But I would have made clear in all briefings before, that I will decide that way, they still let me do the job despite knowing this (because they didn't even think about having me breaking this rule). There would be another briefing to my team, assuring that all did a great job and that it was my decision to abort here. There will be a private conversation with young Tuptonov about the power loss, but no pointing fingers or worse, treat him like the noob. If this station would have been for a less qualified person than Tuptonov, he wouldn't have been there, after all. We just try figuring out what happened and how we can do better the next day. We will end this shift, leave the control room in an as good or better state as we entered it, go home, and very likely return all to work the next day. Except me maybe. But I am optimistic, that I reached the next day by just having angered my superiors that much, that somebody else did worse in the mean time. Or maybe, the next shift did already blow up the reactor and there are lots of free positions in management suddenly looking for me. 😉

I'd call in sick to due to radioactive flu 🤧

If only they don't hold at low power levels

Is the Igor kirschenbaum is real and still alive? I said it because no photo about him

We can't alter the timeline 😅

Does anyone know the answers? Because they sure didn’t at the time

Shut it off before the test.

Welp, now I know I shoulcn't be working in a Nuke Plant anytime soon. I think I've killed us all. Sorry everyone!

In my case it sounds like a bad idea😅😅

Back in 80s I woulda been taking bonghits so it might not have been super mellow if I were in charge - some hot girls in Ukraine though so what the hell

Did anyone notice that the control room is from Roblox?

First thing I’d do is quit and move country’s 😂😊 unfortunately this is so sad

Try to make it as bad as possible

You didn't give the options necessary for my goal: there can be no war in Ukraine if there is no longer a Ukraine!

7:50 you cannot lower to 200mw and still conduct the test. The test requires 700mw to keep the turbine spinning at a rate such that it has enough energy to power the pump until diesel generators kick in. 200 is too low

I'm a little disappointed, politically. I've been accused of being a communist quite a few times, but this video tells me I'd be a very bad party member of the Soviets.

I can do better than dyatlov