- #36
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
Why the secrecy? That clearly matches Lithuania's Ignalina NPP.
I was inside RBMK 1500, and have a few questions :)
- Thread starter Salvador
- Start date
In summary, the reactor is a channel type and can produce civilian electricity and weapons grade plutonium. The vast scale and monstrous size of everything was astonishing. When at the site, I was exposed to radiation for about an hour and received a small dose. The reactor is the RBMK and the CANDU (according to wikipedia) are the only two reactors in the world that can refuel while in operation. The RBMK is said to have been a "good design" for the soviets because it gave them the chance of both producing civilian electricity and creating weapons grade plutonium at the same time.
Why the secrecy? That clearly matches Lithuania's Ignalina NPP.
- #37
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
I can give you one data point. French have a reprocessing plant, they dissolve "aged" spent fuel in nitric acid, extract U and Pu, dry the rest (which is the most radioactive part) and pour it with some borosilicate glass into 5mm thick steel canisters:
http://www.wmsym.org/archives/2003/pdfs/194.pdf
So, this stuff comes from about 5-year old fuel. Meaning that it is not as radioactive as freshly burned one. Go to page 8.
"Gamma Dose rate at 0 m (contact): 14000 Gy/h"
That's 1.4 million roentgen per hour in "old" units. Or about a thousand roentgen in 2-3 seconds.
I leave it to you to estimate how far you need to be from this canister to be relatively safe for a few minutes look at it. It's probably some hundreds of meters.
Freshly unloaded spent nuclear fuel is worse than this stuff.
- #38
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
You weren't "in" active zone. You probably stood on top of the reactor, some 7-10 meters above the place where reactor fuel used to be.
- #39
Salvador
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Well there is not much secrecy , just that those who are keen to know the place and also know google can look up because the RBMK 1500 was the most powerful reactor in the world and still is quite a beast in terms of single unit's electrical output but such was built only one the rest were the RBMK 1000 types.
Well purely theoretically yes the active zone is behind the thick reinforced concrete , metal, sand etc shield were the reactions take place but atleast in the RBMK they also call among themselves the active zone the whole reactor hall were all the primary circuits are located , and when refueling is done since they refuel while at normal running conditions the reactor hall becomes quite " active"
Why do you think any gammas would emit from your radiators a few km away given the fact that it's a long metal pipe travel for them and not to mention the fact that the city's heating water wasn't taken from the primary loop after all rather I think from the secondary loop which cools the primary leftover heat after it has passed through the turbine blades and given off it's power.Although I won't bet on that since I'm not fully sure but that would seem reasonable.
Well purely theoretically yes the active zone is behind the thick reinforced concrete , metal, sand etc shield were the reactions take place but atleast in the RBMK they also call among themselves the active zone the whole reactor hall were all the primary circuits are located , and when refueling is done since they refuel while at normal running conditions the reactor hall becomes quite " active"
Why do you think any gammas would emit from your radiators a few km away given the fact that it's a long metal pipe travel for them and not to mention the fact that the city's heating water wasn't taken from the primary loop after all rather I think from the secondary loop which cools the primary leftover heat after it has passed through the turbine blades and given off it's power.Although I won't bet on that since I'm not fully sure but that would seem reasonable.
- #40
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
Heat exchanger tubes are not immune to damage. They can be damaged and leak water from one loop to another; and they *have been* damaged in operation on many NPP. Heat exchangers are even designed with spare heat exchange pipes, so that damaged pipes can be plugged, and station can continue to operate at rated power.
Now, if this water is used for district heating, it is expected that leaking pipes are detected and repaired at once, so that radioactive water doesn't go into heating loop. That's the theory.
The practice may deviate from this rosy picture (shock! unbelievable! we all know that nuclear power stations never do anything wrong! LOL). Imagine that station personnel ignores a small leak for days on end...
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- #41
Salvador
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well ofcorse the practice is always somewhat cloudy , after all Chernobyl accident was first broadcasted in the USSR as a small electrical fire two days after it happened :D But then again you can understand why they don't tell everything like it is because that would create panic and shock which would only worsen the already tragic situation and probably many of the heroes that destroyed their health serving their country as the immediate aftermath liquidators would have rather fled the scene if they had the chance.although lying just to keep the situation under control is still lying.the USSR government was notoriously genius at telling like it's not.
speaking of accidents , Chernobyl had one before the main event and the news about this one came out much later than the main one in the 4th reactor , the 1st unit went through a partial core meltdown , why nobody knows.
Ok, I'm not that much of an engineer to determine how much of a danger a leak in the primary loop to the secondary would be apart from the primary loop loosing pressure which directly affects the core behavior and before the RBMK's were retrofitted was also a danger since less pressure created more steam and increased the chain reaction in the core of these reactors.
Well in reality they are now dismantling the turbine hall and before all the hundreds of thousands tons of steel can be sent to recycling yards they have to go through all of them and check for any contamination , so far the results have been quite good given the fact that an RBMK runs it's primary coolant directly from the reactor into the turbine through piping and many parts which are all located at the turbine hall.
I assume that even with somewhat dangerous and unsafe technology you can have quite safe results in the end it all comes down to good personnel training and their moral and also some luck since one cannot account for all things that can go wrong.
speaking of accidents , Chernobyl had one before the main event and the news about this one came out much later than the main one in the 4th reactor , the 1st unit went through a partial core meltdown , why nobody knows.
Ok, I'm not that much of an engineer to determine how much of a danger a leak in the primary loop to the secondary would be apart from the primary loop loosing pressure which directly affects the core behavior and before the RBMK's were retrofitted was also a danger since less pressure created more steam and increased the chain reaction in the core of these reactors.
Well in reality they are now dismantling the turbine hall and before all the hundreds of thousands tons of steel can be sent to recycling yards they have to go through all of them and check for any contamination , so far the results have been quite good given the fact that an RBMK runs it's primary coolant directly from the reactor into the turbine through piping and many parts which are all located at the turbine hall.
I assume that even with somewhat dangerous and unsafe technology you can have quite safe results in the end it all comes down to good personnel training and their moral and also some luck since one cannot account for all things that can go wrong.
- #42
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
If not having my house heating "heat" me with gammas too depends on "good personnel training and their moral" and "also some luck" (?!) in an organization I have no control over, I'd very much rather NOT have that sort of heating system.
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- #43
Salvador
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no offense nikkkom but I feel you are a bit paranoid about this whole thing although I say that myself with caution since as I said I'm not the all star expert here maybe Astronuc or somebody else will come by and say something about such heating systems.
P.S. also a nuclear reactor is a place were extensive measurements are being taken especially after Chernobyl so all the outgoing water is checked with a dosimeter at the output since they have this facility were they clean any contamination both from the water used in the reactor and other products that evolve dangerous throughout the years.
P.S. also a nuclear reactor is a place were extensive measurements are being taken especially after Chernobyl so all the outgoing water is checked with a dosimeter at the output since they have this facility were they clean any contamination both from the water used in the reactor and other products that evolve dangerous throughout the years.
- #44
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" nuclear reactors are places where they have means of not letting their fuel melt and vent to atmosphere?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of dosimeters and in an accident workers won't have to run around not knowing what radiation levels are?
I take it "especially after Chernobyl" NPPs also have ample supply of battery-powered lights and in a power outage workers won't have to run around in the darkness?
In case you wonder what the answers are: No to all three questions. In Fukushima, all three things happened again.
Based on past performance, I have to assume that in the next disaster, we are likely to see it again.
"All the outgoing water is checked with a dosimeter" *if* station personnel is doing their job properly. *IF*. That "if" has proven to be not always true.
- #45
jim hardy
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Nikkom's position is perfectly logical ,
the disagreement is over how much risk we accept .
I spent a lifetime working in a PWR, never studied RMBK's.
When the post - Chernobyl reports circulated around the industry
my initial reaction was
"What ?
Somebody built a reactor with $4 of positive void coefficient ? Now there's a genuine hair trigger...
AND they actually turned it over to Civilians to run ? "
I immediately wrote my congressman urging him to GIVE Castro a PWR and train his people if he'd stop construction of that RMBK on Cuba's south coast, because Miami is downwind. He never replied...
I finally came to understand that RMBK design is a scaled up version of our WW2 1940-ish plutonium production reactors, a design only briefly mentioned in my Reactor Physics course as an antiquarian curiosity.
As much as I respect Nikkom's concerns;
My life experience is built around highly concentrated energy and steam power
so i cannot conceive of heating the water for 300 million hot showers every morning
(figure how many miles of coal train that takes , 100Klbs of 10,000 BTU/lb coal per car, 100 cars to the mile)
with diffuse , flimsy , whimsical sources like windmills and solar panels
so for me civilization's route forward is to do nuclear well.
So i guess I've really said nothing
except that civilization will paint itself into a corner
if it does not reduce its numbers before abandoning its sources of energy.
old jim
the disagreement is over how much risk we accept .
I spent a lifetime working in a PWR, never studied RMBK's.
When the post - Chernobyl reports circulated around the industry
my initial reaction was
"What ?
Somebody built a reactor with $4 of positive void coefficient ? Now there's a genuine hair trigger...
AND they actually turned it over to Civilians to run ? "
I immediately wrote my congressman urging him to GIVE Castro a PWR and train his people if he'd stop construction of that RMBK on Cuba's south coast, because Miami is downwind. He never replied...
I finally came to understand that RMBK design is a scaled up version of our WW2 1940-ish plutonium production reactors, a design only briefly mentioned in my Reactor Physics course as an antiquarian curiosity.
As much as I respect Nikkom's concerns;
My life experience is built around highly concentrated energy and steam power
so i cannot conceive of heating the water for 300 million hot showers every morning
(figure how many miles of coal train that takes , 100Klbs of 10,000 BTU/lb coal per car, 100 cars to the mile)
with diffuse , flimsy , whimsical sources like windmills and solar panels
so for me civilization's route forward is to do nuclear well.
So i guess I've really said nothing
except that civilization will paint itself into a corner
if it does not reduce its numbers before abandoning its sources of energy.
old jim
- #46
mheslep
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Leaks happen in a loop, shortly rendering the loop inoperable. How do you imagine one leaks into the other? A common heat exchange mechanism uses toxic ethylene glycol (antifreeze) in one loop to heat residential tap water. Is that system also unsafe?nikkkom said:
http://energy.gov/energysaver/heat-exchangers-solar-water-heating-systems
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- #47
nikkkom
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jim hardy said:
Then you have a problem with simple math. 150x150 square miles of solar arrays plus some 10x10 miles of space for battery storage buildings is enough to power entire US from solar power alone, all the time.
Theoretically, we *can* run entire US purely from solar power.
We should not go that far, but it is possible - US has that much suitable empty arid lands (in fact several times more). It is possible even with todays' technology.
- #48
mheslep
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Backing up a future US for a conservative 7 days all by battery, with all energy needs made electric at load 2 TW, is 336 TWh. Such a battery ...
To be replaced every 10 years or so, at a cost of $13 trillion just for the lead at today's prices. Worldwide lead reserves are ~80 million tons per the same source.
See more at: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/#sthash.FfpiEaLN.dpuf
Any reference to lithium should also have "temperature control" of a cubic mile in the same sentence.
To be replaced every 10 years or so, at a cost of $13 trillion just for the lead at today's prices. Worldwide lead reserves are ~80 million tons per the same source.
See more at: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/#sthash.FfpiEaLN.dpuf
Any reference to lithium should also have "temperature control" of a cubic mile in the same sentence.
- #49
mfb
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Try to explain that to the public. Many will hear "nuclear" and completely ignore all rational arguments.mheslep said:
They had all those (even after one of the strongest earthquake in recent history), until a ridiculously high tsunami destroyed most of it.nikkkom said:
- #50
nikkkom
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mfb said:
Tsunami was not "ridiculously high". It was within historical record for Japan. Examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Sanriku_earthquake[/PLAIN]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Sanriku_earthquake[/URL]
More importantly. Tsunami did not significantly flood the interior of the station - the most crippling damage was done in the basements to power lines and switchboards.
You seem to claim that it destroyed dosimeters and battery powered lights. ? Where did you read such nonsense?
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- #51
jim hardy
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Maybe.nikkkom said:
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/capacity/
a thousand gigawatts X 24 hours/day = 24X10^12 wh/day =2.4 E10kwh/day
I take that 150 X150 miles as roughly 241 km X 241 km
which = 5.81E10m^2http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/1961-1990/redbook/atlas/
Let's take 5kwh/m^2/day in southern Arizona & New Mexico
5kwh/day/m^2 X 5.81E10m^2 = 2.90E11 kwh/day is what falls on the collectors
Efficiency = output(electric kwh) / input(solar kwh)
2.4E10/ 2.90E11 = 0.082
If you can collect, store and distribute it at >8.2 % efficiency your numbers are right.
Looks like the solar cells themselves will not much longer be the limiting factor.
Be sure to see original at http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/ click "Latest Chart"
but i say to your generation : Go for it. We ought to leave some fossil fuel near the Earth's surface for whatever species replaces us.
My run is over, it's you young folks turn.
As my childhood hero said "Hi - Yo Silver, Away !"
(Exit stage left to William Tell Overture...)
old jim
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- #52
nikkkom
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mheslep said:
Total installed capacity of US today is 1 TW, not 2. Average consumption is, naturally, much less that 1 TW.
- #53
nikkkom
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I already had solar power discussion, and I saved the salient numeric data:
***************************************************
Insolation: ~1kW/m^2
PV efficiency: growing by the day, but let's assume conservatively
that it will never exceed 10% for economically viable multi-km^2
installations.
Losses due to night / clouds / rain: 4/5, but let's assume higher losses: 9/10.
Thus, 1 m^2 can produce only 10W on average. 1 km^2 can produce 10 MW.
Mostly desert and dry US states:
Arizona: 295254 km^2
Nevada: 286367 km^2
New Mexico: 315194 km^2
Sum: 896815 km^2
If we would tile only 10% of this land with PV panels we'd generate
897 GW (on average). And then there are dry, inhospitable areas in
Utah, Colorado and Texas if we would ever need more.
Total installed electricity generation capacity in the United States
today is a bit above 1000 GW.
******************************************
Someone replied to me with:
That's low by 2 or 3X. The one km^2 insolation is 1 GW, peak, as you say.
Conversion minimum now is 15%, 20% on the expensive side,
so 150 MW per km^2. Capacity factor in Arizona is 25% (6 kWh insolation
per m^2 per day). Resulting daily average power is then 30 MW/km^2.
Call it 20 MW/km^2 with wasted land. US average power load
is ~430 GWe, which is supplied then by ~22000 km^2 of PV,
or 150 km on a side, a tiny parcel of what's called the US southwest.
***************************************************
Insolation: ~1kW/m^2
PV efficiency: growing by the day, but let's assume conservatively
that it will never exceed 10% for economically viable multi-km^2
installations.
Losses due to night / clouds / rain: 4/5, but let's assume higher losses: 9/10.
Thus, 1 m^2 can produce only 10W on average. 1 km^2 can produce 10 MW.
Mostly desert and dry US states:
Arizona: 295254 km^2
Nevada: 286367 km^2
New Mexico: 315194 km^2
Sum: 896815 km^2
If we would tile only 10% of this land with PV panels we'd generate
897 GW (on average). And then there are dry, inhospitable areas in
Utah, Colorado and Texas if we would ever need more.
Total installed electricity generation capacity in the United States
today is a bit above 1000 GW.
******************************************
Someone replied to me with:
That's low by 2 or 3X. The one km^2 insolation is 1 GW, peak, as you say.
Conversion minimum now is 15%, 20% on the expensive side,
so 150 MW per km^2. Capacity factor in Arizona is 25% (6 kWh insolation
per m^2 per day). Resulting daily average power is then 30 MW/km^2.
Call it 20 MW/km^2 with wasted land. US average power load
is ~430 GWe, which is supplied then by ~22000 km^2 of PV,
or 150 km on a side, a tiny parcel of what's called the US southwest.
- #54
mfb
Mentor
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nikkkom said:
Last edited by a moderator:
- #55
jim hardy
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I opened one in Electrical Engineeringmfb said:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...enerate-all-us-power-by-arizona-solar.869100/
- #56
Salvador
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Ok , I see a lively discussion going on here, that's nice , now please don't dislike me but I would like to point out some corrections needed here.
as to @nikkkom , in real life things are not exactly star wars and even discovery channel documentaries at many cases do a very poor job in terms of truth or details mainly because the average person doesn't care.
In Chernobyl right after the blast which were many by the way , there was no darkness , the lights were still on except for those who were in places that had blown up or collapsed due to the enormous explosion force which ruptured thick reinforced walls and the mainframe steel of the building.even after all this obliteration going on at the other side of the same building separated only by a thick concrete wall was the reactor number 3 which was still going full speed even after what happened right next to it and literally destroyed half the building taking some of the common systems with it.
They only decided to shut down reactor 3 some 3 hours after the explosion and not so much because of any danger to it's further operation as to the director of staff at reactor 3 control room finally saw the radiation levels rising so high as it became impossible for humans to continue to operate in the building.
they had dosimeters even before the accident , it's a NPP after all , not having a dosimeter at such a place would be like not having cooking oil in a kitchen.
as for the people at reactor 4 once the explosion happened , given the radiation levels and their position in the building they no longer needed dosimeters nor battery light , their existence now had a timer to it and most of them died in the following days some after a few weeks.
also most dosimeters didn't have radiation levels high enough to measure the aftermath background which was both inside the reactor corridors and outside of it right after the explosion they either went "bananas" or broke altogether.
also for those who say the RBMK doesn't have a containment vessel , yes it's true and a drawback but in Chernobyl it would have made no difference the explosion was so powerful the reactor had to be located deep underground or inside a air tight hill to prevent the shockwave and heat from breaking everything into pieces or escaping into atmosphere , a typical CANDU or PWR vessel couldn't stop such an explosion.
All in all i just want to say that Chernobyl wasn't your typical "things going wrong in a nuclear reactor" situation I think it was one of a kind case which has an extremely low chance of ever happening again at that level.the reactor was pushed into super critical state so it went off sort of like a bomb.this state was achieved mainly due to the operators mistakes and not only one but a whole chain of dangerous and some of them on the border of being criminal activities, that were done that night combined with some very important factors like the positive void feedback of the reactor and the instability at very low power levels and just to add fuel to the fire some key staff at that night shift weren't fully aware of these critical reactor design features.
the guy who by mistake took out all the control rods was only at his third month after finishing university and had no prior experience with this RBMK. which at the time before Chernobyl was even less automated and safe guarded than after and required some skills to operate.
It was like winning a lottery , they just happened to cross all the right numbers that night and won.If just one of the many things gone wrong that night would have been different the accident would have never happened and we probably wouldn't have this discussion.
So once you look at this with attention to detail the whole thing becomes more clear and doesn't seem so dangerous anymore even with the pre update RBMK which I agree was the most dangerous yet powerful reactor at the time.
Also the very reason why the soviets built them was because they were cheap to make , made lots of power , were able to refuel and produce Pu without ever shutting down and their parts could be mass produced on the existing factories without the need to make special exceptions.
one of the main designers of the RBMK the Russian engineer Nikolay Dollezhal knew of the reactor shortcoming right from the start , he even said at one point that they should only build these in the eastern part of Russia with vast "no mans" lands but he was ignored at that moment.
they also made the VVER reactors at the same time they made the RBMK but I guess cost and simplicity was the reason why they built less VVER 's and more RBMK's at that point even though this changed right after Chernobyl.
I would also go as far as to say that even RBMK , the ones still running in Russia are safe , now they added some modern safety systems and changed the positive feedback to almoust zero so if operated correctly they are just as good as any other design to be fair.
as to @nikkkom , in real life things are not exactly star wars and even discovery channel documentaries at many cases do a very poor job in terms of truth or details mainly because the average person doesn't care.
In Chernobyl right after the blast which were many by the way , there was no darkness , the lights were still on except for those who were in places that had blown up or collapsed due to the enormous explosion force which ruptured thick reinforced walls and the mainframe steel of the building.even after all this obliteration going on at the other side of the same building separated only by a thick concrete wall was the reactor number 3 which was still going full speed even after what happened right next to it and literally destroyed half the building taking some of the common systems with it.
They only decided to shut down reactor 3 some 3 hours after the explosion and not so much because of any danger to it's further operation as to the director of staff at reactor 3 control room finally saw the radiation levels rising so high as it became impossible for humans to continue to operate in the building.
they had dosimeters even before the accident , it's a NPP after all , not having a dosimeter at such a place would be like not having cooking oil in a kitchen.
as for the people at reactor 4 once the explosion happened , given the radiation levels and their position in the building they no longer needed dosimeters nor battery light , their existence now had a timer to it and most of them died in the following days some after a few weeks.
also most dosimeters didn't have radiation levels high enough to measure the aftermath background which was both inside the reactor corridors and outside of it right after the explosion they either went "bananas" or broke altogether.
also for those who say the RBMK doesn't have a containment vessel , yes it's true and a drawback but in Chernobyl it would have made no difference the explosion was so powerful the reactor had to be located deep underground or inside a air tight hill to prevent the shockwave and heat from breaking everything into pieces or escaping into atmosphere , a typical CANDU or PWR vessel couldn't stop such an explosion.
All in all i just want to say that Chernobyl wasn't your typical "things going wrong in a nuclear reactor" situation I think it was one of a kind case which has an extremely low chance of ever happening again at that level.the reactor was pushed into super critical state so it went off sort of like a bomb.this state was achieved mainly due to the operators mistakes and not only one but a whole chain of dangerous and some of them on the border of being criminal activities, that were done that night combined with some very important factors like the positive void feedback of the reactor and the instability at very low power levels and just to add fuel to the fire some key staff at that night shift weren't fully aware of these critical reactor design features.
the guy who by mistake took out all the control rods was only at his third month after finishing university and had no prior experience with this RBMK. which at the time before Chernobyl was even less automated and safe guarded than after and required some skills to operate.
It was like winning a lottery , they just happened to cross all the right numbers that night and won.If just one of the many things gone wrong that night would have been different the accident would have never happened and we probably wouldn't have this discussion.
So once you look at this with attention to detail the whole thing becomes more clear and doesn't seem so dangerous anymore even with the pre update RBMK which I agree was the most dangerous yet powerful reactor at the time.
Also the very reason why the soviets built them was because they were cheap to make , made lots of power , were able to refuel and produce Pu without ever shutting down and their parts could be mass produced on the existing factories without the need to make special exceptions.
one of the main designers of the RBMK the Russian engineer Nikolay Dollezhal knew of the reactor shortcoming right from the start , he even said at one point that they should only build these in the eastern part of Russia with vast "no mans" lands but he was ignored at that moment.
they also made the VVER reactors at the same time they made the RBMK but I guess cost and simplicity was the reason why they built less VVER 's and more RBMK's at that point even though this changed right after Chernobyl.
I would also go as far as to say that even RBMK , the ones still running in Russia are safe , now they added some modern safety systems and changed the positive feedback to almoust zero so if operated correctly they are just as good as any other design to be fair.
- #57
Salvador
- 505
- 70
@Jim , it's RBMK not RMBK , it goes for, I will translate directly even though it sounds funny , "Reactor Big Power type Channel'
or more classy simply (Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalnyy, "High Power Channel-type Reactor)
In terms of the RBMK design I think it's easy to find the internet is full of it, because due to Chernobyl it's one of the most talked about nuclear things in the world.
If you have any time or interest Jim I suggest you read this
http://www.lei.lt/insc/sourcebook/index.html
It's made by the people who worked with or at the reactor I was in at Ignalina.It has some quite good basics of what the whole thing is about and why the soviets used it , even though they had both the capability to either spy and steal a western design and simply use that and forget any trouble or somewhat make their own version like the VVER design which is a pressurized water type but somewhat different than the PWR used in the US , how and how much I don't know I also don;'t fully know whether it was a spied western design with minor changes or a entirely soviet built design , as much as wikipedia goes it seems the soviets made it themselves.
Anyhow it's a pretty common reactor in eastern and central Europe also in Russia and many of it's neighboring states.
I hope I will be able to visit one like that in Czech Republic or maybe Finland as that is closer to where I live.
Germany also used to have them.
As for civilians , it wasn't exactly civilians running them , if it was so I think we would all need to wear gas masks even while your typing this on your PC to respond to my post. :D
When Ignalina , the most powerful RBMK of them all was built even the reactor was built by a special construction crew , the local ones who offered to build were rejected due to concerns about safety and this was before Chernobyl at 1975.
also the staff all had degree's from Nuclear physics institutes and universities with such specialties.except for people who were doing other things not directly related to the control room or any other serious task which involves controlling the chain reaction.
But just because someone has a diploma doesn't mean he cannot screw up. Also the very test itself was rather dangerous to begin with so it implied the crew had to go through steps which required doing some risky business.Add some pressure from the local authorities to carry out the test successfully , add bad timing due to a delay because of grid demand at day , add some lack of information about the reactor design due to secrecy (god knows why) add some critical mistakes by the newbies in the reactor staff because they had to do stuff they weren't told before since the reactors wasn't designed to be run the way they had to that night.
well you guess were this all goes.as for the solar , we have to take into account many things here , remember that producing all those panels requires energy and material which means more green house gasses because transporting and fabrication involves quite a lot of oil either directly or indirectly.not to even mention the batteries which require toxic metals and their handling , all this pollutes the planet no less than burning coal to produce steam and then electricity , yes you may say ok once the panels are up and running this goes away and clean energy can be harvested and still remember we will run out of most of our fossil fuels (except for coal) somewhere in the middle of this century) so we better think quick as we don't have much time and renewable energy won't cover all our needs once oil is gone for sure.
I wonder why we can't build the fission reactors underground , I mean the active part of the reactor , we can dig a huge well for a missile some of the bigger ones I have seen so deep you can slide a highrise 12 story building into it like it wasn't even there.
build it underground and put some biological shield on top and in case the worst happens like in Chernobyl (highly unlikely) let the reactor dig it's own grave and sit there ,
with today's HVDC lines we can choose a safe location for this which has a lot of bedrock and other absorbing features and simply transport the power back to places with lots of population.
China has some of it's biggest hydro stations more than thousand km's away from the load.
or more classy simply (Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalnyy, "High Power Channel-type Reactor)
In terms of the RBMK design I think it's easy to find the internet is full of it, because due to Chernobyl it's one of the most talked about nuclear things in the world.
If you have any time or interest Jim I suggest you read this
http://www.lei.lt/insc/sourcebook/index.html
It's made by the people who worked with or at the reactor I was in at Ignalina.It has some quite good basics of what the whole thing is about and why the soviets used it , even though they had both the capability to either spy and steal a western design and simply use that and forget any trouble or somewhat make their own version like the VVER design which is a pressurized water type but somewhat different than the PWR used in the US , how and how much I don't know I also don;'t fully know whether it was a spied western design with minor changes or a entirely soviet built design , as much as wikipedia goes it seems the soviets made it themselves.
Anyhow it's a pretty common reactor in eastern and central Europe also in Russia and many of it's neighboring states.
I hope I will be able to visit one like that in Czech Republic or maybe Finland as that is closer to where I live.
Germany also used to have them.
As for civilians , it wasn't exactly civilians running them , if it was so I think we would all need to wear gas masks even while your typing this on your PC to respond to my post. :D
When Ignalina , the most powerful RBMK of them all was built even the reactor was built by a special construction crew , the local ones who offered to build were rejected due to concerns about safety and this was before Chernobyl at 1975.
also the staff all had degree's from Nuclear physics institutes and universities with such specialties.except for people who were doing other things not directly related to the control room or any other serious task which involves controlling the chain reaction.
But just because someone has a diploma doesn't mean he cannot screw up. Also the very test itself was rather dangerous to begin with so it implied the crew had to go through steps which required doing some risky business.Add some pressure from the local authorities to carry out the test successfully , add bad timing due to a delay because of grid demand at day , add some lack of information about the reactor design due to secrecy (god knows why) add some critical mistakes by the newbies in the reactor staff because they had to do stuff they weren't told before since the reactors wasn't designed to be run the way they had to that night.
well you guess were this all goes.as for the solar , we have to take into account many things here , remember that producing all those panels requires energy and material which means more green house gasses because transporting and fabrication involves quite a lot of oil either directly or indirectly.not to even mention the batteries which require toxic metals and their handling , all this pollutes the planet no less than burning coal to produce steam and then electricity , yes you may say ok once the panels are up and running this goes away and clean energy can be harvested and still remember we will run out of most of our fossil fuels (except for coal) somewhere in the middle of this century) so we better think quick as we don't have much time and renewable energy won't cover all our needs once oil is gone for sure.
I wonder why we can't build the fission reactors underground , I mean the active part of the reactor , we can dig a huge well for a missile some of the bigger ones I have seen so deep you can slide a highrise 12 story building into it like it wasn't even there.
build it underground and put some biological shield on top and in case the worst happens like in Chernobyl (highly unlikely) let the reactor dig it's own grave and sit there ,
with today's HVDC lines we can choose a safe location for this which has a lot of bedrock and other absorbing features and simply transport the power back to places with lots of population.
China has some of it's biggest hydro stations more than thousand km's away from the load.
- #58
mheslep
Gold Member
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Reactors can be built underground; small modular reactors likely will be.
http://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors
One challenge is the possibility of flooding. Unlike a missile silo in the prairie, current reactor designs require a large nearby water supply which typically means both a high water table and occasional widespread surface floods.
http://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors
One challenge is the possibility of flooding. Unlike a missile silo in the prairie, current reactor designs require a large nearby water supply which typically means both a high water table and occasional widespread surface floods.
- #59
Salvador
- 505
- 70
right , I forgot while writing the need for water nearby to cool down the steam after it exits the turbine.
well you definitely would like to avoid building a reactor in a swamp or near one.
a nearby river in a rather high altitude environment would probably suffice , once can then build a channel that passes some of it's water bit around so that it can reach the underground reactor , although the surface cooling water wouldn't need to go underground since the turbine and the steam condenser could be located above ground since they pose no threat.
anyway this definitely complicates and what's more important in a capitalist world - makes the design more expensive.
well you definitely would like to avoid building a reactor in a swamp or near one.
a nearby river in a rather high altitude environment would probably suffice , once can then build a channel that passes some of it's water bit around so that it can reach the underground reactor , although the surface cooling water wouldn't need to go underground since the turbine and the steam condenser could be located above ground since they pose no threat.
anyway this definitely complicates and what's more important in a capitalist world - makes the design more expensive.
- #60
jim hardy
Science Advisor
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Salvador said:
Thanks ! I reverse things a lot...
My Mom subscribed to "Russia Today " magazine. They had a nice article about those reactors with marvelous pictures not very long before the accident, but sadly she didn't keep that issue. Sure wish i had it now.
old jim
- #61
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
Wrong. The entire Unit 4 was damaged to the extent that lights were inoperable almost everywhere. Central control room had some power-backed lights. Elsewhere, everything was short-circuited, torn.
There is an excellent, detailed book about the accident, written by a Soviet nuclear specialist who used to work on Soviet power stations himself, and who visited Chernobyl soon after disaster. See this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/b-medvedev-chernobyl-notebook.513833/
It has minute-by-minute account of accident, who went where, who said what, who did what. In particular, it quite clearly says that workers had to work in the darkness in many cases.
I read this book cover to cover, in original, three or four times. I read all available official investigation reports on Chernobyl. I would risk stating that I know a thing or two about this disaster.
My point is not that they haven't any dosimeters. My point is, they did not have dosimeters suitable for large fields. My further point is that this was supposed to be a "lesson learned" after Chernobyl. Evidently, at Fukushima they did not learn it.
Are you saying that in an accident, it is unimportant to have means to mitigate the disaster? To work faster and easier? That workers don't need to know where radiation levels are higher or lower? That's an ... interesting statement.
My point exactly. Dosimeters were inadequate.
I disagree. We would just need to wait a bit longer - other RBMKs were run by the same organisation, with the same attitude, in the same coutry. If this was such an awfully "one-off"event as you claim, I wonder how come another one-off event happened again only 25 years after it? Incredible...
- #62
mfb
Mentor
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Try to prove that.nikkkom said:
Also, this just means reactors should not be run with that attitude. It is possible to follow basic safety rules, and that would have avoided the accident.
The events at Fukushima were completely different. Basically the only common thing was "significant radioactive material was released" (but in completely different amounts).nikkkom said:
- #63
nikkkom
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Salvador said:
Are you under illusion than nuclear power plant does not require to be built? All those pipes, all pumps, all cement, they require energy to be produced.
Wrong. This pollutes the planet *less* (in fact, *much less*) than just directly using coal to produce electricity. Coal power stations consume millions of tons of coal every year. An utility-scale solar power station has life expectancy of about 30 years. Do you really think building 1 GW of solar panels requires ~30 million tons of coal? Do some math because stating things...
- #64
nikkkom
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mfb said:
The events at Fukushima weren't supposed to be possible.
NPP operators are supposed to make honest assessments of flood dangers.
NPP operators are supposed to equip their people with enough dosimeters with sufficient range.
NPP operators are supposed to have contingency plans what to do in an extended station blackout - whereas in Fukushima disaster manuals, bewildered workers saw just one phrase about it - "losing all off-site power is highly improbable". LOL... poor lads... :(
- #65
Salvador
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Ok, again just to clarify a few points, first of all maybe I was bit wrong about the coal vs building solar panels in terms of emissions spent , yet anyway if coal is over and oil also then we have to produce electricity somehow different , the only way I see it would be possible to just try to supply the whole world with just renewables is that if and only if every country in the world uses their natural potential to it's fullest, for example in Africa you can have tons of solar , in other places wind + solar , then countries with much forests can use cogeneration , also we could burn some of our household trash using gas ovens , I know one local garbage yard uses this to produce some electricity and the rest goes to heat for heating greenhouses that grow food.
but this is in the perfect scenario if everyone agrees to work as one team and we develop a world wide plan and if all the things fall in the right way, I'd say it's harder than achieving Communism and pushing the naturally egoistic human to become a progress and advancment driven perfect machine that doesn't steal nor is lazy anymore , it would also require to increase the IQ of atleast 50% of society.
I'm not against green energy but as you see there are some reasons why I feel it's not fully possible , humans are such animals that they can never fully agree to cooperate nor understand something complicated alltogether.
A nuclear reactor on the other hand is a much more "humanly" thing in terms of that it can be built by a private company kept by it and located on a rather small piece of land at a specific location and doesn't require a world wide movement to keep it useful , it's already useful for those who use it even if the neighbor decides to go all coal.
But we can definitely do so much more in terms of making new buildings with solar panels as a design element into facades also making them more efficient so less energy is used etc etc and this all is slowly but steadily happening and becoming the new norm and I think that in itself is a rather big achievement.As for Chernobyl , yes the lights were out in reactor number 4 but quite frankly and this is what I tried to say earlier that didn't matter in that case whether the lights were there or not or whether they had dosimeters or not , I'm not for killing reactor workers intentionally but what I said and you must know this also since you say you have read many papers on the case , that the situation was so much " through the roof" and " out of this world" that no safety features would have helped them beyond that point , they crossed the point of no return. Fukushima was much less severe of an accident and they might really have benefited from some extra gear , but in Chernobyl the whole 4th reactor was obliterated , the radiation levels were so high that even if the workers had any dosimeters they would have fallen to the ground before they had the chance to take some meaningful readings.
those working near the reactor hall fell ill minutes after what happened if they hadn't been burned otherwise or some of them buried under the heavy tons of steel and concrete.
the rest , including the operators in the control room had no chance of survival either no matter what you would have given them. they reached their maximum allowed dose in what ? few minutes i think , everything beyond that and they died one by one in the hospital.I have been physically in the building of an RBMK unit , the corridors and hallways are so long and sometimes labyrinth like that even if they had ran seconds before the thing blew they would have still got probably lethal doses.
So I'm just saying that once you have all the perfect parameters set for the reactor to go 100x times its power max level and with no control rods inserted you basically have a bomb and nothing can help from there on.
Chernobyl was also so much more tragic because in Fukushima for example the reactors melted down under a shut down state , in Chernobyl the reactor blew at it's absolute maximum , not the maximum working power but rather the maximum power a pile of weakly enriched uranium stacked into 1600+ channels can give you in a short moment before it's brute force rips the critical mass apart , only here the rupturing steam pipes blew first.if the steam pipes would not have blown the reactor top also expanding the fuel channels maybe the fuel could have given an even stronger burst.As for the lights going out , I want to make a funny comparison that just came to mind , if you think lights going out was a problem there then maybe you would also say that , "Hey, if someone drops an H bomb on my city , make sure the lights don't go out because I will need to see my way out from the mile deep crater that I will be in together with my bed that I'm supposedly still sleeping in"
I really think those people there went across the line and had no chance of coming back.
Meanwhile workers at control room at unit 3 right next to the big smoking hole were given iodine pills and said to keep on working , but quite frankly what choice they had ? leave everything as is and run for their lives , in that case suppose another blast in reactor 3 might have been a probable scenario.
+ running would have probably given them even higher does than sitting in a big reinforced concrete shell.
Oh another thing , there was no "organization" running the reactors , there was no organization running anything in the soviet union except for a few small shops and restaurants , all important infrastructure was strictly state controlled with such important places like nuclear reactors and hydro power plants not to mention top secret government military facilities.Every NPP in the Soviet union was state controlled with even as far as KGB agents sitting in their rooms watching a close eye on all staff, heck every factory and institution had atleast one agent monitoring everything, usually many , yes I agree it would have been better if the staff kept just as much of a watch over the reactor as the agents kept it over them.
this is the problem in a country were everything is state run , it's better because people were so much more afraid from doing wrong because they knew serious consequences would follow but also because the whole apparatus was so big in many cases important parts were not given the full attention to detail they required.
But after all, Three Mile Island was privately run , Fukishima also , and that doesn't guarantee no accidents , Chernobyl was only worse not because it was run by communists or not because it was run by an "organization" but simply because a ton of factors all came together in the worst possible way.
As I said it was like winning a lottery For those who believe in the supernatural maybe it was a must have event to help bring the Soviet Union to an otherwise long ahead and slow end.
This is not far from the truth since the cleanup was the most expensive cleanup operation ever until that point in time , also falling oil prices in the end of the 80's. even though the latter was probably somewhat intentional move from the west to finally try to destroy it's biggest threat and enemy at the same time.P.S. Sorry for me writing a book in a single post :D
@Jim , your mom subscribed to Russia Today ? When in 1986 ?
I think subscribing or getting soviet literature in the cold war America probably got one under the watch of CIA.
God forbid my mom having even a dream of western literature back in the 60's , her neighbor would have felt it in his sleep and went to report to the KGB's field office the next day :D
But in all honesty everyone reported everyone else and basically this is what made the system so genius and all powerful , the system managed to recruit even those who hated it.
In Soviet Russia magazines subscribe to you... :D
but this is in the perfect scenario if everyone agrees to work as one team and we develop a world wide plan and if all the things fall in the right way, I'd say it's harder than achieving Communism and pushing the naturally egoistic human to become a progress and advancment driven perfect machine that doesn't steal nor is lazy anymore , it would also require to increase the IQ of atleast 50% of society.
I'm not against green energy but as you see there are some reasons why I feel it's not fully possible , humans are such animals that they can never fully agree to cooperate nor understand something complicated alltogether.
A nuclear reactor on the other hand is a much more "humanly" thing in terms of that it can be built by a private company kept by it and located on a rather small piece of land at a specific location and doesn't require a world wide movement to keep it useful , it's already useful for those who use it even if the neighbor decides to go all coal.
But we can definitely do so much more in terms of making new buildings with solar panels as a design element into facades also making them more efficient so less energy is used etc etc and this all is slowly but steadily happening and becoming the new norm and I think that in itself is a rather big achievement.As for Chernobyl , yes the lights were out in reactor number 4 but quite frankly and this is what I tried to say earlier that didn't matter in that case whether the lights were there or not or whether they had dosimeters or not , I'm not for killing reactor workers intentionally but what I said and you must know this also since you say you have read many papers on the case , that the situation was so much " through the roof" and " out of this world" that no safety features would have helped them beyond that point , they crossed the point of no return. Fukushima was much less severe of an accident and they might really have benefited from some extra gear , but in Chernobyl the whole 4th reactor was obliterated , the radiation levels were so high that even if the workers had any dosimeters they would have fallen to the ground before they had the chance to take some meaningful readings.
those working near the reactor hall fell ill minutes after what happened if they hadn't been burned otherwise or some of them buried under the heavy tons of steel and concrete.
the rest , including the operators in the control room had no chance of survival either no matter what you would have given them. they reached their maximum allowed dose in what ? few minutes i think , everything beyond that and they died one by one in the hospital.I have been physically in the building of an RBMK unit , the corridors and hallways are so long and sometimes labyrinth like that even if they had ran seconds before the thing blew they would have still got probably lethal doses.
So I'm just saying that once you have all the perfect parameters set for the reactor to go 100x times its power max level and with no control rods inserted you basically have a bomb and nothing can help from there on.
Chernobyl was also so much more tragic because in Fukushima for example the reactors melted down under a shut down state , in Chernobyl the reactor blew at it's absolute maximum , not the maximum working power but rather the maximum power a pile of weakly enriched uranium stacked into 1600+ channels can give you in a short moment before it's brute force rips the critical mass apart , only here the rupturing steam pipes blew first.if the steam pipes would not have blown the reactor top also expanding the fuel channels maybe the fuel could have given an even stronger burst.As for the lights going out , I want to make a funny comparison that just came to mind , if you think lights going out was a problem there then maybe you would also say that , "Hey, if someone drops an H bomb on my city , make sure the lights don't go out because I will need to see my way out from the mile deep crater that I will be in together with my bed that I'm supposedly still sleeping in"
I really think those people there went across the line and had no chance of coming back.
Meanwhile workers at control room at unit 3 right next to the big smoking hole were given iodine pills and said to keep on working , but quite frankly what choice they had ? leave everything as is and run for their lives , in that case suppose another blast in reactor 3 might have been a probable scenario.
+ running would have probably given them even higher does than sitting in a big reinforced concrete shell.
Oh another thing , there was no "organization" running the reactors , there was no organization running anything in the soviet union except for a few small shops and restaurants , all important infrastructure was strictly state controlled with such important places like nuclear reactors and hydro power plants not to mention top secret government military facilities.Every NPP in the Soviet union was state controlled with even as far as KGB agents sitting in their rooms watching a close eye on all staff, heck every factory and institution had atleast one agent monitoring everything, usually many , yes I agree it would have been better if the staff kept just as much of a watch over the reactor as the agents kept it over them.
this is the problem in a country were everything is state run , it's better because people were so much more afraid from doing wrong because they knew serious consequences would follow but also because the whole apparatus was so big in many cases important parts were not given the full attention to detail they required.
But after all, Three Mile Island was privately run , Fukishima also , and that doesn't guarantee no accidents , Chernobyl was only worse not because it was run by communists or not because it was run by an "organization" but simply because a ton of factors all came together in the worst possible way.
As I said it was like winning a lottery For those who believe in the supernatural maybe it was a must have event to help bring the Soviet Union to an otherwise long ahead and slow end.
This is not far from the truth since the cleanup was the most expensive cleanup operation ever until that point in time , also falling oil prices in the end of the 80's. even though the latter was probably somewhat intentional move from the west to finally try to destroy it's biggest threat and enemy at the same time.P.S. Sorry for me writing a book in a single post :D
@Jim , your mom subscribed to Russia Today ? When in 1986 ?
I think subscribing or getting soviet literature in the cold war America probably got one under the watch of CIA.
God forbid my mom having even a dream of western literature back in the 60's , her neighbor would have felt it in his sleep and went to report to the KGB's field office the next day :D
But in all honesty everyone reported everyone else and basically this is what made the system so genius and all powerful , the system managed to recruit even those who hated it.
In Soviet Russia magazines subscribe to you... :D
Last edited:
- #66
nikkkom
- 2,075
- 399
Salvador said:
The workers *did* stay inside reactor and turbine building for hours, and they were not immediately incapacitated. Even fatal doses of radiation do not kill you at once. If they are below some 1000 R, you would even feel relatively fine at first.
Workers had much to to. In turbine hall, they had numerous small fires to put down, before they grow large and dangerous (roof was severely damaged, hot debris fell through it). They had to purge generator's cooling hydrogen, to avoid more explosions. They had to drain tons of lubrication oil. They were doing all this.
Second, they did not yet know that reactor did not exist anymore. Good dosimeters would immediately tell them that reactor is severely damaged, but they hadn't them. Two interns were sent to investigate into reactor hall, got there, saw the gigantic fire and stood in a gamma field of about 20000 R/h. Both were among the first to die few days later. Shocked superiors did not believe their story and tried to organize piping of cooling water, which meant working in dark rooms, half-flooded by (as it turned out) highly radioactive water. Here, for example, one of the Central Room operators, Akimov, got his fatal dose while working on opening large valves by hand. It was all futile, but they did not know it.
One notable person, Valera Perevozchenko, went to great lengths trying to find all his subordinates. He found one, badly burned by steam (this person was the second to die in this accident), and spent a lot of time looking for another guy, whose body was never recovered and who to this day lie buried inside the rubble in the Carcophagus.
Safety features such as ordinary dosimeters could have saved dozens of people.
- #67
jim hardy
Science Advisor
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Salvador said:
She took it for several years in the mid 80's. I remember it came in a discreet plain brown wrapper which i thought quaint.
I was born in 1946 so my early years were during our post WW2 anti-communist hysteria . In grade school we had to read pamphlets by J Edgar Hoover telling us how the evil Russian communists wanted to come here and take over everything.
I remember in fourth grade reading that Russian school children are taught "America is evil ", and thinking "This just doesn't sound right - he's teaching me the same thing about Russia."
Anyhow , the magazine was upbeat and an eye opener for this pre-programmed kid. It made me realize just how effective that grade school propaganda had been. It's an awful thing to do to kids, teaching them fear and distrust.
If the CIA surveilled us they were quiet about it. And very bored.
old jim
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- #68
nikkkom
- 2,075
- 399
Jim, the "hysteria" was actually mostly correct. I was born in USSR and commies _did_ consider US and all other "capitalists" evil; and the official communist doctrine was that we are going to fight you, win, and create worldwide Communism.
- #69
jim hardy
Science Advisor
Gold Member
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nikkkom said:
Thank you Nikkom.
Did you grow up fearing Americans ?
When i was around thirty years old i finally got a boat big enough (just 16 feet long but high& wide)
to get to the Gulfstream.
I will never forget my wonderment at the intense , visceral recoil i felt when a huge green freighter probably 650 feet long steamed by just a hundred yards away, It looked like a mountain range in motion and had a gigantic red hammer and sickle on the stack.
"Why does that affect me so strongly ?" i asked ...
I met my first Russians when in my fifties. They were as open, direct and positive as Mom's magazine portrayed you folks.
"Ask not what government can do for you, be thankful for what it does not do to you."
old jim
- #70
nikkkom
- 2,075
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jim hardy said:
By my age of 16 USSR started falling apart and it became clear we were gravely bullshitted by the Commies regarding actual state of affairs. The Americans were not poor people oppressed by their evil capitalist rulers, they were actually much more prosperous than we were. And they did not scheme to destroy us at the first opportunity.
My grandmother's family had a distinctly different experience with Russians who came in 1933 and seized all their grain and food. The entire family starved to death, except my grandmother.
I think nuking Moscow might be not the worst idea.
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