Chernobyl notebook. Part of 2

In April, 1983, I wrote an article about creeping planning in nuclear power engineering and offered it to one of the central newspapers. (Creeping planning is when, after the breakdown of one term for entering a facility, a new term is repeatedly appointed without organizational conclusions for workers who failed a government task. Time slipping to the right often takes many years with a huge excess of the estimated construction cost.) The article was not accepted.

I will give a brief excerpt from this unpublished article.

“What are the reasons for the unreality of planning in the nuclear industry and persistent, decades of ongoing disruptions? There are three of them:

1. Incompetence of workers involved in the planning of power input and management of the nuclear industry.

2. Unreality and, as a result, planning creep, caused by incompetence of estimates.

3. Failure of machine-building ministries to produce in the proper quantity and quality of equipment for nuclear power plants.

We will understand in order.

Nuclear construction, as well as the operation of nuclear power plants, undoubtedly require deep competence. As 2 said November 1982 at the UN General Assembly Session of the then USSR Foreign Minister A. A. Gromyko, a major accident at a nuclear power plant with a depressurization of the reactor vessel is equivalent in some consequences to the explosion of a megaton atomic bomb.

From here it is clear that truly knowledgeable workers should manage the construction and operation of NPPs. And if with regard to the operation of nuclear power plants it is obvious (although here we have a lot of violations that led to Chernobyl), then in matters of building nuclear power plants, at first glance it seems that atomic competence would seem to be useless here. They say, the construction part, take more, throw further, put concrete, where it is much easier ... But this is only apparent simplicity. (She was deceived by both Shcherbina and Mayorets, who rushed so easily into the water, not knowing the ford.)

The task of erecting a nuclear power unit from the very first cube of concrete laid in its foundation is complicated by the future radioactivity of the facility, and moreover, by the need for timely commissioning of existing radioactive facilities, such as nuclear power plants.

In other words, competence is directly related both to the quality and reality of the plan, and to the safety of nuclear power plants. Obvious truths, but, unfortunately, have to talk about them. After all, many leadership positions in the nuclear industry are not occupied by the law ... "

So the central apparatus of the USSR Ministry of Energy, including the minister and a number of his deputies, on the eve of Chernobyl were incompetent in atomic specifics. Atomic direction in energy construction was headed by 60-year-old deputy minister A.N. Semenov, three years ago only put to this difficult matter, being by education and many years of experience as a builder of hydroelectric stations. Only in January, 1987, he was removed from the leadership of the construction of nuclear power plants on the basis of 1986, for disrupting the input of power.

The situation was not the best in the management of the operation of existing nuclear power plants, which on the eve of the catastrophe was carried out by the All-Union Industrial Association in the Nuclear Power Industry (abbreviated as VPO Soyuzatomenergo). Its chief was G. A. Veretennikov, who never worked on the operation of a nuclear power plant. He did not know nuclear technology, and after 15-year work in the USSR State Planning Committee decided to go to live business (following the results of Chernobyl in July 1986, he was expelled from the party and removed from work) ...

Already after the Chernobyl accident, B. Ye. Shcherbina from the tribune of the extended Board of the USSR Ministry of Energy in July 1986, said to the power engineers sitting in the hall:

- You all these years went to Chernobyl! If this is so, then it should be added that Shcherbina and Mayorets accelerated the procession to the explosion ...

Here, I consider it necessary to stop in order to acquaint the reader with an excerpt from F. Olds' curious article “On Two Approaches to Nuclear Energy”, published in the journal “Paver Engineering” in October 1979 of the year.

"... While the countries - members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (SECD) face numerous difficulties in the implementation of their nuclear programs, the countries - members of the CMEA have embarked on a joint plan, which provides for an increase in the installed capacity of nuclear power plants by 1990 MW (this is more than one third of the modern capacity of all nuclear power plants on the globe). In the Soviet Union, it is planned to introduce 150000 113 MW.

At the 30-th Anniversary Session of the CMEA in June 1979, a joint program was developed. It seems that behind this determination to implement plans for the development of the nuclear power industry there are certain fears caused by a possible shortage of oil in the future. The USSR supplies oil to the countries of Eastern Europe and, in addition, exports it to the West in the amount of 130 thousand tons per day. (It must be added here that, as of 1986, the USSR pumps 336 million tons of oil equivalent per year — oil plus gas — GM) to the West. However, in 1978, oil production in the USSR did not reach the planned level. Apparently, this will not happen in 1979. According to forecasts, the oil production plan is unlikely to be completed in the 1980 year. Everything suggests that the development of giant oil fields in Siberia is associated with considerable difficulties

Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, A.N. Kosygin, in his speech at the commemorative Session of the CMEA, noted that the development of nuclear energy is the key to solving the energy problem.

There are reports that negotiations are being held between the USSR and the FRG on the export of equipment and technology to the USSR. Probably, this will have to contribute to the prompt solution of the CMEA countries' nuclear program. (Negotiations were interrupted due to unacceptable counter-conditions of the West German side. - GM)

At the beginning of 1979, Romania entered into a license agreement with Canada worth 20 million dollars for the construction of four nuclear reactors of the CANDU type with a unit capacity of 600 MW. It is reported that Cuba intends to build one or more nuclear power plants under the Soviet project. Experts believe that this project does not provide for such mandatory in the West structural elements as the containment of the reactor and the additional core cooling system. (F. Olds was clearly mistaken here. At Cuban NPPs built under Soviet projects, both containment shells and additional core cooling systems are provided. - G.M.)

The Academy of Sciences of the USSR — this, however, was to be expected — assures the general public that Soviet nuclear reactors are absolutely reliable and that the consequences of the accident at the Tri-Mile Nuclear Power Plant are excessively dramatized in the foreign press. The distinguished Soviet atomic scientist A. P. Alexandrov, president of the USSR Academy of Sciences and director of the I. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, recently gave an interview to the London correspondent of the Washington Star newspaper. According to him, failure in the development of nuclear energy can have dire consequences for all mankind.

A. P. Alexandrov regrets that the USA used the case at the Tri-Mile Island NPP as an excuse to slow down the pace of further development of nuclear energy. He is convinced that world oil and gas reserves will run out in 30 — 50 years, so it is necessary to build nuclear power plants in all parts of the world, otherwise military conflicts will inevitably arise due to the possession of the remnants of mineral fuels. He believes that these armed clashes will occur only between capitalist countries, since the USSR will be abundantly supplied with atomic energy by then.

SECD and CMEA organizations - act in opposite directions

In the industrialized countries of the world, two organizations, the SECD and the CMEA, have been established with huge reserves of oil. It is curious that they relate differently to the problem of future energy supply.

The CMEA focuses on the development of nuclear energy and does not attach much importance to the prospects for the use of solar energy and other options for a gradual transition to alternative energy sources. Thus, the GDR expects in the future to meet its energy needs from these sources by no more than 20 percent. Issues of environmental protection are given a prominent place, but in the foreground is an increase in the productivity of equipment and an increase in the standard of living of the population.

The countries belonging to the SECD have developed a number of their own nuclear power development programs. France and Japan have achieved more in this respect than all the rest. The United States and the Federal Republic of Germany are still waiting, Canada for many reasons fluctuating, and other states are not particularly in a hurry with the implementation of their programs.

For many years, the United States has been a leader among the SECD member countries in the field of practical use of nuclear energy, and in terms of the amount of funds allocated to research and development work. But then this situation changed rather quickly, and now the development of nuclear energy is viewed in the United States not as a priority task of national importance, but merely as an extreme means of solving the energy problem. The main focus when discussing any draft law relating to the energy sector is the protection of the environment. Thus, the leading countries - members of the SECD and the CMEA are diametrically opposed to the development of nuclear energy ... "

The positions, of course, are not diametrically opposed, especially in matters relating to improving the safety of nuclear power plants. F. Olds here admits inaccuracy. Both sides pay maximum attention to this issue. There are also indisputable differences in assessments of the problem of the development of nuclear energy.

- excessive criticism of ICs is a clear overestimation of the danger of nuclear power plants in the United States;

- complete absence for three and a half decades of criticism and a clearly underestimated danger of nuclear power plants to personnel and the environment in the USSR.

The clearly expressed conformism of the Soviet public, who recklessly believed the assurances of academicians and other incompetent figures, was also surprising.

Is it because thunder out of the clear sky fell on us and so many plowed Chernobyl?

Plowed, but not all. Unfortunately, conformism and gullibility continue. Well, it is easier to believe than to subject sober doubt. At first, less hassle ...

At the 4 held in November 1986 of the 41 Session of the CMEA in Bucharest, that is, seven years after the publication of F. Olds’s article “On Two Approaches to Nuclear Power Engineering”, the Session participants again spoke of the need for accelerated development of the nuclear power industry.

Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers N. I. Ryzhkov in his report at this session, in particular, said:

“The tragedy in Chernobyl not only did not negate the prospects of nuclear energy in cooperation, but, on the contrary, putting the focus on greater security, strengthens its importance as the only source guaranteeing reliable energy supply for the future ... Socialist countries are even more actively involved in the international cooperation in this area, based on proposals made by us to the IAEA. In addition, we will build nuclear power plants for heat, saving valuable and scarce fossil fuels — gas and fuel oil. ”

It should be emphasized here that nuclear power plants for heat supply will be built in the suburban area of ​​large cities, and special attention must be paid to the safety of these stations.

The energetic formulation of the issue of the development of atomic energy in both the USSR and the CMEA countries forces us to comprehend the Chernobyl lesson even more closely, which is possible only in the case of an extremely truthful analysis of the causes, essence and consequences of the catastrophe experienced by all of us, by all mankind. Ukrainian Polesie. Let's try to do this by tracing day after day, hour by hour, as events developed during the pre-emergency and emergency days and nights.

2

April 25 1986 years

On the eve of the disaster, I worked as deputy head of the main production department of the USSR Ministry of Energy for the construction of nuclear power plants.

18 April 1986, I went to the under construction of the Crimean NPP to inspect the progress of construction and installation works.

25 April 1986, in 16 hours 50 minutes in the evening (8,5 hours before the explosion) on an IL-86 plane I flew from Simferopol to Moscow. I do not recall any forebodings or concerns about something. During takeoff and landing, it was true that the kerosene was very bad. It was annoying. In flight, the air was perfectly clean. It was only slightly disturbed by the continuous rumbling of a poorly adjusted elevator, which carried up-down flight attendants and stewards with soft drinks. There was a lot of hustle in their actions, and they seemed to be doing extra work.

Flew over Ukraine, immersed in flowering gardens. Any 7 — 8 hours will pass, and a new era, an era of misfortune and nuclear dirt, will come for this earth, the breadbasket of our country.

And while I was looking through the porthole to the ground. In the bluish haze below swam Kharkov. I remember regretting that Kiev was left behind. After all, there, in 130 kilometers from the capital of Ukraine, in the seventies, I worked as deputy chief engineer at the first power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, lived in the city of Pripyat on Lenin Street, in the first microdistrict most exposed to radioactive contamination after the explosion.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located in the eastern part of a large region, called Belarusian-Ukrainian Polesie, on the bank of the Pripyat River, which flows into the Dnieper. The places are mostly flat, with a relatively flat topography, with a very slight slope of the surface towards the river and its tributaries.

The total length of the Pripyat to the confluence with the Dnieper is 748 kilometers, a width of about three hundred meters, a speed of one and a half meters per second, the average long-term water consumption of 400 cubic meters per second. The catchment area at the site of the nuclear power plant is 106 thousand square kilometers. It is from this area that radioactivity will sink into the ground, and also be washed off by rains and melt waters into rivers ...

Nice river Pripyat! The water in it is brownish, apparently because it flows out of the peat bogs of Polissya, it is densely saturated with fatty acids, the current is powerful and fast. During bathing blows heavily. The body and hands are unusually stiff, while rubbing with the hand, the skin creaks. I swam a lot in this water and a cellar on academic boats. Usually, after work, he came to the boathouse, which was on the bank of an old ladder, carried the Scythian alone and spent two hours gliding along the water surface of an ancient river, like Russia itself. The shores are quiet, sandy, covered with young pine, in the distance the railway bridge, on which at eight in the evening the Khmelnitsky-Moscow passenger train rumbled.

And the feeling of pristine silence and purity. You stop rowing, you scoop brownish water with your hand, and your palm immediately pulls off fatty marsh acids, which later, after the explosion of the reactor and radioactive release, will become good coagulants - carriers of radioactive particles and fission fragments ...

But back to the characteristics of the area on which the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located. This is important.

The aquifer, which is used for household water supply of the region under consideration, lies at a depth of 10 — 15 meters relative to the level of the Pripyat River and is separated from Quaternary sediments by almost impermeable clay marls. This meant that radioactivity, reaching this depth, will be spread horizontally by groundwater ...

In the region of the Belarusian-Ukrainian Polesye, the population density is generally small. Prior to the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was about 70 people per square kilometer. On the eve of the disaster, about a hundred and ten thousand people already lived in the 30-kilometer zone around the nuclear power plant, of which almost half were in the town of Pripyat, located west of the 3-kilometer NPP sanitary zone, and thirteen thousand - in the district center of Chernobyl, eighteen kilometers southeast of the nuclear power plant.

I often recalled this glorious nuclear power engineering town. He built with me almost from scratch. When I went to work in Moscow, three neighborhoods were already settled. The town is cozy, comfortable and very clean. Often you could hear from visitors:

“What is the beauty of Pripyat!” Many retirees sought and came for permanent residence here. Sometimes with great difficulty, through government agencies and even the court, they sought the right to live in this paradise, combining beautiful nature and successful town-planning finds.

Most recently, 25 March 1986, I came to Pripyat to check the progress of work on the 5-m power unit under construction at the Chernobyl NPP. All the same freshness of clean, intoxicating air, all the same silence and comfort, now is no longer a village, but cities with a population of fifty thousand ...

Kiev and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant remained north-west of the flight path. The memories went away, and the huge cabin of the airliner became a reality. Two passes, three rows of half-empty seats. For some reason, the feeling that you are in a huge barn. And if you shout, then comes around. Next to me is the constant rumble and rumble of an elevator rushing back and forth. It seems that I am not flying in an airplane, but in a huge empty tarantass on a blue cobblestone road. And in the trunk of a rattle cans of milk ...

Home from the airport "Vnukovo" got to nine in the evening. Five hours before the explosion ...

On the same day, 25 on April 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, they were preparing to shut down the 4 unit for scheduled preventive maintenance.

During the unit shutdown for repairs according to the program approved by the chief engineer N. M. Fomin, it was intended to carry out tests (with the reactor guards disabled) in the complete de-energization of the NPP equipment using the mechanical energy of the rotor of the generator rotor (rotation by inertia) to generate electricity.

By the way, this experience was offered to many nuclear power plants, but because of the riskiness of the experiment, everyone refused. The leadership of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant agreed ...

Why did you need such an experiment?

The fact is that in case of complete de-energizing of the equipment of a nuclear power plant, which may occur during operation, all mechanisms, including the pumps that pump cooling water through the core of the nuclear reactor, stop. As a result, the core melts, which is equivalent to a limiting nuclear accident.

The use of any possible sources of electrical energy in such cases provides for an experiment with a run-down of the turbogenerator rotor. After all while the rotor of the generator rotates, the electric power is produced. It can and should be used in critical cases.

Similar tests, but only with reactor protection included in the work, were carried out earlier at other nuclear power plants. And everything went well. I also had to take part in them.

Usually the programs of such works are prepared in advance, coordinated with the chief designer of the reactor, the general designer of the power plant, Gosatom-Energy Supervision Authority. The program necessarily provides in these cases backup power supply to the responsible consumers during the experiment. For de-energizing the own needs of power plants when performing tests is only implied, and does not actually occur.

In such cases, the power supply of own needs from the power system through the working and start-up and standby transformers, as well as the autonomous power supply from two backup diesel generators, are surely connected ...

To ensure nuclear safety during the test period, emergency reactor protection (emergency introduction of absorbing rods into the core) must be in operation, triggered by exceeding the design settings, as well as an emergency cooling water supply system to the core.

With proper order of performance of work and the adoption of additional safety measures, such tests at a working NPP were not prohibited.

It should also be emphasized here that the overrun of the generator rotor should be carried out only after the emergency protection of the reactor has been triggered (abbreviated AZ), that is, from the moment the AZ button is pressed. Prior to this, the reactor should be in a stable, controlled mode, having a regular operational reactivity margin.

The program, approved by the chief engineer of the Chernobyl NPP N. M. Fomin, did not meet any of the listed requirements ...

A few necessary explanations for the general reader.

Very simplified core reactor RBMK. is a cylinder with a diameter of about fourteen meters and a height of seven meters. Inside this cylinder is densely filled with graphite columns, each of which has a tubular channel. Nuclear fuel is loaded into these channels. From the front side, the core cylinder is uniformly penetrated by through holes (tubes) in which control rods move to absorb neutrons. If all the rods are below (i.e., within the core), the reactor is shut off. As rods are extracted, a chain reaction of nuclear fission begins, and the power of the reactor increases. The higher the rods are extracted, the greater the power of the reactor.

The reactor hall of the 4 unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on the eve of the disaster

When a reactor is loaded with fresh fuel, its reactivity margin (simply, the ability to increase neutron power) exceeds the capacity of absorbing rods to silence a chain reaction. In this case, a part of the fuel cassettes is removed and in place of the fixed absorbing rods (they are called additional absorbers — DP), as if to help by movable rods. As uranium burns out, these additional absorbers are removed and nuclear fuel is installed in their place.

However, the rule remains immutable: as the fuel burns out, the number of absorbing rods immersed in the core should not be less than twenty-eight to thirty (after the Chernobyl accident, this number is increased to seventy-two), because at any moment a situation may arise power will be greater than the absorption capacity of the control rods.

These twenty eight-thirty rods located in the high-efficiency zone constitute the operational reactivity margin. In other words, at all stages of reactor operation, its ability to overclock should not exceed the capacity of absorbing rods to stifle the chain reaction ...

Short information about the station itself. The 4 unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was commissioned in December 1983. By the time the unit was shut down for scheduled maintenance, which was scheduled for 25 on April 1986, the nuclear reactor core contained 1659 fuel assemblies (about two hundred tons of uranium dioxide), one additional absorber loaded into the process channel, and one unloaded technological channel. The main part of the fuel assemblies (75 percent) was a cassette of the first load with burnup depth close to the maximum values, which indicates the maximum number of long-lived radionuclides in the core ...

The tests scheduled for 25 on April 1986 of the year were previously carried out at this station. Then it was found that the voltage on the generator tires drops much earlier than the mechanical energy of the generator rotor is consumed during the coast down. In the planned tests, the use of a special regulator of the magnetic field of the generator was envisaged, which was supposed to eliminate this drawback.

The question arises, why the previous tests did without emergency? The answer is simple: the reactor was in a stable, controlled state, the entire protection complex remained in operation.

But back to the test program of the turbogenerator No. 8 of the Chernobyl NPP. The quality of the program, as I have already said, turned out to be low, the section on security measures provided for in it was compiled purely formally. It indicated only that during the tests all the switchings on the equipment were done with the permission of the unit change manager, and in the event of an emergency, the personnel should act in accordance with local instructions. Before the start of the tests, the head of the electrical part of the experiment, electrical engineer Gennady Petrovich Metlenko, who is not a nuclear power plant worker and a specialist in reactor installations, conducts a shift watch.

In addition to the fact that the program essentially did not provide for additional security measures, it ordered the shutdown of the reactor emergency cooling system (abbreviated as ECCS). This meant that during the entire scheduled test period, that is, about four hours, the safety of the reactor would be significantly reduced.

Due to the fact that the safety of these tests in the program was not given due attention, the staff was not ready for the tests, did not know about the possible danger.

In addition, as will be seen later, the NPP personnel allowed deviations from the implementation of the program itself, thereby creating additional conditions for the occurrence of an emergency.

The operators also did not fully realize that the RBMK reactor possesses a series of positive reactivity effects, which in some cases work simultaneously, leading to the so-called “positive stop”, that is, an explosion. This instantaneous power effect played its fatal role ...

But back to the test program itself. Let us try to understand why it turned out to be inconsistent with the parent organizations that, like the management of a nuclear power plant, carry responsibility for nuclear safety not only of the NPP itself, but also of the state.

In January, 1986, this program was directed by the director of the nuclear power plant, V.P. Bryukhanov, to the General Designer at the Hydroproject Institute and to the State Nuclear Power Authority. However, there was no answer.
Neither the management of the Chernobyl NPP, nor the operational association of Soyuzatomenergo, was concerned about this development of the situation. Both Hydroproject and Gosatomenergonadzor did not worry about this.

Immediately, it seems, one can afford far-reaching conclusions: irresponsibility, negligence in these public institutions has reached such an extent that they all found it possible to keep silent without applying any sanctions, although both the General Designer and the General Customer (VPO Soyuzatomenergo) and GosATOMENERGONADZOR are endowed by rights. Moreover, it is their direct responsibility. But there are specific responsible people in these organizations. Who are they? Do their responsibilities correspond?

We analyze in order.

In the Hydroproject - the general design of the Chernobyl NPP, VS Conviz was responsible for the safety of nuclear power plants. What kind of man is this? Experienced designer of hydraulic stations, candidate of technical sciences in hydraulic structures. For many years he (from 1972 to 1982) is the head of the NPP design sector, from 1983 of the year he is responsible for the safety of NPPs. Having taken on the design of nuclear power plants in the seventies, Convis hardly had a clue about what a nuclear reactor was, he studied nuclear physics from a high school textbook and recruited hydraulic engineers to work on nuclear engineering.

Here, perhaps, everything is clear. Such a person could not foresee the possibility of a catastrophe inherent in the program, and indeed in the reactor itself.

“But why didn’t he do his job?” - the perplexed reader exclaims.

“Because it is prestigious, monetary, convenient,” I will answer. “But why did Mayorets, Shcherbina take up this business?” This question and the list of names can be continued ...

In VPO Soyuzatomenergo — an association of the USSR Ministry of Energy and Electrification, which operates nuclear power plants and is actually responsible for all the actions of operational personnel, was headed by G. A. Veretennikov, a man who never worked on the operation of nuclear power plants. From 1970 to 1982 for years, he worked at the USSR State Planning Committee at first as a chief specialist, and then as a head of the sub-department in the Energy and Electrification Department. He was engaged in the planning of supplies of equipment for nuclear power plants. The supply case went bad for various reasons. From year to year, up to 50 percent of the planned equipment was not delivered.

Veretennikov often was ill, he had, as they said, a weak head, spasmed brain vessels. But the internal setting for the occupation of a high position was apparently highly developed. In the 1982 year, having included all his connections, he occupied the vacant combined post of deputy minister - chief of the association Soyuzatomenergo. She was unable to even physically fit him. Again began spasms of cerebral vessels, fainting, prolonged lying in the Kremlin hospital.

One of the old workers of Glavatomenergo, Yu.A. Izmailov, joked about this:

“Under Veretennikov, it’s almost impossible to find an atomic scientist at the headquarters, who understands reactors and nuclear physics. But incredibly bloated accounting, supply department and planning department ...

In 1984, the post of the “deputy minister” was reduced, and Veretennikov became just the head of the union Soyuzatomenergo. This blow was worse for him than the Chernobyl explosion. He had frequent fainting, and he again went to the hospital.

Ye. S. Ivanov, head of the production department of Soyuzatomenergo, shortly before Chernobyl, justified the frequent emergencies at nuclear power plants:

- Not a single NPP fully complies with the technological regulations. Yes, it is impossible. The practice of operation constantly makes its own adjustments ...

Only a nuclear disaster in Chernobyl decided the fate of Veretennikov. He was expelled from the party and dismissed the head of Soyuzatomenergo. We have to regret that our bureaucrats can be removed from the soft top chairs only with the help of explosions ...

A fairly competent and experienced people headed by the Chairman of the Committee E.V. Kulov, an experienced nuclear physicist who had been working on atomic reactors of the Ministry of Environment and Mass of the Arts for a long time, gathered in Gosatomenergonadzor. But oddly enough, Kulov disregarded the raw test program from Chernobyl. Why, one wonders? After all, the Regulation on the State Nuclear Power Authority, approved by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 4 in May 1984 of the year No. 409, provided that the main tasks of the Committee are:

State supervision over the observance by all ministries, departments, enterprises, organizations, institutions and officials of the established rules, regulations and instructions on nuclear and technical safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear power facilities.

The Committee is also given the right, in particular, in clause “g”: to take responsible measures, including stopping the operation of nuclear power facilities, if the rules and safety standards are not followed, equipment defects are detected, staff are not sufficiently competent, and in other cases when there is a threat exploitation of these objects ...

I remember that at one of the meetings in 1984, E. V. Kulov, who was then appointed chairman of the State Atomic Energy Agency, explained his functions to the assembled nuclear power engineers:

- Do not think that I will work for you. Figuratively speaking, I am a policeman. My business: to prohibit, cancel your wrong actions ...

Unfortunately, and as a “policeman”, E. V. Kulov did not work in the case of Chernobyl ...

What prevented him from suspending work at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl NPP? After all, the test program could not stand criticism ...

And what prevented Hydroproject and Soyuzatomenergo?

No one intervened, as if they had conspired. What is the matter? And the matter is in the conspiracy of silence. In the absence of publicity of negative experience. No publicity - no lessons. After all, no one had informed each other about accidents at nuclear power plants over the past 35 years, no one demanded to take into account the experience of these accidents in their work. Therefore, there were no accidents. Everything is safe, everything is safe ... But it’s not for nothing that Abutalib said: “Whoever shoots a gun at the Past, that is why the Future will shoot a gun”. I would paraphrase specifically for nuclear power engineers: “by that the Future will be hit by the explosion of a nuclear reactor ... a nuclear catastrophe ...”

Here it is necessary to add one more detail, which was not reflected in any of the technical reports on the incident. Here is this detail: the mode with the generator rotor run-out, used in one of the subsystems of the high-speed emergency reactor cooling system (ECCS), was planned in advance and was not only reflected in the test program, but was also prepared technically. Two weeks before the experiment, the MPA button (maximum design basis accident) was embedded on the control panel panel of the fourth power unit, the signal from which was pressed only in the secondary electrical circuits, but without instrumentation and the pumping part. That is, the signal from this button was purely imitation and passed "by" all the main settings and interlocks of the nuclear reactor. This was a serious mistake.

Since the beginning of the maximum design basis accident is considered to be a rupture of the suction or pressure manifold with a diameter of 800 millimeters in a tightly-sealed box, the settings for the operation of the emergency protection (AZ) and the ECCS system were:

- reduction of pressure on the suction line of the main circulation pumps,

- reduction of the differential "lower water communications - drum separators",

- pressure increase in a firmly tight box.

When these settings are reached, in the normal case, emergency protection (AZ) is triggered. All 211 pieces of absorbing rods fall down, "cooling water from ECCS tanks is cut in, emergency water supply pumps are turned on, and diesel generators of reliable power supply are deployed. Emergency water supply pumps from the pool barbater to the reactor are also turned on. That is, protection is more than enough if they are involved and work at the right time ...

So, all these protections should have been made on the “IPA” button. But they, unfortunately, were taken out of work for fear of thermal shock to the reactor, that is, cold water entering the hot reactor. This sickly thought apparently mesmerized the leadership of the nuclear power plant (Bryukhanov, Fomin, Dyatlov) and higher organizations in Moscow. Thus, the holy of holies of atomic technology was violated. After all, if the maximum design basis accident was provided by the project, it means that it could happen at any time. And who then gave the right to deprive the reactor of all the protections provided by the project and the rules of nuclear safety? No one gave. They allowed themselves to be ...

But one wonders why the irresponsibility of Gosatomenergonadzor, Hydroproject and Soyuzatomenergo did not alarm the director of the Chernobyl NPP Bryukhanov and the chief engineer Fomin? After all, an inconsistent program can not work. Who are Bryukhanov and Fomin? What kind of people are these specialists?

I met with Viktor Petrovich Bryukhanov in the winter of 1971, when he arrived at the NPP construction site, in the village of Pripyat, directly from the Moscow clinic, where he was treated for radiation sickness. I still felt bad, but I could walk and decided that, working, I would return to normal more quickly.

Having subscribed that I left the clinic on my own, I got on the train and was in Kiev in the morning. From there by taxi in two hours he drove to Pripyat. On the road, several times sickness, nausea, dizziness. But he was drawn to work, the appointment for which he received shortly before the illness.

I was treated in that very sixth clinic of Moscow, where in fifteen years they would bring deadly irradiated firefighters and people of operational personnel who suffered during the nuclear disaster of the fourth power unit ...

And then, at the beginning of the seventies, nothing was in place of the future nuclear power plant. They dug a pit under the main building. Around - a rare young pine, like nowhere else, the heady air. Oh, to know in advance where you should not begin to dig pits!

ChNPP. Dig a pit

Even at the approach to Pripyat I paid attention to the sandy hilly terrain, overgrown with low-growing forest, frequent bald spots of clean yellow sand against the background of dark green moss. No snow. In other places, warmed by the sun, the grass was green. Silence and primordialness.

“Waste lands,” said the taxi driver, “but ancient.” Here, in Chernobyl, Prince Svyatoslav himself chose a bride. Slowly, they say, there was a bride ... More than a thousand years to this small town. But he survived, did not die ...

Winter day in the village of Pripyat was sunny and warm. So often here and then. Like winter, and all the time in the spring it smells. The taxi driver stopped near a long wooden hut where the directorate of the nuclear power plant under construction and construction management were temporarily located.

I entered the hut. The floor sagged and creaked under my feet. Here is the director's office - a room of about six square meters. The same office at the chief engineer M. P. Alekseev, the future deputy chairman of the State Nuclear Energy Agency. According to the results of the Chernobyl disaster, he will be severely reprimanded and entered into the registration card. In the meantime ...

When I entered, Bryukhanov got up, short, strongly curly, dark-haired, with a wrinkled, tanned face. Smiling embarrassed, shook my hand. In all his guise it was felt that he was a soft, docile man.

Later, this first impression was confirmed, but some other sides opened up in it, in particular, internal stubbornness with a lack of knowledge of people, which made him reach out for highly experienced in the everyday sense, but sometimes not always clean workers. After all, then Bryukhanov was quite young - thirty-six years old. By profession and work experience he is a turbinist. He graduated with honors from the Energy Institute. Moved to the Slavyanskaya TPP (coal station), where he performed well at the start of the unit. He did not go home for days, quickly and competently solved issues. And in general, I later learned, working with him side by side for several years, that he is a good, smart, efficient engineer, but the trouble is not an atomic scientist. And this, it turns out, ultimately, as Chernobyl has shown, the most important thing. At the nuclear power plant, one must first of all be a nuclear professional ...

The Deputy Minister from the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, supervising Slavyanskaya GRES, noted Bryukhanov and put forward his candidacy for Chernobyl ...

With general education, I mean the breadth of outlook, erudition, humanitarian culture, Bryukhanov was rather weak. To some extent, I later explained his desire to surround himself with dubious experts in life ...

And then, in the 1971 year, I introduced myself, and he said happily:

- Ah, Medvedev! We are waiting for you. Get started soon.

Bryukhanov left the office and called the chief engineer.

Mikhail Petrovich Alekseev entered, having had time to work here for several months. He arrived in Pripyat from the Beloyarsk NPP, where he worked as deputy chief engineer for the third block under construction, which so far was listed only on paper. Alekseev had no experience in atomic operation, and before Beloyark 20 worked for years at thermal stations. And as it soon turned out, he rushed to Moscow, where about three months after the start of my work at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, he left. I have already spoken about the punishment he suffered following the results of Chernobyl. His chief for Moscow work, the chairman of the State Nuclear Energy Agency, E.V. Kulov, suffered a harsher punishment. He was removed from work and expelled from the party. The same punishment before the court was taken by Bryukhanov ...

But it happened after fifteen years. And during these fifteen years important events took place, mainly in the personnel policy at nuclear power plants. This policy was pursued and Bryukhanov. She led, in my opinion, to 26 April 1986 of the year ...

From the very first months of work at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (before it, I worked for many years as a shift manager for a nuclear power plant at another station), I began to form personnel for workshops and services. He proposed to Bryukhanov candidates with many years of experience at nuclear power plants. As a rule, Bryukhanov did not directly refuse, but he did not even accept a job, gradually offering or even conducting employees of thermal power stations to these positions. At the same time, he said that, in his opinion, experienced stationers who know powerful turbine systems, switchgears and power distribution lines should work at nuclear power plants.

With great difficulty, through Bryukhanov’s head, with the support of Glavatomenergo, I was able to staff the reactor and special chemical shops with the necessary specialists. Bryukhanov completed turbinists and electricians. Around the end of 1972, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant came to work N. M. Fomin and T. G. The Bad. Bryukhanov offered the first to the position of head of the electrical department, the second to the position of deputy head of the turbine shop. Both of these people were directly nominated by Bryukhanov, and Fomin, an electrician by work experience and education, was nominated for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant from the Zaporizhzhya GRES (thermal station), before which he worked in the Poltava energy networks. I call these two last names, because in fifteen years two major accidents in Balakovo and Chernobyl will be connected with them ...

As deputy chief operating engineer, I talked with Fomin and warned him that the nuclear power plant was a radioactive and extremely complex enterprise. Did he think hard, leaving the electrical department of the Zaporozhskaya TPP?

Fomin has a beautiful white-toothed smile. He seems to know this and smiles almost continuously to the place and out of place. Smiling slyly, he replied that the NPP is a prestigious, ultra-modern enterprise and that not the gods burn pots ...

He had a rather pleasant assertive baritone, interspersed in moments of excitement with alto notes. Square angular figure, narcotic shine of dark eyes. The work is clear, efficient, demanding, impulsive, ambitious, vindictive. Gait and movements are sharp. It was felt that internally he was always compressed like a spring and ready for a jump ... I dwell on it in such detail because he was to become a kind of atomic Herostratus, a personality in some way historical, whose name starting April 26, 1986 will be associated with one of the worst nuclear disasters at nuclear power plants ...

Taras G. Bad, on the contrary, sluggish, thorough, typical phlegmatic, manner of speech stretched, tedious, but meticulous, stubborn, hardworking. About him at first impression one could say: tyuha, a weakling, if not for his methodicalness and perseverance in work. In addition, much hid his closeness to Bryukhanov (they worked together at the Slavyanskaya GRES). In the light of this friendship, he seemed much more significant and energetic ...

After my departure from Pripyat to work in Moscow, Bryukhanov began to actively promote Plohiya and Fomin in the leading echelon of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Ahead went Bad. Over time, he became deputy chief operating engineer, then chief engineer. He did not stay long in this position and was proposed by Bryukhanov as chief engineer for the Balakovo NPP under construction, a water-cooled reactor station, which he did not know the project, but as a result, in June 1985 of the year during commissioning, due to negligence and carelessness committed by operating personnel under his leadership, and gross violation of process regulations, an accident occurred, during which fourteen people were cooked alive. The corpses from the annular rooms around the reactor shaft were pulled out to the emergency lock and folded at the feet of the pale as death of an incompetent chief engineer ...

In the meantime, at the Chernobyl NPP, Bryukhanov continued to move Fomin in the service. He passed by leaps and bounds post of deputy chief engineer for installation and operation, and soon replaced Bad on the post of chief engineer. It should be noted here that the USSR Ministry of Energy did not support Fomin’s candidacy. This post was proposed by V. K. Bronnikov, an experienced reactor man. But Bronnikov was not approved in Kiev, calling him an ordinary techie. Mol-de, Fomin is a tough, demanding leader. We want him. And Moscow lost. The nominee Fomin agreed with the department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and the case was decided. The price of this assignment is known ...

There would have to stop, look around, think about the Balakovsky experience, increase vigilance and caution, but ...

At the end of 1985, Fomin gets into a car accident and breaks his spine. Long paralysis, frustration. But the mighty organism coped with the illness, Fomin recovered and went to work 25 March 1986, a month before the Chernobyl explosion. I was at Pripyat just at this time with the inspection of the 5 unit under construction, where things were going badly, the progress of work was restrained by the lack of project documentation and technological equipment. I saw Fomin at the meeting, which we collected specifically for the 5 unit. He passed great. There was a kind of lethargy in his whole appearance and a seal of suffering endured. Car crash did not pass unnoticed.

- Maybe you better rest a couple more months to heal? - I asked him. - The injury is serious.

- No, it's okay, - it seemed to me sharply and somehow, he laughed loudly, while his eyes, like fifteen years ago, had a feverish, evil, tense expression. - Work does not wait ...

And yet I thought that Fomin was unwell, that it was dangerous not only for him personally, but also for the nuclear power plant, for the four nuclear power units, the operational management of which he carried out. Concerned, I decided to share my concerns with Bryukhanov, but he also began to calm me down: “I think it's okay. He recovered. The work will soon reach the norm ... "

Such confidence confused me, but I did not insist. In the end, is this my business? A person may really feel good. Besides, now I was engaged in the construction of nuclear power plants. The operational affairs of the current position did not concern me, and therefore I could not decide on the removal or temporary replacement of Fomin. After all, doctors, experienced specialists wrote him out for work, they knew what they were doing ... And yet, there was doubt in my soul, and I could not again draw Bryukhanov’s attention to what I thought was the fact of Fomin’s ill health. Then we got to talking. Bryukhanov complained that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has a lot of leaks, does not hold fittings, drainage and air drains are flowing. The total leakage rate is almost constantly 50 cubic meters of radioactive water per hour. Barely have time to process it on evaporators. Lots of radioactive dirt. He said that he already felt very tired and would like to go somewhere else for another job ...

He recently just returned from Moscow, from the XXVII Congress of the CPSU, at which he was a delegate.

But what happened on the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 25 April, while I was still at the Crimean station, and then flew to IL-86 in Moscow?

At 1 hour 00 minutes of night 25 on April 1986, operating personnel proceeded to reduce the power of reactor No. 4, which operated at nominal parameters, that is, at 3000 MW of thermal.

The power reduction was carried out by order of the Deputy Chief Engineer for the operation of the second stage of the nuclear power plant A. S. Dyatlov, who was preparing the fourth unit for the implementation of the program approved by Fomin.

In 13 hours of 05 minutes of the same day, the turbogenerator No. 7 was disconnected from the network at the thermal power of the 1600 MW thermal reactor. The power supply of the unit's own needs (four main circulation pumps, two nutrient electropumps, etc.) was transferred to the tires of the turbine generator No. 8 remaining in operation, with which the tests planned by Fomin were to be carried out.

In 14 hours 00 minutes, in accordance with the experiment program, the reactor emergency cooling system (ECCS) was disconnected from the multiple forced circulation loop cooling the core. It was one of the worst and fatal mistakes of Fomin. At the same time, it must be emphasized that this was done deliberately in order to exclude a possible thermal shock when cold water enters the ECCS tanks into a hot reactor.

After all, when acceleration begins on instantaneous neutrons, the main circulating pumps will cut off the water supply, and the reactor will remain without cooling water, 350 cubic meters of emergency water from the ECCS tanks could possibly save the situation by extinguishing the vapor effect of reactivity, the most significant of all. Who knows what the outcome would be. But ... What an incompetent person in nuclear issues will not do with a sharp internal installation on leadership, with a desire to stand out in a prestigious business and prove that a nuclear reactor is not a transformer and can work without cooling ...

It is difficult to guess now what secret plans illuminated Fomin's consciousness in those fatal hours, but to turn off the reactor's emergency cooling system, which in critical seconds might have saved it from an explosion, drastically reducing the steam content in the core, could only be completely unintelligent. -physical processes in a nuclear reactor, or at least extremely presumptuous.

But nevertheless, it was done, and done, as we already know, consciously. Apparently, the hypnosis of arrogance, which runs counter to the laws of nuclear physics, was also followed by the deputy chief engineer for operation, A. S. Dyatlov, and the entire personnel of the control service of the fourth power unit. Otherwise, at least someone alone should come to his senses and shout at the time of the shutdown of ECCS:

- quit! What are you doing, brothers! Look around. Nearby, at hand, ancient cities: Chernobyl, Kiev, Chernigov, the most fertile lands of our country, flowering gardens of Ukraine and Belarus ... New lives are registered in the Pripyatsky maternity hospital! In a clean world, they must come in a clean! Come to your senses!

But no one came to his senses, no one shouted. ECCS was quietly turned off, the valves on the water supply line to the reactor were previously de-energized and locked, so that, if necessary, not to open them even manually. But then, foolishly, they can open it, and 350 cubic meters of cold water will hit the hot reactor ... But in the case of the maximum design basis accident, cold water will go to the active zone anyway. Here you need to choose the lesser of two evils. It is better to feed cold water into a hot reactor, rather than leave a hot active zone without water. After all, having removed the head, they do not cry through hair. ECCS water flows just then. when she needs to do, and the heat stroke here is incommensurable with an explosion ...

Psychologically, the question is very complex. Well, of course, the conformism of the operators, who have lost the habit of independent thinking, negligence and carelessness, which have penetrated, have established themselves in the service of the management of nuclear power plants and have become the norm. Another thing is disrespect for the atomic reactor, which was perceived by the operators almost as a Tula samovar, maybe a little more complicated. Oblivion of the golden rule of workers in explosive production: “Remember! Wrong actions — an explosion! ”There was also an electrotechnical list in thinking, because the chief engineer was an electrician, besides after a severe spinal injury, the consequences of which for the psyche did not remain without a trace. There is no doubt that an oversight of the psychiatric service of the medical unit of the Chernobyl NPP, which should vigilantly monitor the mental state of the atomic operators, as well as the management of the NPP, and in time remove them from work if necessary ...

And here it must again be recalled that the reactor emergency cooling system (ECCS) was deliberately taken out of operation in order to avoid thermal shock to the reactor when the “MPA” button was pressed. Therefore, Woodpeckers and operators were confident that the reactor will not fail. Arrogance? Yes. It is here that you begin to think that the operators did not fully understand the physics of the reactor, did not foresee the extreme development of the situation. I think that the relatively successful work of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for ten years also contributed to the demagnetization of people. And even the alarm signal - the partial melting of the core at the first power unit of this station in September 1982 of the year - did not serve as a proper lesson. And could not serve. After all, for many years the accidents at nuclear power plants were hidden, although the operators of different NPPs partly learned about them. But they didn’t give due importance, “Since the authorities are silent — God himself told us.” Moreover, the accidents were perceived as inevitable, though unpleasant satellites of atomic technology.

For decades, the confidence of atomic operators has been forged, which eventually turned into arrogance and the possibility of completely violating the laws of nuclear physics and the requirements of process regulations, otherwise ...

However, the beginning of the experiment was postponed. At the request of the dispatcher Kyivenergo in 14 hours 00 minutes 25 April 1986, the withdrawal of the unit from work was delayed.

In violation of the technological regulations, the operation of the fourth power unit at that time continued with the emergency reactor cooling system (ECCS) turned off, although formally the reason for such work was: the presence of the “MPA” button and the criminal blocking of protections due to fear of its pressing of cold water throwing into a hot reactor ...

In 23 hours 10 minutes (Yury Tregub was the shift manager of the fourth power unit at that time), the capacity reduction was continued.

In 24 hours 00 minutes Yuri Tregub passed the shift Alexander Akimovand his senior reactor control engineer (abbreviated as SIUR) passed the shift to the senior reactor control engineer Leonid Toptunov...

Then the question arises: if the experiment was carried out in the shift of Tregub, would there be an explosion of the reactor? I think no. The reactor was in a stable, controlled state, the operational reactivity margin was more than 28 absorbing rods, the power level was 1700 MW of heat. But the completion of the explosion experience could have happened in this watch if, if the local automatic control system was disconnected (abbreviated LAR), the senior engineer of the reactor control (SIUR) of the Tregub shift would have made the same mistake as Toptunov, and by allowing it to rise from "Iodine pit" ...

It is hard to say what would have happened, but I would like to hope that the SIUR of the shift of Yuri Tregub would have worked more professionally than Leonid Toptunov and would have shown more perseverance in defending his rightness. So the human factor is there ...

But events evolved the way Fate had programmed them. And the apparent delay that the dispatcher Kyivenergo gave us, having moved the tests from 14 hours of 25 April to 1 hours 23 minutes of April 26, turned out to be in fact only a direct route to the explosion ...

In accordance with the test program, the rotor of the generator with its own needs was to be driven out at a power of 700 — 1000 MW of heat. Here it is necessary to emphasize that such a run-up should have been made at the moment of reactor jamming, because at the maximum design failure, emergency protection of the reactor (AZ) at five emergency settings drops down and silences the device. But another, disastrously dangerous way was chosen - to run out the rotor of the generator while the reactor is operating. Why such a dangerous regime was chosen remains a mystery. One can only assume that Fomin wanted a pure experience ...

Then this is what happened. It is necessary to clarify that the absorbing rods can be controlled all at once or in parts, groups. When one of these local systems was disconnected, which is stipulated by the regulations for operating a nuclear reactor at low power, SIUR Leonid Toptunov could not quite quickly eliminate the imbalance in the control system (in its measuring part). As a result, the reactor power dropped to a value below the 30 MW of heat. Began poisoning the reactor decomposition products. It was the beginning of the end ...

Here, the Deputy Chief Engineer for the operation of the second stage of the Chernobyl NPP should be briefly described. Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov. A tall, thin, with a small angular face, with a gray hair smoothly combed back by gray hair and evasive, deeply sunken dull eyes, A. S. Dyatlov appeared at the nuclear power plant somewhere in the middle of 1973. His profile was given to me by Bryukhanov to study ahead of time. From Bryukhanov Dyatlov came to me for an interview some time later.

According to the questionnaire it appeared that he worked as head of the physical laboratory at one of the enterprises of the Far East, where, as far as could be judged by the questionnaire, he was engaged in small shipboard atomic installations. In a conversation with him this was confirmed.

“Investigated the physical characteristics of the active zones of small reactors,” he said then.

At the NPP never worked. Thermal schemes of the station and uranium-graphite reactors do not know.

- How will you work? - I asked him. - The object is new for you.

“We will learn,” he said somehow strainedly, “the bolts there, the pipelines ... It's easier than the physics of the reactor ...”

A strange way of holding on: head bent forward, elusive gaze of gloomy gray eyes, straining intermittent speech. It seemed that with great difficulty he squeezed the words out of himself, dividing them into significant pauses. It was not easy to listen to him, the character felt heavy in him.

I reported to Bryukhanov that Dyatlov could not be accepted to the post of head of the reactor department. It will be difficult for him to manage operators not only by virtue of character traits (he obviously did not possess the art of communication), but also from the experience of previous work: a pure physicist, he does not know atomic technology.

Bryukhanov listened to me in silence. He said he would think. A day later, an order was issued to appoint Dyatlov as deputy head of the reactor department. Somewhere Bryukhanov listened to my opinion, appointing Dyatlov to a lower position. However, the direction of the "reactor shop" - left. Here, I think, Bryukhanov made a mistake, and as life showed - fatal ...

The forecast regarding Dyatlov was confirmed: clumsy, slow-motion, heavy and conflict with people ...

While I was working at the Chernobyl NPP, Dyatlov did not advance in the service. Moreover, later I planned to transfer him to the laboratory, where he would be in place.

After my departure, Bryukhanov began to move Dyatlov, he became the head of the reactor department, and then the deputy chief engineer for the operation of the second stage of the nuclear power plant.

I will give the characteristics given to Dyatlov by his subordinates who have worked with him side by side for many years.

Davletbaev Razim Ilgamovich - deputy head of the turbine department of the fourth block:

“Woodpeckers are a difficult, difficult character. Unlike the main contingent of management, NPPs behaved separately. Especially not bothered. In fact, the technical directors of the unit were taken over by the heads of workshops and their deputies. If it was necessary to solve questions concerning the participation of several divisions, they were decided "by horizontal ties." Dyatlov was satisfied with this, we were not. But there was no other way out, since he avoided difficult questions in every way, even the issues of launching and mastering the fourth block. passed without his help and real leadership. Dyatlov was not sick with his soul for the state of affairs, although he wore a mask of a stern and demanding leader. The operators did not respect him. He rejected all proposals and objections that required his efforts. He did not work. He demanded that the workshops themselves prepare them. He only kept records of their number. He took part in the examinations a year and a half after the start of the fourth block, although as chairman of the commission he had to do it even before the start of the block. strictly, using the method of shouting and forcing nervousness at the control room and at technical meetings. He went into the substance of the questions for a long time, although he had sufficient engineering potential. Reactor installation, it seems, knew. The technology of other workshops knew limited. Under his leadership, the work was done without satisfaction. In a situation that was distracted from work, he was sociable, a companion disposed towards himself, not devoid of a kind of humor. Stubborn, tedious, does not hold the words ... "

Viktor Smagin - shift manager of the fourth unit:

“Woodpeckers are a heavy, slow man. Subordinates usually said: - I do not immediately punish. I ponder the act of a subordinate for at least 24 hours and, when there is no more sediment in my soul, I make a decision ...

The backbone of management physicists Dyatlov gathered from the Far East, where he worked as head of the physical laboratory. Orlov, Sitnikov (both died) also from there. And many others are friends and comrades of the previous work ... Dyatlov was unjust, even mean. Before starting the unit, during installation and commissioning, I had the opportunity to go and learn a little more. “You have nothing to learn,” Dyatlov told me. “And so you know everything. And now they (the other two) let them learn. They know little ... "As a result, we drafted the main cart during installation and commissioning, and when it was time to hand out posts and salaries, they gave large salaries to those who studied. When I reminded Dyatlov of his promise, he said:

- They studied, and you did not ...

The general trend at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant before the explosion, which Dyatlov clearly enforced was to “twitch” the shift personnel, spare and encourage the day (non-operational) personnel of the workshops. Usually there were more accidents in the turbine hall, less in the reactor compartment. Hence the demagnetized ratio to the reactor. Like, safer, safer ... "

V. G. Smagin about N. M. Fomin:

“Workable, proud, energetic, vain, vindictive, angry, sometimes fair. The voice is a pleasant baritone, with excitement sometimes it breaks down to the alto, but basically it turns into a beautiful bask ... "


So - was Dyatlov able to instantly, the only correct assessment of the situation at the time of its transition to an accident? I think that is not capable. Moreover, it apparently did not sufficiently develop the necessary reserve of caution and a sense of danger, so necessary for the head of the atomic operators. But self-reliance, disrespect for operators and technological regulations - even more than enough ...

It was these qualities that unfolded in Dyatlov in full force when, when the local automatic control system (LAR) was disconnected, the senior engineer for reactor control (SIUR) Leonid Toptunov failed to keep the reactor at a power of 1500 MW and “fell” to 30 MW of heat.

Toptunov made a grave mistake. With such a low power begins intensive poisoning of the reactor decay products (xenon, iodine). Parameter recovery becomes difficult or even impossible. All of this meant: conducting an experiment with a run-down of the rotor fails, which was immediately understood by all atomic operators, including SRSD Leonid Toptunov, and the shift manager of the unit, Alexander Akimov. The deputy chief operating engineer, Anatoly Dyatlov, also understood this.

A rather dramatic situation was created in the block control room of the fourth power unit. Usually slowed down Dyatlov with unusual agility running around the panels of the operators' console, spewing out swears and curses. A hoarse, low voice now acquired an angry metallic sound.

- Japanese crucians! Do not know how! Badly failed! Breaking the experiment! Mother of your peremat!

His anger could be understood. The reactor is poisoned by decomposition products. It is necessary either to immediately raise the power, or to wait a day, until it opens. And I had to wait ... Ah, Dyatlov, Dyatlov! You did not take into account that the poisoning of the core goes faster than you thought. Stop it! Maybe a human blowjob Chernobyl disaster ...

But he did not want to stop. Throwing thunder and lightning, rushed around the block control room and lost precious minutes. It is necessary to immediately raise the power!

But Dyatlov continued to discharge.

SIUR Leonid Toptunov and the head of the shift of the block Akimov began to think, and there was something. The fact is that the drop in power to such low values ​​occurred from the 1500 MW level, that is, from the 50-percent value. The operational reactivity margin in this case was 28 rods (that is, 28 rods were immersed in the core). Restoration of parameters was still possible ... Technological regulations prohibited the increase in power, if the fall occurred from the 80-percentage value with the same reactivity margin, because the poisoning in this case is more intense. But the values ​​of 80 and 50 percent were painfully close. As time went on, the reactor was poisoned. Woodpeckers continued to curse. Toptunov was inactive. It was clear to him that he would hardly be able to rise to the previous power level, that is, to 50 percent, and if he succeeds, with a sharp decrease in the number of rods immersed in the zone, which required the immediate shutdown of the reactor. So ... Toptunov made the only correct decision.

- I will not rise! - firmly said Toptunov. Akimov supported him. Both expressed their concerns Dyatlov.

- What are you breaking, Japanese crucian carp! - Dyatlov attacked Toptunov, - After falling from 80 percent according to the regulations, the rise in a day is allowed, and you fell from 50 percent! The regulation does not prohibit. But you will not rise, Tregub will rise ...— It was already a psychic attack (Yuri Tregub — the head of the block shift, who passed the shift to Akimov and who remained to see how the tests go, was near). It is not known, however, he would agree to raise power. But Dyatlov calculated correctly, Leonid Toptunov was frightened by the shouts of his superiors, he betrayed his professional instinct. Young, of course, just 26 years old, inexperienced. Eh, Toptunov, Toptunov ... But he was already wondering:

"The operational reactivity margin of 28 rods ... To compensate for the poisoning, we will have to pull out another five to seven rods from the reserve group ... Maybe I’ll slip through ... I’d give you a dismissal ...” (Toptunov told about this in the Pripyat medical unit shortly before sending to Moscow.)

Leonid Toptunov began to raise power, thereby signing the death sentence to himself and many of his comrades. Under this symbolic sentence, the signatures of Dyatlov and Fomin are also clearly visible. The signature of Bryukhanov and many other more senior comrades is clearly visible ...

And yet, in fairness, it must be said that the death sentence was predetermined to some extent by the design of the RBMK-type reactor itself. It was only necessary to ensure the confluence of circumstances under which an explosion is possible. And it was done ...

But we are running a little ahead. It was, it was still time to think again. But Toptunov continued to raise the power of the reactor. Only by the 1 hour of 00 minutes of 26 on April 1986, it managed to be stabilized at the level of 200 MW of heat. During this period, the poisoning of the reactor with decomposition products continued, and a further increase in power was hampered due to the small operational reactivity margin, which by that time was much lower than the target. (According to the USSR report at the IAEA, he compiled 6 — 8 rods, according to the dying Toptunov, who watched the printout of the Scala machine seven minutes before the explosion, 18 rods.)

To make it clear to the reader, let me remind you that by the operational reactivity margin is meant a certain number of absorbing rods immersed in the core, located in the area of ​​high differential efficiency. (It is determined by recalculation for fully immersed rods.) For an RBMK-type reactor, an operational reactivity margin is adopted for 30 rods. At the same time, the input rate of negative reactivity when the emergency protection of the reactor (AZ) is triggered is 1v (one beta) per second, which is sufficient to compensate for the positive reactivity effects during normal operation of the reactor.

It must be said that, answering my questions, V.G. Smagin, the head of the shift of unit No. 4 of the Chernobyl NPP, said that the minimum acceptable regulatory value of the reactivity margin of the reactor of the 4 unit was 16 rods. Actually, as A. Dyatlov informed in his letter from the places of detention, at the time of pressing the “AZ” button there were 12 rods.

This information does not change the qualitative picture: the real operational reserve of reactivity was lower than the procedural one. The technological regulation itself, stained with radioactivity, was taken to Moscow, to the accident investigation commission, and the rods in the regulations turned into 30 rods in the USSR report to the IAEA. It is also possible that in the regulations the number of rods of the operational reactivity margin, contrary to the recommendations of the IV Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, was underestimated from 16 to 30 rods at the power plant itself, which allowed operators to manipulate a large number of control rods. Management possibilities in this case seem to be expanding, but the probability of a reactor going into an unstable state increases dramatically ...

But back to our analysis.

In fact, the operational reactivity margin was 6 — 8 rods according to a report in the IAEA and 18 rods according to Toptunov’s evidence, which significantly reduced the effectiveness of reactor emergency protection, which therefore became lightly controlled.

This is explained by the fact that, leaving the "iodine pit", Toptunov, extracted several rods from the group of emergency reserves ...

Nevertheless, it was decided to continue the tests, although the reactor was already practically unmanaged. Apparently, there was great confidence in the senior engineer of the reactor management, Toptunov, and the shift commander of the Akimov unit — the main ones responsible for the nuclear safety of the reactor and the nuclear power plant as a whole. True, they had doubts, there were attempts to disobey Dyatlov at the fatal moment of decision-making, but all the same, the main thing against the background of all this was solid internal confidence in success. Hope that will not fail and this time will rescue the reactor. Was here, as I said, and the inertia of the usual conformist thinking. Indeed, for 35 of the past years there were no accidents at nuclear power plants of a global nature. And about those that were, no one had ever heard. Everything was carefully hidden. The guys had no negative experience of the past. And the operators themselves were young and not vigilant enough. But not only Toptunov and Akimov (they stepped into the night), but the operators of all previous shifts of 25 on April 1986 did not show proper responsibility and with a light heart went for a gross violation of the process regulations and nuclear safety rules.

Indeed, it was necessary to completely lose the sense of danger, to forget that the main thing at a nuclear power plant is the atomic reactor, its active zone. The main motive in the behavior of the staff was the desire to quickly complete the test. I would say that there was no proper love for their work here either, for it necessarily implies deep thoughtfulness, genuine professionalism and vigilance. Without this, it is better not to take on the management of such a dangerous device as a nuclear reactor.

Violations of the established order in the preparation and conduct of tests, negligence in the management of the reactor facility — all of this suggests that the operators did not understand very deeply the peculiarity of the technological processes occurring in the nuclear reactor. Not all, apparently, represented the specifics of the design of absorbing rods ...

Twenty-four minutes and fifty-eight seconds remained before the blast ...

To summarize the gross violations, as laid down in the program, and committed in the process of preparing and conducting tests:

- trying to get out of the “iodine well”, reduced the operational reactivity margin below the permissible value, thus making the emergency protection of the reactor ineffective;

- mistakenly turned off the system LAR, which led to the failure of the reactor power below the program; the reactor was in a difficult to control condition;

- all eight main circus pumps (MCPs) were connected to the reactor with an emergency excess of expenses for individual MCPs, which made the coolant temperature close to the saturation temperature (fulfillment of the program requirements);

- intending, if necessary, to repeat the experiment with de-energizing, blocked the protection of the reactor on a signal to stop the apparatus when two turbines are disconnected;

- blocked the protection of the level of water and vapor pressure in the drum separators, trying to conduct tests, despite the unstable operation of the reactor. Thermal protection has been disabled;

- they turned off the systems of protection against the maximum design basis accident, trying to avoid false triggering of the ECCS during testing, thereby losing the opportunity to reduce the scale of the potential accident;

- blocked both emergency diesel generators as well as the working and start-up transformers, disconnecting the unit from emergency power sources and the power system, trying to conduct a “clean experience”, and in fact completing the chain of prerequisites for ultimate nuclear catastrophe ...

All of the above acquired an even more ominous color against the background of a number of unfavorable neutron-physical parameters of the RBMK reactor, which has a positive steam reactivity effect 2в (two beta), a positive temperature effect reactivity, as well as a vicious design of the absorbing rods of the reactor protection management system (CPS for short).

The fact is that with the height of the active zone equal to seven meters, the absorbing part of the rod had a length of five meters, and hollow sections were below and above the absorbing part. The lower limit of the absorbing rod, leaving at full immersion below the active zone, is filled with graphite. With such a design, the control rods at the top enter them into the reactor at the beginning of the core with the lower graphite limit switch, then the hollow meter section enters the zone and only after that the absorbing part. Total for Chernobyl 4-m power unit 211 absorbing rods. According to the USSR report at the IAEA - 205, the rods were in the extreme upper position; according to SIUR Toptunov, the 193 rod was at the top. The simultaneous introduction of such a number of rods into the core gives at the first moment a surge of positive reactivity due to dehydration of the CPS channels, since the zone initially includes graphite limit switches (length 5 meters) and hollow sections of a meter length, displacing water. At the same time, a burst of reactivity reaches half the beta and, with a stable, controlled reactor, is not terrible. However, if the adverse factors coincide, this additive can be fatal, because it will pull uncontrollable overclocking.

The question arises: were the operators aware of this or were they in holy ignorance? I think they knew in part. In any case, they had to know. SIUR Leonid Toptunov in particular. But he is a young specialist, knowledge has not entered into flesh and blood ...

But Alexander Akimov, the head of the block shift, could not have known, because SIUR never worked. But he studied the design of the reactor, passed exams for the workplace. However, this subtlety in the design of the absorbing rod could pass by the consciousness of all operators, because it was not directly associated with a danger to human life. But it was in the image of this design that the death and horror of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster lurked until the time.

I also think that in the rough the design of the rod was represented by Bryukhanov, Fomin and Dyatlov, not to mention the designers who designed the reactor, but they did not think that the future explosion was hidden in some end sections of the absorbing rods, which are the main protection system of a nuclear reactor. Killed what was supposed to protect, and therefore did not expect death from here ...

But after all, the reactors must be designed so that they are self-extinguishing during unforeseen overclocking. This rule is the holy of holies of construction of nuclear controlled devices. And I must say that the Novovoronezh type water-cooled reactor meets these requirements.

Yes, neither Bryukhanov, nor Fomin, nor Woodpeckers brought to their consciousness the possibility of such a development of events. But after ten years of operating a nuclear power plant, it is possible to finish the physics and technology institute twice and to master nuclear physics to the finer points. But this is the case if you really study and have a soul for the cause, and not rest on your laurels ...

Here, the reader should be briefly explained that the atomic reactor can only be controlled due to the fraction of delayed neutrons, which is denoted by the Greek letter in (beta). According to the rules of nuclear safety, the rate of increase in reactivity is safe at 0,0065 in, effective in every 60 seconds. With excessive reactivity equal to 0,5 B already, acceleration on instantaneous neutrons begins ...

The same violations of the regulations and protection of the reactor by the operating personnel, which I mentioned above, threatened to release reactivity equal to at least 5 в, which meant fatal explosive acceleration.

Represented the whole chain Bryukhanov, Fomin, Woodpeckers, Akimov, Toptunov? The first two probably did not represent this whole chain. The last three - theoretically should have known, practically, I think, no, which is confirmed by their irresponsible actions.

Akimov, right up until his death 11 May 1986, repeated, while he could speak, one thought that tormented him:

- I did everything right. I do not understand why this happened.

All that also says that emergency training at NPPs, theoretical and practical training of personnel were conducted very badly, and mostly within the limits of a primitive management algorithm that does not take into account the deep-seated processes in the core of a nuclear reactor at any given operational time interval.

The question arises - how did they get to such demagnetization, to such criminal negligence? Who and when laid into the program of our destiny the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe in the Belarusian-Ukrainian Polesye? Why was the uranium-graphite reactor chosen for installation in 130 kilometers from the capital of Ukraine, Kiev?

Let's go back fifteen years ago, in October 1972, when I worked as a deputy chief engineer at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Already at that time many people had similar questions.

One of the days of October 1972, Briukhanov and I went to Gazik to Kiev on the call of the then Minister of Energy of the Ukrainian SSR, A.N. Makukhin, who advanced Bryukhanov to the post of Director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Sam Makukhin education and experience - heat-and-power engineering.

On the way to Kiev, Bryukhanov told me:

- Do you mind if we cut out for an hour or two, read a lecture to the Minister and his deputies on nuclear energy, on the design of a nuclear reactor? Try more popular, but they, like me, understand little in nuclear power plants ...

“With pleasure,” I replied.

The Minister of Energy of the Ukrainian SSR, Aleksey Naumovich Makukhin, was very bossy. The stone expression on the rectangular face was frightening. He spoke abruptly. Speech self-confident foreman.

I told the audience about the device of the Chernobyl reactor, the layout of the nuclear power plant and the features of this type of nuclear power plant.

I remember, Makukhin asked:

- In your opinion, was the reactor chosen successfully or ...? I mean - Kiev is still close ...

“I think,” I replied, “for the Chernobyl NPP it would be more suitable not for a uranium-graphite, but for a Novovoronezh-type water-to-water reactor. The double-circuit station is cleaner, less than the length of pipeline communications, less activity emissions. In a word, safer ...

- Are you familiar with the arguments of Academician Dollezhal? He does not advise advancing RBMK reactors to the European part of the country ... But something vaguely argues for this thesis. Did you read his conclusion?

- I read ... Well, what can I say ... Dollezhal is right. It is not worth pushing. These reactors have a great Siberian experience. They have proven themselves there, if I may say so, from the “dirty side”. This is a serious argument ...

- Why did Dollezhal not persevere in defending his idea? - asked Makuhin.

- I don’t know, Alexey Naumovich, “I spread my hands,” apparently, there were forces more powerful than Academician Dollezhal ...

- And what are the projected emissions of the Chernobyl reactor? - already anxiously asked Makukhin.

- Up to four thousand curies per day.

- And at Novovoronezh?

- Up to one hundred curie per day. The difference is significant.

- But after all, academics ... The use of this reactor was approved by the Council of Ministers ... Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov praises this reactor as the safest and most economical. You, Comrade Medvedev, have thickened the colors. But nothing ... Mastering ... Not the gods are burning the pots ... The operators will have to organize things so that our first Ukrainian reactor is cleaner and safer than Novovoronezh ...

In 1982, A. N. Makukhin was transferred to work at the central office of the USSR Ministry of Energy to the post of first deputy minister for operation of power plants and networks.

14 August 1986 of the year, already following the Chernobyl disaster, by the decision of the Party Control Committee under the CPSU Central Committee for the failure to take proper measures to improve the reliability of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant operation, Alexander N. Makukhin, First Deputy Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR, was severely reprimanded by the party without removing it from work.

But even then, in the 1972 year, it was possible to change the type of the Chernobyl reactor to a water-water one and thereby sharply reduce the possibility of what happened in April 1986. And the word of the Minister of Energy of the Ukrainian SSR would not be the last here.

It is necessary to mention another characteristic episode. In December 1979 of the year, already working in Moscow, in the Soyuzatomenergostroy nuclear engineering association, I went on an inspection trip to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to monitor the construction progress of the 3 unit.

The meeting was attended by the then first secretary of the Kiev regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Vladimir Tsybulko. He was silent for a long time, listening carefully to the speakers, then he made a speech. His burnt face with traces of keloid scars (during the war he was a tankman and burned in tank) blushed deeply. He looked into the space in front of him, not stopping to look at anyone, and spoke in the tone of a man who was not used to objections. But in his voice slipped and fatherly notes, notes of care and good wishes. I listened and involuntarily thought about how easily non-professionals in the nuclear energy industry are ready to rant about the most complicated issues, the nature of which is unclear to them, ready to give recommendations and “manage” a process in which they absolutely do not understand anything.

“Look, comrades, what a beautiful city Pripyat rejoices in the eye,” said the first secretary of the Kiev regional committee, making frequent pauses (before it was a discussion of the construction of the third power unit and the prospects for the construction of the entire nuclear power plant). ”You say four power units. And I will say this - a little! I would build eight, twelve, or even all twenty nuclear power units here! .. What ?! And the city will blow up to one hundred thousand people. Not a city, but a fairy tale ... You have a wonderful run-in team of nuclear builders and installers. Than to open a platform on a new place, let's build here ...

During one of its pauses, one of the designers wedged in and said that the excessive accumulation in one place of a large number of atomic active zones is fraught with serious consequences, because it reduces the state’s nuclear security both in the case of a military conflict and an attack on nuclear power plants, and extreme nuclear accident ...

The efficient reply went unnoticed, but Comrade Tsybulko’s proposal was taken up with enthusiasm as a directive.

Soon the construction of the third phase of the Chernobyl NPP began, and the design of the fourth stage began ...

However, 26 on April 1986 was not far off, and the explosion of the atomic reactor of the fourth power unit at one stroke cut down four million kilowatts of installed capacity from the country's power grid and ceased construction of the fifth power unit, the commissioning of which was real in 1986.

Now imagine that the dream of V. M. Tsybulko would have been fulfilled. If this happened, then 26 on April 1986, all twelve power units would be knocked out of the power system for a long time, would depopulate the city with a hundred thousand population and the damage to the state would be calculated not eight, but at least twenty billion rubles.

It should also be mentioned that the power unit No. 4, designed by Hydroproject, exploded with the location of an explosive tightly tight box and a pool-barbuter under a nuclear reactor. At one time, being the chairman of the expert committee on this project, I categorically objected to such an arrangement and suggested that the explosive device be removed from under the reactor. However, the opinion of the examination was then ignored. As life has shown, the explosion occurred both in the reactor itself and in a solidly dense box ... [In detail about the expertise of this project I told in my story “Examination”, published in the Soviet-Bulgarian journal “Friendship” for 1986 year, No. 6.]

Продолжение следует ...

Comments

[parusnik]

Very interesting ... we look forward to continuing ...

[igordok]

Yes, I agree. Interweaving emotional and technical report. On the one hand, it’s interesting, but I'm more interested in the technical side of the accident.
Thank you.

[tanit]

But after "I suggested to one of the central newspapers" does it make sense to read? In which, there were few newspapers in 1983. And each had a name. Photos downloaded from the network ... And a sea of ​​text. Yes, for writing talent plus.
I remember that Shukshin had one character in the story colorfully and tearfully knowing his drinking companions how he unsuccessfully shot Hitler ...

[Olgovich]

Oh my god, what a RANDOM reigned!
And the mess was systemic - everywhere incompetent people appointed not by the principle of competence and knowledge, but by the principle of assigning nomenclature - at least to the director of a sewer station, even to nuclear power plants. And this despite the fact that there were enough competent specialists, but the SYSTEM did not give them a move, pushing “their” dunno.

So the country was ruled.

The PS in the GUS was the same: there were most experienced competent builders, but there were also duraloms with big stars and powers: how much material and money was just buried in the ground, how many works were wasted, and there were enough accidents .....

[MrK]

Quote: Olgovich

Incompetent people appointed not by the principle of competence and knowledge, but by the principle of assigning nomenclature, even to the director of a sewer station

You might think that today they are appointed on the basis of competence.
Komsomolets Kiriyenko led Rosatom for how many years? About Move. Who is leading? About Aircraft Management Who leads? So, as Vysotsky wrote: sit in Moldova scratching your belly ...

[Olgovich]

Quote: mrark

You might think that today they are appointed on the basis of competence.

ARTICLE is discussed and it is not about today.

Quote: mrark

sit in Moldova Cheshi belly ...

Monter Mechnikov (12 chairs):

"The answer is the equivalent of thought".

[nizhegorodec]

Quote: mrark

You might think that today they are appointed on the basis of competence.

who appoints and whom? The same commies and Komsomol members. This is still the inertia of that era.

[antivirus]

in the core, could only be a person who completely does not understand the neutron-physical processes in a nuclear reactor or, at least, is extremely arrogant.
I understand Peter 1 - put forward the Germans, instead of such. Then it began.
And Fiz-tech was apparently missing.
the number of students, the proportions between nuclear scientists and thermal power engineers are laid down in graduate school (who will teach future atomicists and reactors in 5-10 years) + 5-10 years for a set of practical knowledge after high school.
Party plans - plans of the people ???
Or the number and proportions of techies and slogans?

[Operator]

I didn’t understand a damn thing - the Chernobyl NPP management sent the program of the experiment for approval to higher authorities (Soyuzatomenergo, Gosatomenergonadzor and Gidroproekt), according to the author of the article, none of them agreed on the program.

Then how did the leadership of the nuclear power plant decide on an experiment ?!

Another question - did the NPP staff include a safety engineer who was obliged to signal upward about a gross violation of the operating regulations of a nuclear reactor - conducting an uncoordinated experiment on production equipment?

And another question - did the staff of the NPP include a non-staff informant of the KGB of the USSR, who was responsible for informing on his own line about attempts at sabotage and sabotage at a particularly important facility (part of the country's nuclear complex)?

Against this background of absolute sloppiness on all lines of administrative leadership and state security, some kind of problems with the personnel (moral-volitional qualities and professional training) of nuclear power plants look like childish pranks.

Particularly touches on the author’s demands on the professional level of the lowest-level executor at nuclear power plants - senior reactor control engineer (SIUR) Leonid Toptunov, 26 years old, who supposedly at his workplace should have overcome all the superior cretins in the industry management hierarchy.

In fact, conducting an experiment that was not agreed upon by anyone at a nuclear facility was a direct diversion. Where is the reaction of the KGB of the USSR, where are the landings and the highest measures?

[antivirus]

? clan fight ??? prevented a safe stop. It is necessary to May 1 bravura line in the report?

[Pilat2009]

Quote: Operator

Where is the reaction of the KGB of the USSR, where are the landings and the highest measures?

The landings were Bryukhanov, Fomin, Dyatlov, that is, the station’s management was convicted. The direct executing operators died, otherwise they would also be sitting. As for the highest measure, this is not provided for in the Criminal Code, and the time is different.
As for the violation of the regulations, Dyatlov in his book “How It Was” tried to answer these questions. From his words, the regulation didn’t directly prohibit the actions of personnel on any item. As for the number of rods, they simply made a mistake in counting

[Pilat2009]

Those who wish can raise a branch of discussions on this issue a year ago. The same questions are asked every year.

[Operator]

I strongly disagree - in the USSR everything that was not allowed was forbidden, especially in such an industry as nuclear energy. Those. in order to do something not expressly prescribed by the regulations, a written approval of a higher authority was required and nothing else. Moreover, a nuclear power plant is not an experimental laboratory, but a manufacturing enterprise whose main goal is to produce products - kWh.

You are mistaken - in the 1986 year the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR provided for the death penalty for many crimes, including for treason, and sabotage or, especially, sabotage at a nuclear facility is treason.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the author of the article, Grigory Medvedev, is mistaken or deliberately misleading - there was still a written approval of the experiment by a higher authority. Then the question is - who agreed?

[tanit]

The author is not mistaken. The author is the second. Here the situation is like with a log of Lenin. The fewer living eyewitnesses, the more enchanting the imagination of the Authors.

[petrol cutter]

... and in the most interesting place ...

[cost]

The same thought visited

[ZAV69]

Well, actually this book is NOT DOCUMENTARY, although the author himself has cooked in this kitchen and therefore the AUTHROSIAN view of events is interesting. As a matter of fact, this book has been online for a long time, and has been sucked to the last bone by interested people. But the prescription of events is already forgotten.

[pts-m]

A really interesting article, although I have little knowledge of nuclear energy, but I unequivocally agree with the conclusion of popular wisdom ... if the cake is taken to stitch the boots, then the shoemaker and everyone else will be left without boots ... We look forward to continuing.

[Pilat2009]

Quote: Operator

sabotage at a nuclear facility is treason.

Well, for some reason, the court did not qualify what was done as sabotage at a nuclear facility, because it was done unintentionally

[Operator]

Conducting experimental work at a nuclear production facility without coordination with a higher authority is a fact of pure sabotage that does not require additional evidence.

[Pilat2009]

Quote: Operator

there was still a written approval of the experiment by a higher authority. Then the question is - who agreed?

Here is what Dyatlov writes:
Program approval Here's how it writes
Commission of the State Atomic Energy and Energy Supervision in 1991: “Such tests should be qualified as complex tests of the unit, and the program of their conduct should have been agreed with the General Designer, Chief Designer, Scientific Director and state oversight body. However, the pre-accident PBY-04-74 and OPB-82 did not require the management of nuclear plants to coordinate such programs with the above organizations ”

[Operator]

Suppose that the ABY-04-74 and OPB-82 instructions did not really require coordination with the designers, engineers, supervisor and state supervision of experiments on a nuclear reactor after it was put into production (which, by the way, is doubtful - it is possible that there were other instructions that required it).

But why didn’t they agree with the All-Union Association "Soyuzatomenergo", which included the Chernobyl NPP organizationally?

[Pilat2009]

And this must be asked from regulatory organizations

[tanit]

Do not assume. Let's look for the truth, huh?

[tanit]

“To one of the newspapers” Which one? Title and text. I'm interested, I will pay for the request to the archive. I really want to read.

[Pilat2009]

Quote: Operator

In 1993, the International Atomic Energy Advisory Committee (INSAG) of the IAEA published a report in which, among the main factors contributing to the accident

Well, I don’t refute this. But the design flaws of the reactor also played a significant role.

[Operator]

Of course, the RBMK-1000 reactor also had drawbacks, but if it had been operated strictly in the scheduled mode with the goal of generating electricity, and not become an experimental object in a self-made experiment, then a nuclear catastrophe would not have happened.

It is clear that the exploiters cannot calculate all the consequences of actions not regulated by the developers of the reactor (otherwise, they would take scientists with the appropriate level of qualification into the exploiters).

If you are a performer of the regulations, don’t fig a joke with your own hands in the reactor - it will kill you. And if you want to test your rationalization proposal in an experiment - invite specialists from a specialized design organization for a fee, plus coordinate your actions with a higher and controlling organization.

Those. Chernobyl happened for a purely organizational reason.

[Operator]

Another version is the most believable.

Not an experiment was conducted at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but one of the standard operating modes of a nuclear reactor was tested in practice - the generation of electricity to meet technological needs on the coast of a turbogenerator. This mode was described in the regulations, but it has never been implemented before - the previous two attempts to implement it ended in interrupting the mode for reasons not related to the operation of the reactor.

According to the rules, for each testing of a mode that has not yet been mastered, the NPP management approved a program - in fact, an internal technological instruction for all involved employees of the power plant, which does not require approval by higher organizations.

The indicated mode could be tested only during the shutdown of the reactor for scheduled preventive repairs (in the process of reducing the reactor power to zero). In the agreement with all higher organizations, the Chernobyl workers on the morning of April 25 began to gradually decommission the reactor for scheduled preventive repairs. At 14 hours, after the capacity was reduced from 100 to 50 percent, an order was received from the Kyivenergo dispatcher to temporarily stop the decrease in capacity to generate additional electricity.

At this moment, the program manager, deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant A.S. Dyatlov and the head of the Chernobyl daily shift made a gross mistake - they gave the order to start the program without putting the reactor into power reduction mode. The first item of the program was the shutdown of the reactor emergency shutdown system (SOAR), which was done by the shift supervisor of block No. 4. As a result, the reactor, up to 23 hours, generated electricity in emergency mode with the SOAP switched off. For this alone, the program manager, the station’s day shift supervisor, and the block’s day shift supervisor should have gone to court.

At 0 hours, on April 26, the night shift started to work, including under the leadership of the head of the night shift unit A. Akimov, who received orders to continue the test from the program manager and the night shift manager of the station. According to the job description, he was obliged to stop the test, since the program provided for the entry into the process only with a working SOAR, while Akimov had the right to ignore any orders of the leadership contrary to the program. However, he did not.

Then there was only the escalation of violations of job descriptions and the thermal explosion of the reactor.

http://accidont.ru/personal.html

PS From this material it follows that the head of the test program - deputy chief engineer of the power plant Dyatlov, two shift supervisors of the power plant and two shift supervisors of unit No. 4 committed criminal negligence - they operated a nuclear reactor with the SOAP disabled, and the head of the test program was the deputy chief engineer of the power plant Dyatlov, the head of the night shift of the power station and the head of the night shift of unit No. 4 also violated the test program.
Deputy Chief Engineer A.S. Dyatlov also had to be checked for sabotage - his official crimes were too targeted, especially to turn off the SOAR before the actual start of the test program.

[Operator]

The question remains - is the generation of electricity on the coast of a turbogenerator an experiment or the testing of one of the standard operating modes of the equipment of a power unit of a nuclear power plant (in the event of an external power supply failure while connecting standby diesel generators)?

If an experiment, then who authorized it at the production facility?

If the testing of one of the standard modes, then who made up the technological regulations so that, following him, an explosion occurred? And where can I get acquainted with this technological regulation?

Another question is why it was necessary to conduct an experiment / testing of the standard mode for generating electricity on the coast of the turbogenerator with the reactor switched off, because its operation is in no way connected with the inertia rotation of the turbogenerator shaft?

Another question is that before the slowdown rods were discharged into the reactor (with the so-called end effect), cooling water boiled up due to the decrease in the power of the circulation pumps (the turbine generator on the coast did not generate enough electricity), the steam intercepts neutrons worse than water, and the reactor started to accelerate . Does this mean that the designers of the nuclear power plant laid a time bomb without checking in advance the performance of one of the standard modes?

[Operator]

As far back as 1983, during the physical start-up of the reactor of the 4 Chernobyl NPP unit, it was revealed that the CPS rods (protection control rods) initially bring positive reactivity when moving down and only after 5 sec. start to make a negative. The commission, consisting of employees of the IAE, NIKIET, VNIIIAES, Chernobyl NPP, conducted an experiment on the simultaneous lowering of 15-18 rods and determined that in the first 5-8 sec. insertion reactivity is zero. The Commission absolutely unreasonably considered the task completed. But emergency reactor protection is required to introduce negative reactivity, moreover, with sufficient efficiency from the first moment; 18-15 rods are not all rods; the reactor is cold, tattered with a completely different load than during stationary operation. How could the result be extrapolated to the working state?
      The State Nuclear Safety Inspector notes this and ... allows the reactor to be commissioned. In December 1983, the supervisor wrote a letter to the design organization about the elimination of this defect of the rods. There, over the year, in December 1984, they completed the development of technical specifications for new rods with a sheet volume at 2-3. But then there was nothing until the explosion. This is why A3 did not shut down the reactor, but accelerated, or at least did not prevent the increase in power.
http://www.x-libri.ru/elib/sherb000/00000195.htm

[Operator]

Long before the Chernobyl disaster, V.P., an employee of the Atomic Energy Institute Volkov repeatedly drew attention to the unsatisfactory characteristics of the RBMK reactor core. Together with other specialists, he made concrete proposals for the modernization of the reactor, in particular, Volkov proposed to equip the emergency protection system with high-speed mechanisms for introducing rods into the core. However, his direct superiors for several years did not make any efforts to introduce his developments.
    Volkov was forced to write a memo to the director of the institute, academician A.P. Alexandrov, who served as scientific adviser on the topic of RBMK. Aleksandrov signed an order to hold a meeting on the issues raised by Volkov, but the meeting did not take place before the Chernobyl accident.
    Waited for the accident. V.P. Without hesitation, Volkov sent the documents to the prosecutor's office, since he no longer had any doubts that the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was a result of his unsatisfactory quality, and not the negligence of the staff. Alexandrov’s reaction followed immediately - the entrance to the institute was closed for Volkov.
    However, the persistence of Volkov’s character did not allow this story to end on such a sad note. He wrote a letter to M.S. Gorbachev, and progress has begun in business. An expert group was created under the leadership of the Deputy Chairman of Gosatomenergonadzor V.A. Sidorenko, who confirmed the failure of the RBMK-1000 reactor for operation.
    In one of his reports, Volkov wrote that the cause of the accident was a large effect of displacers, a large vapor effect of reactivity, as well as a large uneven release of energy in the core during the accident. The unevenness of energy release was recognized by him as one of the most important factors that led to the explosion. And this factor was due to the large dimensions of the active zone (7X12 meters), the low speed (40 centimeters per second) of the movement of inhomogeneous rods, and also the large steam reactivity effect. The rods were heterogeneous because they consisted of absorbers (boron carbide), displacers (graphite) and water columns. All this predetermined the size of the Chernobyl disaster.
http://bluesbag6.narod.ru/index7.html

[Operator]

The exact same situation occurred at the Leningrad NPP in the 1975 year (but without turning off the automatic protection and boiling water) during the commissioning of the reactor after a scheduled preventive repair - the unit personnel withstood the reactor at low power, and then tried to raise it to the nominal, removing manually slowing down the rods - as a result, AZ tripped twice due to self-acceleration of the reactor.
The graphite ends of the slowing rods accelerated the reaction.

The chief designer and scientific director of the reactor project did not understand the situation, considering it related to the large size of the reactor, the uneven flux of neutrons in it.

[iouris]

Chernobyl clearly showed that even a very powerful state can be destroyed by arranging a man-made disaster at a nuclear power plant. We must look to the future. To take control of Ukraine means to take control of nuclear reactors and television. Depending on who will control Ukraine, it depends on whether another nuclear disaster will take place. The rest is lyrics.

[barbiturate]

This Medvedev writes nonsense in his notebook; the staff did not violate the Regulations in force at that time. The attempt to blame everything on the staff, but the fact that RBMK-1000 accelerated SPONTANEOUSLY in certain modes - it does not push it, they will immediately besiege it, and you can hang everything on the corpses of ordinary engineers. Although the same Akimov, already dying in the hospital, said - I do not understand what happened, because we did everything right!

[alstr]

Yeah. everyone squeals like that (see my comment below). Only reality is completely different.
Whenever an accident occurs, they always and everywhere push their guilt to others. In this case, the designers. It's just that very often it turns out that the performer forgot to do something. And this is already becoming the reason for the exit from the design modes and to accidents.

First you just need to understand that ANY technique cannot be 100% trouble-free and has its own scope of application. It has its own regulations and maintenance. If they are violated, then you cannot count on trouble-free (and, in the case of a nuclear power plant, trouble-free) operation.

I’m reading an article and it occurs to me that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was treated as preparation for the sale of cars in Moscow during the USSR. Then at one market a very bad road led to it. Here they drove at high speed. All that fell off changed, tightened up. And they sold.
And here it is very similar. And let's disperse and see what falls off. That fell off ... (((((

And in general, it seems to me that at such facilities as nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power stations and others, where the operator plays a significant role, it is necessary to remove the shift of operators as planned for a long time. Because the eye is forgotten and the pressure crushes. And this can lead to not responding to the alarm in time.
For example, on the same continuing education courses. Those. I worked a year / two shift - I left for half a year / year to study. There is a plus in the fact that distraction also occurs on the one hand, and on the other hand, and education rises. But alas.

[barbiturate]

You write correctly about the technology in general that you haven’t come up with anything 100% reliable and trouble-free yet, but there is an obvious case of miscalculation of the designers, but there were no restrictions on the operation of the unit at low powers. That is, the staff can only be blamed for one thing - the loss of a sense of fear of technology, unlimited faith in oneself, because we do not violate anything.

[Pilat2009]

Quote: barbiturate

This Medvedev writes nonsense in his notebook

He mixed everything together there. And the lyrics and the physics and what was and what was not. This is a work of art

[xomaNN]

but the trouble is not a nuclear scientist.

...
Cadres decide EVERYTHING! And often they don’t realize what troubles they will do ...

[Lexa-149]

It is regrettable that our bureaucrats can only be removed from the soft armchairs with the help of explosions ...

That's for sure!

[alstr]

About accident awareness. Alas, this does not play a special role.
We just rely more on chance.
My father was a staff member of the Khlopin Research Institute (chemist). They oversaw the Chelyabinsk Lighthouse.
This and the accidents are known firsthand and the staff seems to be quite competent, but already in the 90s they decided to save one of their father’s objects like “modernize”.
Yeah. Upgraded without coordination with the designer. The object exploded - well, that without serious consequences.
They put a safety valve on the branch, but they didn’t think that it would not work with explosive pressure.
Then my father showed me explanations: they acted according to instructions, regular mode, etc. My father told me that it was spelled correctly, but he didn’t believe that everything went wrong. He says he himself wrote such at one time.

I’m not sure that some “rational suggestions” were not made during the crash test.

Well, and besides, even among nuclear scientists the attitude to activity was, so to speak, blunt. This concerned both health and technical responsibility.
A case was told about the same Lighthouse.
He arrived on a business trip. On the second day I went into shift for installation. There, a float periodically jammed. And he was under the ceiling. And what a popular method — right — our sledgehammer — got up, hit it with a boot — a float, and earned it.
Here one hit, and the sensor tripped at the output. I laundered for two hours and said. And then a month (until the end of the trip) was sitting in a hotel.

So recklessness and neglect of TB was not only at the level of ordinary personnel and in the nuclear industry, but generally everywhere.

[barbiturate]

Well, here’s the usual flaw of the developers, the staff didn’t modernize anything and didn’t come up with it, moreover, they completed the work for the Chief Designer, because the turbine generator run-out mode with some systems powered by it - the system provided for by the project and not made by the Chief Designer, carried it out already not the first time!! at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and still supposed to bring to mind. So no nuclear dangerous work was supposed to be carried out, the reactor went to a scheduled shutdown, press AZ-5 and do the work.

[Pilat2009]

Quote: alstr

So reassurance and neglect of TB was not only at the level of ordinary staff

You can read the same Medvedev-Nuclear tan
In general, this is what one of the leaders of Borts writes about the events: http: //pripyat.com/articles/kak-gotovilsya-
vzryv-chernobylya-vospominaniya-vibortsa.html

[kunstkammer]

shift staff is not to blame for anything. And the kingdom to them is heaven.
1. If it was an experiment, then for whom and who oversaw it? Who needed it? Which research or design institute or factory is the equipment manufacturer? Where are its representatives? Or did one of the bosses decide to defend the doctoral? Hard to believe ... but it happens.
2. If this mode is stipulated by the regulations and has simply never been used before, then why did the explosion occur? There were no deviations from the implementation of the regulation. So - the regulation is not correct. Who developed and approved it?
A simple steam boiler can also explode. And the equipment "construction" is not in itself to blame for this.
I know from experience that the larger the boss, the more he is tyrant. However, not a dumb boot. And if it is intelligible to explain the consequences, then he will understand. True, sometimes the “intelligible explanation” ends with your dismissal.
In general, it was all like roulette. Not carried ... this time. Has anyone really thought about their possible death? Something is hard to believe.

[Pilat2009]

Quote: kunstkammer

In general, it was all like roulette. Not carried ... this time. Has anyone really thought about their possible death? Something is hard to believe.

Well, in general, when an accident or accident occurs, no one intentionally wants himself to die .... Just a coincidence. If all the threats could be predicted, there would be no problems at all

[Archivist Vasya]

The author has put everything in its place, good work!

[Al_Nevz_Com]

Half, if not more, of the book is a lie, including a recital of the events of that very night.

[Al_Nevz_Com]

Quote: tanit

The author is not mistaken. The author is the second. Here the situation is like with a log of Lenin. The fewer living eyewitnesses, the more enchanting the imagination of the Authors.

Here the Author dilutes eyewitness accounts with his speculation.

[Al_Nevz_Com]

Quote: kunstkammer

I know from experience that the larger the boss, the more he is tyrant.

Yes, that happens. But Dyatlov is deliberately trying to make a tycoon and careerist.
There was even a rumor about why Dyatlov decided to conduct this "experiment" at any cost.
Allegedly, Zhora Kopchinsky called him the day before (a former employee of the Chernobyl NPP, he knew Dyatlov personally, and at that time an employee of the Central Committee who supervised those same reactors) and told Dyatlov, "Either you conduct an experiment and become the chief engineer of the Chernobyl NPP 2, or you will retire an old kazel"
Although, from experience, he knew tyrants, and if Dyatlov was the same tyrant as a boss, then if he thought for a second what might happen, he would have agreed to retire, and even to be dismissed under the article, and indeed would have sent and Kopchinsky and the entire Central Committee.

[Carib]

It is fully convinced that half of the commentators who protect the operators and superiors did not read the article or extracts from the book, or did not understand what they read. Thanks to the author.