This is fascinating, especially growing up in the 80s with Russia constantly in the news and there being so little public knowledge of what it was like. Now we get to see it in HD.
Seeing the control room for reactor 3 and then watching you walk into the control room for reactor 4 was a very surreal experience, even through a screen. This is a well-made video and I thank you for uploading it.
Thank you for the feedback. I wanted to use RU-vid so that my friends and family could experience it, this has reached much farther than I even would have thought.
@@ericgattenby6857 wait if reactor 1 2 and 3 are good and people are still working at the power plant why don't they use all the good reactors except 4 the one that exploded.
I kind of got a chuckle watching this. They are all wearing masks (to avoid the Wuhanvirus??). I’m thinking getting the Wuhanvirus is the least of ones problems while roaming around in that place.
@@jacobb6788 the 3 reactors can be operated but its very dangerous to operate rbmk reactors especially that units 1&2 are first gens and reactor 3 and 4 are 2 gens.
Very informative and hauntingly entertaining video. I was always under the impression that the whole nuclear power plant was abandoned but it's clear that it is full of life. I really love that there is a memorial to Valery Khodemchuk as the reactor became his tomb. Hopefully he didn't suffer. ❤
Okay, this video is freaking awesome It was really cool to get an actual layout of the building. I've always been so curious about it. I appreciate the upload and taking your time to visit such such a poisonous place :)
This is an amazing video to watch. I remember well when this happened and I have watched so many documentaries and read numerous articles on this. Thank you so much for this. Its truly educational and I’m just nosey
The Soviets were very advanced in terms of theoretical nuclear physics, and they built graphite reactors that were 3x larger than anything built in the west. But in a country wheee there is zero incentive to weld up a set of stairs straight, it’s no wonder people in the west freaked when they got a view of Soviet state of the art power plant design. (No containment) Unit #4 was 2 years old when it blew up.
Whats sad about Chernobyl is that the Soviets had a clear understanding of the shortcomings and dangers of the RBMK reactors, and just declined to do anything to address them until after the accident happened.
if you look really carefully you can almost see the radiation distorting the footage. wow that's some scary stuff . so scary to think that the men in that room suffered so much after the explosion.
Went through about three weeks before you guys by the looks of things. Was an awesome experience, good you had someone in the group with a headlamp, that's what I missed and the area around pump rooms was so dark. Stay safe 👌👍
Thank you Eric for this great video . Thanks for uploading. You even had a nice and competent guide. Hope, he's doing well as the rest of the staff. Just two remarks: The door shown at 04:34 leads to Control Room of Unit #2, which belongs to "stage nr. 1" of the plant. Unit #3 and #4 belong to stage nr. 2. This is the reason for the break in the golden corridor at that point, on which the guide refered to. The "SKALA" room at 05:52 was not connected to Unit #1 & #2, they had a separate room at stage nr. 1 building.
Great Video ! Thank you for sharing. The key take away I got was the power grid control center is located there. Despite the misinformation from the media, this explains why this was so strategic for the Russians to capture the plant.
Indeed, and isnt it ironic that all is NOT what it seems when it comes to lies and propaganda from the US gov. Along with uk/canada/and Ukraine's gov. Its so sad that those deceitful lies have caused countless deaths and brought many to their knees for a rich mans' war..
Absolutely amazing video! My father worked in the nuclear power industry for over 35 years for Combustion Engineering, than ABB and than Westinghouse when they bought them out. I’ve always been fascinated by how under utilized nuclear power is in the United States as most people automatically equate a nuclear power plant to a worst case scenario when in all reality any NRC certified plant is extremely safe with multiple redundant systems and failsafes, my fathers job was creating these systems and testing them. That being said the RBMK reactor was a horrible design with many flaws and the way the Soviets almost were able to almost cover up the disaster blew me away. When you look at the official death toll it’s horrible compared to the reality, take all of the liquidators into account. Can you imagine shoveling extremely radioactive material off a roof? If it wasn’t for some truly selfless and brave scientists and civilians the aftermath could have been exponentially worse.
If I worked there, I would demand all tourists put their monitors on alarm only with a much higher setpoint. That beeping is incessant, unnecessary and you cant hear the information. To be fair these guys aren't as bad with them as some videos I've seen.... bionerd being the worst. No one who works in the industry uses digital monitors in that mode. The analog ones make noise inherent to their design, but they are only used in limited situations. Much respect for all the tour guides' patience.
Absolutely wild watching this right now given current circumstances. Wonder if any of the workers filmed were unlucky enough to be there when the Russian armor columns arrived. Strange days.
It was capable of producing Plutonium, the same way as the B-Reactor at Hanford, Washington.... a graphite moderated reactor, with the ability to load/unload fuel rods without having to shutdown...
@@ericgattenby6857 That was probably the big weakness of RBMK. Hanford B was designed to be over-cooled, probably they knew not to make it a power reactor because of the positive void coefficient, it is somewhat of a risky design.
@@ericgattenby6857 My pleasure!❤ I rember the disaster as a kindergarten girl, drinkig Lugola and being afraid to play outdoors. Warmest greetings from Warsaw!🤗 And deepest respect to the deceased and their families🕊
It is very high. We were limited to a short window of time being inside the control room and areas adjacent to minimize our exposure. I received 60 μSv in my time there.
Well done with the video! I was thinking when I saw them running the windows pc, we are in trouble! Then I was thinking if you had a loud siren or something like that and look at the people's faces! OK, maybe I am not too funny but it sounded funny when I first thought of it. Nm
@@ericgattenby6857 oh boy, you better stay out of an operating nuclear reactor then 😅 Given the fact that nuclear stalled after Chernobyl, most currently operating nuclear reactors are using, to some degree, 1960s to 1980s technology, with very few having gone through a modernization process given the risk of decomissioning.
Singing XP on the computer screen was pretty cool just the other night I was watching a documentary and it said one out of every hundred computers today is still running Windows XP I wonder what the computer was controlling
@@nicostenfors5690 i’ve been doing a real little research on it oh it’s still being used a lot you wouldn’t believe how old some of the technology still is in the nuclear defence industry they still use floppy discs those big ones they say they use it because the technology is so old it can’t be hackedCan you imagine today walking into a government job and they sit you down at a desk and there’s a Commodore 64 I’d laugh my guts out
Are they still doing tours in the power plant, its definitely one place id love to go see, it must have been such a surreal experience being able to see all this
As far as I know, they were doing them in December (when I went), here is the tour company I used. chernobyl-tour.com/tours_to_chernobyl_nuclear_power_plant_en.html
@@ericgattenby6857 the plant is shut down and no one is allowed going in yet or forever. Just email me if you are planning a trip to Harrisburg international airport so we can chat and collab.
It's a little hard to gauge from the footage I guess, but I always found the arrangement of the control rooms rather odd? It's like they where just made in a hurry, in the corner of a larger room? Thanks for the great footage;)
I hope you are able to do it, it is an amazing tour. This is the company I used for the tour. chernobyl-tour.com/tours_to_chernobyl_nuclear_power_plant_en.html
18:10 Not a chance, haha. You are much farther east than that. You can see the axis number "38" on the wall of that corridor. Location of the Khodemchuk memorial is also incorrect. That place on the map has concrete all over the floor and is very dangerous.
Unit 1 and 3 were shut down by a deal with the EU. Unit 2 was shut down after a turbine fire that destroyed the pumps. Unit 1 was active till 1996, Unit 2 till 1991, and Unit 3 till 2000.
Chernobyl still looks pretty ok or at least the area you were exploring, the plant looked like it was in good condition for being destroyed for 35-36 years.
It seems to be showing its age well, on the inside of the buildings. The physical structure of the old "sarcophagus" is crumbling in places due to the urgent construction to contain it.
Malheureusement, PR n'existait pas à l'époque ( préventions des risques) 🤣! PR ,les gars qui te disent de mettre tes bouchons d'oreilles, ou de mettre des lunettes de protection 😂! Sinon superbe vidéo
This is an awesome video! I just have one favor to ask: could you please add cc for the guide? I’d love to better hear what he says. Someday, I hope Ukraine can recover from getting screwed twice by the Russians.
Holding nuclear power plant one wrong move it will explode!Even you have control machine other gadgets you need to monitor that will be failed! How ever there’s another way to sustain our electric we need is not harmful in humans beside nuclear there’s other
nothing is as effective or safe as nuclear for energy. with modern US designs, you couldnt cause this if you tried. a full draining of the water from an operational reactor would just shut it down. pretty much the only way to get Chernobyl to happen again "sort of" would be to set off a city-leveling sized bomb inside the reactor hall directly on top of the core to manually scatter uranium everywhere. short of that basically impossible act of terrorism, reactors are so safe theres almost no reason to count nuclear-specific fatalities (as opposed to generalized industrial accidents). this was a communist design with no regard for safety from the start. bad under-analyzed design, bad materials, bad construction, bad operator education, bad operator practices and hierarchy structure, bad computer control system, bad government, etc. ...literally every part of Chernobyl was designed to see how close they could get to failure without actually failing... modern designs have so effectively insulated the reactors from human error and material failure that this cant physically happen anymore even if we wanted it to melt for some reason. nuclear is safe.
