Humor Random Comments Thread

[Thunder Chicken]

It's interesting (and rather frustrating) that there is so little primary source literature available to the West regarding this accident. In addition to the technical causes of the failure there is a human factor element as well. Knowing how all of the holes in the swiss cheese line up to enable such an accident is very, very important if one wishes to avoid something similar occuring again.


Reading Dyatlov's book (what parts of it are available in English) is very interesting as it casts a very different picture than how he was portrayed in the HBO series. It's a shame that they did that to him. Dyatlov notes (correctly, IMO) that the junior control room engineers very likely would have been tried and convicted had they survived as well. He was found guilty of doing things that were only found to be wrong in hindsight.

 

[Urwumpe]

Reading Dyatlov's book (what parts of it are available in English) is very interesting as it casts a very different picture than how he was portrayed in the HBO series. It's a shame that they did that to him. Dyatlov notes (correctly, IMO) that the junior control room engineers very likely would have been tried and convicted had they survived as well. He was found guilty of doing things that were only found to be wrong in hindsight.

As I wrote somewhere else already, that is his own perspective. And that is also not without faults.



He blamed the reactor design for causing the accident, but he does not speak much about the fact, that it had been his own commands, which configured the reactor outside the safe parameters.


It is very likely, that the accident would not have been possible if enough control rods had been left inserted into the core. Which means, this experiment would have had to be aborted or delayed until the Xenon poisoning is overcome.



In the second international report based on KGB documents published by Ukraine paints a different picture there, which is even more dramatic than the TV show: There was no safety culture at all in the USSR for operating the reactors, even known best practices had not been implemented, i.e. the reactor building roof was inflammible. The everyday operations had been unsafe. Shutting down the emergency cooling system for a pro-longed period of time was no issue, even during normal operations. And the emergency cooling system was, like inside first generation western BWRs not even capable of providing adequate cooling should the main circulation pumps fail.

 

[Linguofreak]

Dyatlov notes (correctly, IMO) that the junior control room engineers very likely would have been tried and convicted had they survived as well.

They were.

By physics; the judge, jury, and executioner.

 

[steph]

Still on the subject of scary nuclear accidents (well, are there any that aren't?) , it's worth checking out Andreev Bay. Since it was a military facility, they couldn't really be bothered to do anything about it. Just send some grunts to do the fixing. Since most of the grunts weren't that naive and knew what it was, they just did the minimum necessary and got the hell out or away ASAP. Even if it meant leaving used fuel cilinders exposed to the elements. Or dumping them in a pile in what was a continually leaking pool.

Now, that general or whatever he is might be exagerating, but it's worth noting that this kind of speaking up is unusual in Russia, even today (even more so today). And even though those weren't nuclear explosions, it's acceptable that those pools probably did experience spontaneaous fission due to the rods just being dumped like that AND submarine reactors were probably tough to handle in the best of cases.

Edit: wasn't that nuclear accident in August near Murmansk? Makes you think if it was really a test or they fudged up again in Andreev Bay. Perhaps they're ok with doing tests there since the area is probably screwed anyway.

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/e...isky-part-andreeva-bay-nuclear-cleanup-starts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreev_Bay_nuclear_accident

https://translate.google.com/transl...p://andreeva.1gb.ru/foto albom/fotoindex.html

This is presumably how they were storing them in the 'pool' :

I think this is the dry storage.

 

[Urwumpe]

Its like the fun with the German long term storage for nuclear waste... 60% of the waste inside the storage of the GDR at Morsleben (Just next door to the former border) is from west German nuclear power plants. A new conservative, talented minister for nuclear safety called Angela Merkel back then ordered to use it because it already existed (And tried to extend its operation license by trying to let GDR law apply in reunified Germany for a few years more) . But, all was orderly stored and documented there by the former GDR engineers and removing the waste is no high-risk operation today, they even used sophisticated storages comparable to modern CASTOR casks.

And more fun, only a few kilometers away, at Asse, is the western German "experimental" storage just on the other side of the former border. It was only supposed to be used for testing technologies. But they simply dropped simple steel barrels into the salt and move some more salt over it, which makes it almost impossible to retrieved all waste from it. Also, it is partially unknown, what is stored there. Not all barrels had been properly documented. It is plain luck, that no criticality event took place there yet - nobody knows how much Plutonium for example is put into a small volume and further compacted.

And more fun: Contrary to previous claims of western German politicians about the GDR storage, this one is still solid and not threatened of immediate flooding, while the western German one is already slowly flooding and time is running out to evacuate the nuclear waste from there.

And now, does Russia still look so much more dangerous to you compared to the nonsense lazy politicians here can do?

---------- Post added 22nd Oct 2019 at 14:07 ---------- Previous post was 21st Oct 2019 at 23:24 ----------

The true reason why the Boris has to ask for a new Brexit date:

 

[Notebook]

Narnia in the E.U. Briliant! Not sure if its a good or bad idea.

Can't remember if I read the book, but I know the story. Bit of a rabid lion in there somewhere?

 

[Urwumpe]

Makes me wonder... is the magic kingdom in Pans Labyrinth maybe also EU member? I suspect not since they have strict border controls...

 

[Linguofreak]

Narnia in the E.U. Briliant! Not sure if its a good or bad idea.

Can't remember if I read the book, but I know the story. Bit of a rabid lion in there somewhere?

Rabid? No.

 

[Notebook]

Mordor may have done a deal, they'll join as long as the UK is out.

 

[Urwumpe]

Mordor may have done a deal, they'll join as long as the UK is out.

I thought the EU is already Mordor... one ring of stars to rule them all and drive into the dark blue. :lol:


Seriously, thats as political as I want to get here. The real Brexit is a serious topic, but this comic and its fantasy implications are too funny to keep hidden.



And everybody knows, Britain works better in "Splendid Isolation", as in the "Engel" RPG source material. :lol:

 

[Notebook]

Perfidious Albion, as one of our favourite combatants said.

Probably De 'Gaulle had a point vetoing UK entry as being too disruptive.
Strange the end comes from the political party that took us into the "Common Market" and did a lot of work when in there.

 

[Notebook]

Re #25600 above and the rest, a video from Scott Manley

 

[jedidia]

Makes me wonder... is the magic kingdom in Pans Labyrinth maybe also EU member? I suspect not since they have strict border controls...

It makes me wonder whether that automatically includes the Kingdom of Kalormen, or if there's an EU border in Archenland? :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

It makes me wonder whether that automatically includes the Kingdom of Kalormen, or if there's an EU border in Archenland? :lol:

What would Vetinari do?

 

[Notebook]

Re the HBO production, as I have said enjoying it as a drama, makes you think. Though it does portray the USSR as a region that is mostly lit by 40W light bulbs, including the power station. Artistic license.

 

[Urwumpe]

Re the HBO production, as I have said enjoying it as a drama, makes you think. Though it does portray the USSR as a region that is mostly lit by 40W light bulbs, including the power station. Artistic license.

Well, it was filmed in the EU - you know how hard it is to get 100W light bulbs today here. :lol:

 

[Notebook]

I still have several, though they are too hot to actually get them out the sockets.

 

[Urwumpe]

I still have several, though they are too hot to actually get them out the sockets.

That is why janitors used to wear thin gloves at work here before the LED era came. Safety first.

 

[Notebook]

Gloves! Luxury, sheer luxury.

 

[steph]

The old filament ones used to explode . Well, implode, actually. Probably defects in the glass, but I've seen them go like that many times in my childhood . The approach was not to get high-watt lightbulbs, but to have some humongous chandelier hang from the ceiling, with several low-watt light bulbs . There were the old soviet appartments for the party members which actually had multiple light switches so you could control which light bulbs were on. Pure insanity, looking back at it, especially since power outages were the norm.