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#1. Chernobyl was a generation zero, carbon moderated reactor
#2. It not only had no containment, the building was made of wood
#3. They were running a funky test, to see if they could pull enough energy from the rotational inertia to run the cooling water pumps
#4. Due to daughter particle neutron-poison build up, you need to re-start the reactor in a certain amount of time, or the reactor has to wait about 3 days before it can be re-started.
#5. They waited too long, or really, almost too long. They pulled all of the control rods all the way out to try to get it to re-start. At some point, the reactor went prompt critical, aka became an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.
#6. That blew the reactor apart. Without containment, the building blew apart and the flammable portions became fiery radioactive hell.
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James
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the engineer adjusts the sails.- William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
Red-beard for President, 2020
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