WI: Chernoybl Even Worse?

BlondieBC

Banned
I've been under the impression that reactor fuel is of a complelty different isotopic nature to that found in the nuclear devices.

It has a much lower enrichment %. A partially used fuel rod may be 90% unenriched U238, 3% U235, 3% Plutonium, 4% decay bi-products. And to a large extent, it is the caesium and strontium biproducts that were the pollution issues.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The 3-to-5 megaton estimate wouldn't be directly from the steam explosion. Look, nuclear bombs work by having explosives accelerate nuclear material together, compressing the material and causing it to reach critical mass. The scientists were worried that the steam explosion might have a similar effect on the nuclear material inside the ruins of Reactor Number 4.

As the other posters pointed out, you can't get to the megaton range with a uranium or plutonium device. A steam explosion is the only other possible way to get a large explosion, and I can't see this happening outside of a volcano. There is enough energy in the core to heat steam to volcanic pressures, but there is nothing holding it in. i.e. we are missing the hundreds of feet of fairly solid rock holding the steam pressure back as it builds.

The quote I saw was Gorby saying he was told of a 3-5 megaton explosion. I believe he was told this, I don't believe it was physically possible. And it is not even required. A mere 0.1 Kiloton explosion under the reactors would throw the material 1000's of feet into the air and insure the other 3 reactors did not survive.

IMO, someone did a calculation on how much energy was in the core and how big a steam explosion could result. This number was passed to the senior soviet leadership. However, the person doing the calculation was a nuclear reactor person, not a geologist, so he did not consider what would be required to hold the 3-5 megatons of forces in place as it slowly built. It is the difference in Mount St. Helens where the rock held the pressure in for years and then it failed in a catastrophic explosion versus an undersea vent where the same amount of energy is released but over a long period of time.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
Why? Emergency crews aren't able to respond fast enough, causing the other parts of the reactor to collapse that didn't in OTL, spilling out radiation over Eastern Europe, more of Russia, and who knows where else.

Now why this happens, I don't know, that's for elsewhere. Rather, this is here to ask this. How bad could Cherynobl have truly gone in casualties, and permanent damage to things like agriculture? How would this impact international relations? Would this possibly cause worldwide starvation through its impacts on the breadbasket of Europe?

I ask all of this because it's the closet the world got to fully realizing the horrors of the nuclear age in a way.
Not going to comment per se, but here is a journal that provides an interesting visit to the Chernobyl site.
 
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