WTF Happened at Chernobyl? 💥

Morning Meltdown!

You know the Chernobyl disaster?

When that nuclear power station in Ukraine… blew up?

Causing a giant wave of radiation to engulf Europe?

Yeah… wtf happened?

So it’s April 26th, 1986.

Time for a safety test on Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

The engineers want to test if they can keep the safety systems running if the reactor loses power.

So step one is simple — just slowly lower the power of the reactor.

How?

Well, if you look inside the reactor, you’ll see these neutron particles wizzing about, hitting a bunch of uranium atoms in a chain reaction.

So to slow this down, you need something to get in the way of those particles and absorb them…

AKA an absorber!

Now, the reactor is already surrounded by water (a pretty good absorber), but that's more just to keep it stable.

So, to REALLY slow it down, the engineers lower these giant Boron Carbide rods into the reactor.

Turns out Boron Carbide is a super good absorber.

But there’s a problem… they turn the reactor down TOO low.

And one of the byproducts of a nuclear chain reaction is Xenon-135, another great absorber just like the Boron Carbide rods.

So the engineers realize the reactor’s power is too low and are like:

But with all the Xenon built up, the reactor kept slowing down even more...

The only way to raise the power is to start removing the control rods.

And that's exactly what they do under orders from Deputy Chief Engineer Anatoly Dyatlov.

So they remove ALL but 8 of the 200 control rods.

Which is in blatant violation of safety procedures.

The next step in the safety procedure is to shut down the pumps that normally send water through the reactor.

But without any new water coming in, the power level begins to shoot up.

Turning some of the water into steam.

Which increases the power more…

Which turns even more water into steam!

Then, one of the engineers slams the emergency shutdown button, which inserts all of the control rods at once to stop the reaction…

But now they’re past the point of no return.

In fact, the control rods make it worse because there’s a design flaw…

These Boron Carbide rods aren’t just Boron Carbide.

They also have a graphite tip.

And graphite is the OPPOSITE of an absorber, more like an accelerant!

Leading to another surge in power until eventually…

BOOM!

The reactor explodes…

Woops.

Stay Cute,
Reece, Henry & Dylan 🌈

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