Movie Theater Chernobyl HBO Series
- Thread starter madppcs
- Start date
Another interesting thing I picked up from Pandora's Promise. A while back I was talking with an acquaintance who said he had purchased stocks in a company that specializes in mining for uranium and other such metals but the stock wasn't doing all that well. In Pandora's Promise towards the end a comment was made that US nuclear power plants are frequently fueled on defunct nuclear warheads from the Russian nuclear arsenal. In other words, we are running our nuclear power plants using their refined uranium. It occurs to me that the stocks in the company aren't doing all that well because the nuclear industry doesn't need a supply of uranium if they are using defunct nuclear warheads from the Russian arsenal. I told him to watch the movie. He didn't believe me. It does sound outlandish, I have to admit.
Yes, it is a cycle alright.
Started reading the book last night.
One angle that struck me.......based on the place names........all horrible WWII battle areas or racial cleansing villages.
If you were in the prime of your life in 1986, say 51 my age, as a kid you were witness to some hard war.
It's alluded to at one point, one party interviewed remembering as a child seeing their dad brought home, dead, machine gunned, buried in the front yard.
One stat in the book is about the Germans wiping out some 700 or so villages during the war and Chernobyl did same to over 400........all within one lifetime.
A witness says they way the Soviets handled Chernobyl was no different than how they fought the Germans......they threw ill equipped, untrained, men into the mouth of the beast.
One angle that struck me.......based on the place names........all horrible WWII battle areas or racial cleansing villages.
If you were in the prime of your life in 1986, say 51 my age, as a kid you were witness to some hard war.
It's alluded to at one point, one party interviewed remembering as a child seeing their dad brought home, dead, machine gunned, buried in the front yard.
One stat in the book is about the Germans wiping out some 700 or so villages during the war and Chernobyl did same to over 400........all within one lifetime.
A witness says they way the Soviets handled Chernobyl was no different than how they fought the Germans......they threw ill equipped, untrained, men into the mouth of the beast.
It's being worked on
ITER - the way to new energy
ITER is the world’s largest fusion experiment. Thirty-five nations are collaborating to build and operate the ITER Tokamak, the most complex machine ever designed, to prove that fusion is a viable source of large-scale, safe, and environmentally friendly energy for the planet.
www.iter.org
You are thinking short game, brother.
I'm thinking long game. I won't be around to see it, but ... I'm very confident solar and wind is the future.
But, hey, whatever.
It isn't.
Yeah, I was buying into that video until I saw the stats, that practically nobody died from Chernobyl. That was what was suggested in the movie Pandora's Promise as well, which in my opinion was pro-nuclear power. But those stats conflict heavily with the epilogue from Chernobyl which said much higher numbers of deaths related to Chernobyl. People who watched the fire from the bridge in town died. Others died from complications. In Pandor's Promise, it was like that never happened.
Ted talk is a kind of guru bullshit talk that I haven't bought into really. It's all guru stuff for the most part.
Practically speaking, though, Chernobyl, though there are people living there now who have returned, the government is against it. Fukushima is still off limits. I don't see why the government would go to those lengths if there wasn't some real concern.
Now Hiroshima and Nagasaki are inhabited. But the stats from several different web sites suggest high rates of cancer such as leukemia: https://k1project.columbia.edu/news/hiroshima-and-nagasaki
Yeah, it's a bomb and the other a power source, but US nuclear power plants use defunct Russian weapons for their source. Same thing really.
WT1 said:
No, reactor fuel and weapons-grade uranium aren't the "same thing really".
Megatons for Megawatts ran for twenty years through 2013 and took highly enriched U235 removed from Russian warheads that were already deactivated by treaty and converted it to much much lesser enriched U235 for nuclear reactor fuel.
About 45% of American reactor fuel has recently come from former Russian weapons. Hell, the US even converted some of our weapons-grade uranium from deactivated warheads into reactor fuel, that makes up about 5% of reactor fuel.
All of these former nuclear weapons account for about 10% of power generation in the entire USA...so who gives a shit where reactor fuel was sourced from? It was already made and wasn't used as a weapon as designed, which sounds a lot like a win/win for the world.
Swords into plowshares...........
Reading through the book I got on Amazon.
I dont think its the one the series was based on, perhaps for the personal stories of how the event effected individuals and families but not so much technical data on what happened and how they tried to recover it.
Pretty depressing read. It has that "Holocaust" survivor genre feel to it.
What surprises me is how closely they related Chernobyl to the WWII experience/war in general. Many of the commentators in the book were survivors of both.
Provides an interesting exposure of the Russian mindset whereby taking on certain death tasks at the request of the state is viewed as "heroic" and providing the individual meaning.
Sure we understand that but the difference here is that "life" has meaning. Your death for the greater good may be required but it is not a means to give the individual "meaning". The individual was important before the sacrifice. Seems to not be so in the Soviet Union.
Makes me think of a tyrranical death cult except the people dying/surviving were very educated and totally crushed by the loss.
They wanted to live but felt a crushing inertia to die - "I cant say no. I have a Party card".
You're entitled to your opinion
You're not entitled to credibility on this subject. That has to be earned.
I'm pretty sure you're not an engineer, nor have anywhere near the education needed to start sorting reality from bullshit on this subject.
And I am 100% certain that you have zero operational experience in the field of nuclear power generation.
One never knows where nuclear reactors might be.
Sure we see the obvious power plants but how many "research" reactors exist and in how densely populated the area?
Cambridge prides itself on its liberal agenda, pretty sure they are a "nuclear free zone".
Good thing MIT doesnt do any research on nuclear energy or there could be conflict between the school and the city.
Sure we see the obvious power plants but how many "research" reactors exist and in how densely populated the area?
Cambridge prides itself on its liberal agenda, pretty sure they are a "nuclear free zone".
Good thing MIT doesnt do any research on nuclear energy or there could be conflict between the school and the city.
List of nuclear research reactors - Wikipedia
I think it is an efficient use of former nuclear weapons. But before it is converted it is still a bomb in a sense, so same thing. Nothing wrong with that, just it is isn't a pile until it is converted as you said. I get it.
Just finished it. Very well done. I wish they had gone more into the physics. But there are many great YouTube lectures/documentaries... that explain the physics and what happened... the drama was ok.
It is totally worth watching.
There is an excellent book, BTW. Midnight at Chernobyl.
Sirhr
It is totally worth watching.
There is an excellent book, BTW. Midnight at Chernobyl.
Sirhr
There was little wrong with the physics
There was a lot wrong with decisions made without respecting the physics. The graphite on the ground after the initial explosions should have made everyone tremble in their boots.
I have to say that those people were some of the bravest motherfuckers I have ever heard of. It is unbelievable what was going on.
The management of that facility should have all been hung from a rope. However, if they reported the truth they would have been shot. Damned if you do...
There was a lot wrong with decisions made without respecting the physics. The graphite on the ground after the initial explosions should have made everyone tremble in their boots.
I have to say that those people were some of the bravest motherfuckers I have ever heard of. It is unbelievable what was going on.
The management of that facility should have all been hung from a rope. However, if they reported the truth they would have been shot. Damned if you do...
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why waist your time hang a dying man , I mean he did die really horribly and in a lot of pain as if that makes up for the millions that died .
Not sure what you read in that reference but one quote from it: " Today, the liveliness of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki serves as a reminder not only of the human ability to regenerate, but also of the extent to which fear and misinformation can lead to incorrect expectations. "
How people have died from nuclear power in the US? How many people have died from natural gas explosions, refinery explosions, coal mine collapses, etc, etc.
The 1980 damascus titan missile incident could have been really bad too.
Nobody really talks about the environmental impact of sellafield either.
In the early 90’s a hurricane hit south florida, there is a nuclear energy site in biscayne natl park that was supposed to be shut down prior to the storm making landfall in the event of a power failure and backup generators were unable to come online in time to keep the water flow to regulate the reactors, think it came down to about 6 hours time to stop the reaction before the storm hit. Meltdown during a hurricane would have been bad news too.
I think there is a sub at the bottom of the atlantic, maybe the Thresher, that had a bunch of nukes on it...don’t know if it was ever recovered or not.
Nobody really talks about the environmental impact of sellafield either.
In the early 90’s a hurricane hit south florida, there is a nuclear energy site in biscayne natl park that was supposed to be shut down prior to the storm making landfall in the event of a power failure and backup generators were unable to come online in time to keep the water flow to regulate the reactors, think it came down to about 6 hours time to stop the reaction before the storm hit. Meltdown during a hurricane would have been bad news too.
I think there is a sub at the bottom of the atlantic, maybe the Thresher, that had a bunch of nukes on it...don’t know if it was ever recovered or not.
I just wandered in here to the necro thread--but with a background in Physics (that's the "Doc" part) the series was VERY well done and was just a good mini-series. I found it very enjoyable and I don't enjoy much that is science based these days. There was one major place where i called "BULLSHIT", but the quality of the rest far outweighs a single line. It was just good TV.
FYI there was a podcast with the series creator that was also a good listen, gives some more details and of course some of the decisions made about why things are portrayed a certain way.
And yes, there are multible nuclear reactors at the bottom of the ocean. Thresher, Scorpion, an H-Bomb near Spain at least. Of course one of the best way to safegaurd nuclear waste is to put it in water.... (Plus Ballarad's expidition to find Titanic was ACTUALLY a mission to examine the Scorpion's reactor and whether it was intact) That's not counting our Soviet Friends who where ever so honest and open....
FYI there was a podcast with the series creator that was also a good listen, gives some more details and of course some of the decisions made about why things are portrayed a certain way.
And yes, there are multible nuclear reactors at the bottom of the ocean. Thresher, Scorpion, an H-Bomb near Spain at least. Of course one of the best way to safegaurd nuclear waste is to put it in water.... (Plus Ballarad's expidition to find Titanic was ACTUALLY a mission to examine the Scorpion's reactor and whether it was intact) That's not counting our Soviet Friends who where ever so honest and open....
There are some Generation IV reactors that are molten metal cooled. The Terrapower traveling wave reactor is one of them. They killed part of the project in 2019 Gates stated it was all Trumps fault. ( I am not buying that) There are a couple others that are out there. INL's sodium reactor was shut down maybe 10 years ago. I did hear some rumors of them firing it back up. One of the largest challenges is that you have to move heat from the reactor to the secondary and make steam. Biggest challenge with any of the molten metal/salts is them and water mixing is a major problem. Biggest advantage of the primary side being molten metal/salts is the greatly reduced pressures of the primary side. Instead of having 2500psi primary system, some can operate at nearly atmospheric pressures. The Nuscale SMR is one of my favorite designs that is moving forward. We need new reactors and new designs and needed them 10 years ago. The old PWR's especially the Westinghouse designed reactors are still chugging away great. The huge amount of safety related systems and parts obsolescence is putting a hurt on them. These new reactor designs are inherently safer and simpler. Less safety related systems (huuuge costs) passive and inherent shutdown systems make a large difference in the approach to operate and maintain the plant.
But, but, but the environmentalists say it's unsafe so we should just keep running our old shit and never update the design with fingers crossed nothing wears out........
Fusion is coming.....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oil is the fuel that funds the economy and will continue to prevent progress on other technologies
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oil is the fuel that funds the economy and will continue to prevent progress on other technologies
I was on the experimental side, but the industry moves SLOOOOOOOOOOOW. As I understand it, Liquid metal is the way of the future, but how soon that arrives is anyone's guess. Nukes do have a lot of headwind between environmental activists, govt regulation (aka fees and oversight) and of course replacing established technology like oil/gas. Much of the safety hysteria is overblown (The series shows how you get a disaster of such proportions, which does not exist outside of the former soviet system)--we've had a nuke navy for well on 50+ years not to mention 70+ years with only 2 accidents, one of them severely overblown (3MI) and one of them God reminding us we are not in control (Fukishima).
The hysteria around nuclear technology is so bad, we wouldn't tell people we had plutonium in the building as a radiation source. Nothing weapons grade, but you mention the word Plutonium and SHTF fast.
The hysteria around nuclear technology is so bad, we wouldn't tell people we had plutonium in the building as a radiation source. Nothing weapons grade, but you mention the word Plutonium and SHTF fast.
Cambridge MA is declared a "Nuclear Free Zone".
Im guessing MIT through some trick of nuclear fission is thus outside of Cambridge.
Some years ago there was a documentary on animal life on the area surrounding Chernobyl. No evidence of 3-eyed fish, 5-legged deer or double-headed eagles or Godzilla but thriving normal life.
The Movie Command and Control about the Damascus Titan incident is phenomenal. Until that film came out, I didn’t even know about Damascus.
Sirhr
