Chernobyl

It just seems strange that the corium itself decayed to such a degree, yet other stuff is more radioactive?

Radiation is so strange, how it is cumulative and spreads like a disease. Then some objects or areas are super contaminated but the melted nuclear fuel heap is ok to get a selfie near.

It has to do with the radioactive isotopes involved with the substance itself and how quickly they decay, and how much radiation a particular substance absorbs.

The foot -is- still very dangerous. It's just a matter of exposure time to become lethal levels. If you ran in, took a photo, and got the fuck out, then you'd probably be more or less fine.

Think of it as a furnace/fire. If the furnace/fire is 2000 degrees, if you go too close you'll burst into flames and die. If the furnace/fire cools down to 200 degrees, you'll be able to get close with bursting into flames and if you don't spend much time, you won't die....but if you spend too long in the 200 degree heat, you'll eventually die from the heat.

One of the issues is that there are numerous different radioactive isotopes that got spread. One of the worst was the cesium which commonly forms salts that are water soluable and are easily absorbed by plants and animals. That's one of the reasons the firefighters were still emitting radiation after they were cleaned and stripped, you can't clean individual cells. Cesium's half life is around 30 years so now the issue is radiation from other isotopes that are easier to avoid and clean off. Unless you broke off a chunk of corium and ate it there is little risk of it getting inside you. It's deadly radioactive when you're near it but as soon as you leave none of it comes with you.

A lot of the bad stuff fell as dust and ash into the dirt. The liquidators put all that in pits along with other contaminated things. Those areas are what is still hazardous but the well trafficked areas that were properly cleaned are not much different than getting a chest x-ray, or 400 chest x-rays. Not great, not terrible.

I'm always fascinated how life evolved and humans went from beating a rock with a rock to nuclear bombs and meltdown tech in such a short span. Imagine humans in another few thousand years. If they don't kill everyone first.

I think most of Chernobyl incident fascination has to do with the fact that it was never really intended. While Hiroshima / Nagasaki was a warfare decision, Chernobyl was mostly because bad design and faulty maintenance procedure. Mankind is capable of the worst things, but I think it's quite different when "mankind can't do shit about things". It's not really the cause, it's the outcome, and its unpredictability.

I think the most fascinating thing about Chernobyl outside of radiation factor, is the effect it had on the Soviet Union.

It was the beginning of the end. Without Chernobyl disaster, I'm not sure there is a 1991 collapse. No Chernobyl no glasnost.

It might of still happened eventually, but this FORCED the Soviets to show their hand and subsequently had to be more forthcoming with information, not just so the problem could be solved, but to prevent future incidents like this from happening in the first place.

The Soviets also pretty much fucked the rest of the civilized world, or at least the parts that matter (ie the USA) from heavily adopting nuclear energy.

What's insane is just how much electricity Chernobyl plant provided Ukraine. Something like 12% of the entire grid. That's why they continued running the other units, they simply couldn't afford to take them offline.

Setting aside the accident and the pathological society built on lies the miniseries demonstrates the incredible willpower of the Soviet Union and its people. If you look at this and see Donald Trump because of the negatives (an allegory that wouldn't and doesn't make sense) than you're not going to escape the implications of the positives.

The other thing that has caused great interest in the accident was the effects of it years later. There are not a whole lot of places on the earth where a fairly decent sized area was suddenly forced to completely evacuate and has (mostly) stayed that way 30+ years later. It's a case study on what happens to the landscape when people just disappear. This event is unique because unlike radiation from say a nuclear bomb where the radiation would mostly be contained in the blast zone (someone who knows more about that kind of stuff would have to explain it better), this explosion combined with the winds scattered radiation particles across a very wide area which in turn got absorbed into the ground and water.

Jozu said:

I think the most fascinating thing about Chernobyl outside of radiation factor, is the effect it had on the Soviet Union.

It was the beginning of the end. Without Chernobyl disaster, I'm not sure there is a 1991 collapse. No Chernobyl no glasnost.

It might of still happened eventually, but this FORCED the Soviets to show their hand and subsequently had to be more forthcoming with information, not just so the problem could be solved, but to prevent future incidents like this from happening in the first place.

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Not just that, but the cleanup cost an absolute fortune. It pushed the already creaky finances of the Soviet system over the edge.

Bio robots....fuuuuuuck.

Hatorade said:

Bio robots....fuuuuuuck.

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Arbitrary said:

Setting aside the accident and the pathological society built on lies the miniseries demonstrates the incredible willpower of the Soviet Union and its people. If you look at this and see Donald Trump because of the negatives (an allegory that wouldn't and doesn't make sense) than you're not going to escape the implications of the positives.

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I don't see Trump exactly, but the show makes me wonder if the United States could pull together as effectively, regardless of President. You know the opening from Big Lebowski:

Sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about Gorby here. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Gorby, in the USSR.

Not sure about you, but a couple of my keenest memories from 1986 might be The Super Bowl Bears and shortly after Challenger blowing up on live TV in my grade school classroom. I still remember the jokes from the bus rides that year: What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts. How do they know Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders.

I don't think I ever had a teacher spend any amount of time on Chernobyl. I vaguely remember it as an ~1980s era joke about Russian competence. I think that's part of the allure of this show. It's a bit of valuable education school was silent on.

Should we gauge U.S readiness to deal with a Chernobyl-esque catastrophe based on the US' recent ability to manage hurricane disasters? Are those even relevant because they became so politicized? Can a country even know if it's ready for such a catastrophe? Was the USSR just incredibly good or incredibly lucky?