[leonidasrup]

For a TV series the TV show Chernobyl was pretty accurate. For those who watched the the TV show, I recommend to also see an interview with an actual Ukrainian medical responder and radiation expert who was working in Chernobyl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GEPsSVpZY

Probably the best non-technical book on the Chernobyl disaster is the book "Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe" by Serhii Plokhy. It describes not only the accident, but also the whole soviet system and political, economical decisions which led to the resulting catastrophe.

The most comprehensive technical report is INSAG-7 The Chernobyl Accident - IAEA. https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.p...

[man8alexd]

No, the show is not accurate. The last episode repeats the lies that Legasov told at the IAEA meeting in 1986, that were published as INSAG-1, and the show completely ignores INSAG-7. There was no drama in the control room, no indications that anything was wrong with the reactor, no power spike before AZ-5 was pressed.

[leonidasrup]

It was a drama TV show, not a documentary. Whey compare it with TV shows, like Simpsons or movies like The China Syndrome, it was accurate.

"according to INSAG-1, the main cause of the accident was the operators' actions, but according to INSAG-7, the main cause was the reactor's design."

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

[man8alexd]

The TV show pretends to be historically accurate, and many people believe that it is true. I would suspect that the majority of people have no other sources of information about Chernobyl other than this TV show.

[sehansen]

How does it make sense that the show ignores INSAG-7 when the whole plot point about the design of the control rods increasing the reactivity isn't from INSAG-1 but from INSAG-7? The same with the plotline about this defect being known, but kept from the operators. And Legasov lying about all this at the IAEA meeting? All-in-all INSAG-1 paints a picture of operator failure, INSAG-7 paints a picture of systemic failure and the show paints a picture of systemic failure.

And to nitpick: INSAG-7 doesn't disagree with INSAG-1 about the power rising just before AZ-5. From page 8 of INSAG-7: "When the turbine was tripped, the four pumps it was powering began to slow down as the turbine speed was reduced and the associated generator voltage fell. This reduced rate of core flow caused the void content of the core to rise and caused an initial positive feedback of reactivity which was at least in part the cause of the acci- dent." (page 8) This happens ~30 seconds before AZ-5 is pushed.

The same event described in Table I on page 21-22 of INSAG-1, with the part deprecated by INSAG-7 marked with {}:

01:23:04 {The personnel blocked the two-TG trip signal.} Emergency stop valve to the turbine was closed. The reactor continues operating at a power of 200 MW(th).

01:23:10 One group of automatic control rods start driving out

01:23:21 Two groups of automatic control rods begin reinsertion.

01:23:31 Net reactivity increasing with subsequent slow increase in reactor power.

01:23:40 Operator pushes AZ-5 button (reactor trip).

The textual description on page 25 of INSAG-1 isn't much different: "When the emergency stop valve to the turbine was closed, the steam pressure began to rise. The flow through the core started to drop because four of the main cooling pumps were running down with the generator. Increasing pressure, reduced feedwater flow and reduced flow through the reactor are competing factors which determine the volumetric steam quality and hence the power of the reactor. It should be emphasized that the reactor was then in such a state that small changes in power would have led to much larger changes in steam void, with consequent power increases. The combination of these factors ultimately led to a power increase begninning at about 01:23:30."

A scanned copy of INSAG-1: https://ilankelman.org/miscellany/chernobyl.pdf

The Soviet report to IAEA in 1986: https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...

[man8alexd]

Quote from INSAG-7 https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub913e_web.p...

> neither the reactor power nor the other parameters (pressure and water level in the steam separator drums, coolant and feedwater flow rates, etc.) required any intervention by the personnel or by the engineered safety features from the beginning of the tests until the EPS-5 button was pressed. The Commission did not detect any events or dynamic processes, such as hidden reactor runaway, which could have been the event which initiated the accident. “

[sehansen]

Sure, I'm just saying the power increase did happen, according to both INSAG-1 and INSAG-7. Neither INSAG-1, INSAG-7 nor Legasovs report claims there is a rapid increase in power before AZ-5 is pushed. The claim in INSAG-1 is that this power increase was the start of a positive-feedback loop that caused the explosion. The claim in INSAG-7 was that the power increase was not a safety problem, except to the extent it caused the operator to push AZ-5.

[man8alexd]

The AZ-5 button was pushed as normal shutdown procedure as the test had been completed, not as a reaction to some event.

[sehansen]

I can't find any description of the test across the three reports mentioning that that emergency stop button is supposed to be pressed as part of the test. AFAICT the test wasn't even completed when the button was pressed as the purpose of the test was to demonstrate that the emergency core cooling system could run for at least 40 s (INSAG-1 page 17) after closing the turbine emergency stop valve. That valve was closed at 01:23:04 and AZ-5 was pressed at 01:23:40.