The Testimony Of 'Comrade Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina' /Web serie Chernobyl — Transcript

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1. 0:22[Music]
2. 0:26it began with of all things to safe
3. 0:30safety
4. 0:31test why was there need for a safety
5. 0:33test at all reactor number four was not
6. 0:36new when the accident occurred in fact
7. 0:40it went into operation on December 20th
8. 0:441983 and 11 days later on the last day
9. 0:47of the year plant director Victor
10. 0:50banov signed this
11. 0:53document certifying the completion of
12. 0:57the construction of the reactor
13. 1:01as a result of finishing the work before
14. 1:03the end of the
15. 1:05year comad brano was awarded hero of
16. 1:08socialist
17. 1:10labor comrad famin was awarded for
18. 1:13valorous labor comrad diatlov was given
19. 1:17an order of the red
20. 1:20banner but the work was not
21. 1:24finished this
22. 1:26document was a
23. 1:28lie
24. 1:30in order to sign this certificate all
25. 1:33safety tests had to have been
26. 1:35successfully completed and yet one
27. 1:41remain a nuclear
28. 1:43reactor generates heat in the core here
29. 1:47a series of pumps here and here sent a
30. 1:50constant flow of cooling water through
31. 1:52the core the coar heat turns the water
32. 1:55to steam and the steam spins the turbine
33. 1:58here and the result is electricity
34. 2:01but what if a power plant has no
35. 2:04power what if the power feeding the
36. 2:06plant itself is disrupted a blackout
37. 2:10equipment failure or an attack by a
38. 2:12foreign
39. 2:13enemy if there's no power the pumps
40. 2:17cannot move water through the core and
41. 2:19without water the core overheats the
42. 2:22fuel melts down is short and nuclear
43. 2:25disaster the
44. 2:27solution three diesel fuel backup
45. 2:30generators here so problem solved
46. 2:35no brano knew that the problem was not
47. 2:38sold at all the backup generators took
48. 2:40approximately 1 minute to reach the
49. 2:43speed required to power the pumps and
50. 2:45prevent to meltdown and by that time it
51. 2:49would be too
52. 2:50late so we arrive at the safety
53. 2:54test the theory was this if the facility
54. 2:58lost power the the turbine which had
55. 3:00been spinning would take some time to
56. 3:02slow down and
57. 3:03stop what if you could take the
58. 3:06electricity it was still generating and
59. 3:08transfer it to the pumps what if the
60. 3:10dying turbine could keep the pumps
61. 3:12working long enough to bridge the
62. 3:1460-second gap until the generators came
63. 3:22on any
64. 3:24questions
65. 3:26no continue please
66. 3:30to test this
67. 3:32Theory the reactor is placed in a
68. 3:35reduced power mode 700 megaw to simulate
69. 3:38a blackout condition then the turbines
70. 3:41are turned off and as they slowly spin
71. 3:44down their electrical output is measured
72. 3:46to see if it's enough to power the pumps
73. 3:50the science is
74. 3:51strong but a test is only as good as the
75. 3:55men carrying it
76. 3:57out and the first time they tried they
77. 4:01failed the second time they tried they
78. 4:04failed the third time they tried they
79. 4:07failed the fourth time they
80. 4:10tried was April
81. 4:1226
82. 4:261986 comrade huk