valery legasov tapes transcript
Then, we will need to mention that both during and after the construction of the Novovoronezh NPP, the policy of our government did not attach any particular importance to the development of nuclear energy; because it was believed that by using organic sources of fuelcoal from Donbass, gas from Saratov, and then the oil reserveswe would be able to fulfil all our industrial needs; and that the nuclear energy demonstrated at Obninsk, Beloyarsk and Novovoronezh stations was more in the way of scientific research that prepared us for some future. And there you are, travelling by car for a long, long time and then you see such a scene in front of you, Adamovich: Oh, just hung up[inaudible]. The Legasov Tapes Featured August 16, 2019 Tape 1 side A Aym96/Wikimedia In all my life, it never occurred to me that I would have to start this part of my life. If there's one thing a specialist knows about a nuclear power plant, it's that it does not exhaust any gases. I remember that the quality of engineers and other personnel running the stations was falling. And shipped fuel is quite expensive; economically, transportation-wise and environmentally expensive. This may have indicated that the reactor was still working. And I sit and shiver. Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina was personally following the construction of this village, paying attention not only to the places to sleep after work, but also that there should be flowers, that the canteen worked as well as in any other part of the Soviet Union, and that the people felt comfortable there. This gave the impression that the reactor was live, that something serious had certainly happened. A large number of construction resources was spent on creating objects that were not related to the field of the department. Of course there was a concern that if temperatures in the core were significantly higher than our estimates, say 1600-1700C, the lead would just evaporate and be carried out of the reactor, causing additional contamination of the surrounding areas and rendering this measure ineffective. I was told that the members of the commission should gather at Vnukovo airport at 1600 hours. The second group of specialists, who was working under the instruction of Lev Dmitrievich Ryabev, consisted of radiation institute staff of Ministry of Medium Machinebuilding, was measuring the activity only in some hydro physical points around the station. First of all, it must be noted that this is an experiment that should not have been performed at a nuclear power plant, because the value of turbine coastdown at idle is something that should be measured on a special stand built by the designer of the turbine. This was the partnership. The correct decision was made during the time of comrade Vedernikov. Since when has this mistake begun to be corrected? During thisthis may not be for publishing or maybe it isdo you know what caught my eye? Around October 1986, the situation regarding work distribution was very clear. Rather, it is a concrete statement. And so, on the night of the 26th of April, all four types of codes for all types of possible hazards appeared at the Ministry of Energy. We also spotted an increase in radiation levels in Kiev and other cities which were quite some distance away from Chernobyl. [7] One Kurchatov scientist warned him that the helicopter drops might not be effective but Legasov replied that they had to be seen to do something. Immediately after me, Aleksandr Grigorjevich Meshkov, First Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building, entered the room, quickly stated that a Government commission had been formed to investigate the Chernobyl accident, and that I had been assigned to that commission. This share must be maintained in order to develop these energy sources but it cannot be the basis of energy [planning]. The people there were active and interesting; many proposed a lot of unique solutions that triggered discussions. Because such a belief prevailed that we have enough Donbass coal and that we dont need to develop nuclear energy. I repeat that and I personally was a witness to that. Further traditional report lasting in general two hours, room of the academic secretary Nikolai Sergeyevich BABAY, but in order to, discuss the main positions of the report during the break. All conceptual talks, all attempts at adopting a scientific, consistent approach towards this problem, they did not accept at all. And then, from the position of Vladimir Mikhailovich Novikov, state that the level of device that we currently have is probably sufficient to ensure that Chernobyl does not happen again. Legasov: Ministry of Medium Machine Building. He was outside Moscow, was at this time in one of the regions of, the country, conducting a party-economic asset there. An attempt to pour concrete in an area was unsuccessful because there were rather large gaps through which the concrete flowed to the levels below. And teams had already been put in place beforehand. This is my point of view but I dont know how this will turn out. The more nuclear power stations were built, the more real became the danger of something happening at some point in time. If I squeal about the cost of these containments, then I will not get a bonus. The plan for the experiment was drawn up very poorly, very imprecisely, and not authorised by the specialists by whom it should have been authorised. The first part of this article, I think, should be about the history of the development of Soviet nuclear energy, to remind that the worlds first nuclear power plant [TAPE ERASED] and the principle of safety provisions in this small 5-megawatt station. I was particularly horrified by a phosphorous processing plant in the Chemkent region. I think that Vladimir Konstantinovich should develop these points. And here I will speak about Anatoly Petrovich. A group of specialists was there also; they had arrived after the first call the previous night. He organized a team in one of the industrial areas of Pripyat that would prepare these solutions. Because of this, the share of alternative sources in the foreseeable period of 45-50 years will be 5-7 per cent. So the barrier was built in the ground in only one place; the most contaminated area, and that was all. Only it should have happened, in my opinion, not at Chernobyl but at the Kola station, and a few years earlier; when it was discovered that in the main pipeline that carries the coolant, the welder, to get a bonus and to finish faster, just put electrodes inside and lightly welded them on top instead of welding the valve in the most critical spot. The question should be thought through in such a way that the understanding of safe nuclear energy is as wide as possible and not limited only to the question of creating a safe reactor. That we will need nuclear sources in an ever-increasing amount, firstly due to economic considerations, resources and secondly, environmental. Prezi. As a customer, the Finnish side demanded, having studied international experienceand by this time, an international standard had developed requiring precisely the three elements of safety: a reliable reactor, reliable operation and mandatory containment. He instructed Meshkov to gather a group of specialists, to be called from Moscow if needed, and investigate the cause of the accident. And staff migration is quite high. [29], As a national hero at the time of his death,[27] Legasov's suicide caused shockwaves in the Soviet nuclear industry. It will be simple or difficult to be there, in place, in general, all our. And this emission was registered by almost all the countries of the world. For example, the Kansk-Achinsk coal basin, just in its upper layers, contains 2 million curies of alpha-active, long-living isotopes. It seems to me that they were overly modest and careful when writing about what happened at the station itself, why the accident occurred, whose fault it was, whether the reactor was defective or the actions of the staff were wrong. But in the end, I have to say this. Legasov: Or I will. As such, we didnt have any technical means to put the graphite fire out in a traditional way, for instance with water or foam. That is why it is more probable now. Legasov: I think, yes, from Sweden, but Im not sure. Grave mistakes. Because his colleagues got bonuses from the Ministry; because the institute was part of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. Somewhere around the 10th day of May, Vyacheslav Dmitrievich Svetliy arrived, who was called by Velikhov. Do you understand? As I wrote in the proposals: the first perimeter at the station itself, a second one at a kilometre from the station, then 3-kilometre and 10-kilometre perimeters. Three, all this dangerous industry with a maximally safe reactor, maximally safe operation, must compulsorily be encapsulated; enclosed in a containment as it is called in the West, placed under a cupola as we call it. Legasov was 51 years old. We need to pay a Russian translator to translate the tapes to English. Early in the morning, Boris Eudokimovich Scherbina would gather the members of the GC. After that, the glowing stopped and the 9th of May was celebrated on the 10th of May in a calm and normal atmosphere. With the approval of the director of the Institute, with his full support, the first deputy was working on organising system-wide research on the structure of nuclear energy, an activity that was of little interest to the Ministry and was happening solely because of the support from Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov. This is the first circumstance. Legasov: Yes. Earlier I had started to talk about how the work in the Government Commission (GC) was organized. Because the safety of the device in case of some abnormal behaviour For example, a positive reactivity coefficient in this device, should it start to develop, become noticeable, then the operator, and only the operator, could lower the emergency rods. There was an absolute disregard of the viewpoint of the Chief Designer or the Science Supervisor. It has many zirconium channels in which water is heated using the fuel pellets and this water immediately enters the turbine and drives it. To make direct measurements of the reactor, Legasov was driven in an armored personnel carrier to the site which established the reactor had shut down. [5], In 1976, Legasov was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. It was clear that heat was being generated inside this fuel mass. But it also had an impressive impact once the work was complete. Another thing that surprised me about the Operative group is that it never tried to be secretive about their decisions. The philosophy itself contradicted what we had at hand. So the conversation was in the form of Do you know? Yes or No. From there, they monitored the crews that were above reactor number 4. Thanks to the arrival of comrade Voronin, the overall scheme of work management had started to form. If there is a probability of receiving a dose of 75 rem or more, then the local authorities are required to carry out an evacuation. In this case, they had received the following signal: "1-2-3-4"; which means that an event had occurred at the station that involved nuclear hazard, radiation hazard, fire hazard and explosive hazard, that is to say, all possible types of hazard. After that, more and more thorough dosimetric measurements of the situation were carried out. There was a problem of prolonged separation from families, working in unusual conditions. In Pripyat we could feel the tension in the air. All the power and all the responsibility must be in the same hands. Aym96/Wikimedia In all my life, it never occurred to me that I would have to start this part of my life. So all the nitrogen we suppliedand we did find a place for to supplying itleaked out of the zone and cooled nothing. On April 26th, 1986, a nuclear explosion at the Chernobyl power plant rocked the area near the Ukrainian town of Pripyat, spreading giant clouds of radioactive material across 77,000 square miles of land. By the time of his death, Legasov had been exposed to 150 rem (1.5 Sv) of radiation, which was far above safe levels. Apparently, that is why Anatoly Petrovich appointed me as the First Deputy, because I had no greed to pull resources towards my own tasks. These were reconnaissance robots which we couldnt get in time from anywhere, from any country in the world. "[11], While the initial Soviet investigation put almost all the blame on the operators, later findings by the IAEA found that the reactor design and how the operators were informed of safety information was more significant. The concept of science leadership came down to a system where the basic principles of constructing a device were given to the designer, and the science supervisor was responsible for those principles to be physically correct and safe. Then the next most likely is Bulgaria, Kozloduy. These are three different types of reactors. The Government Commission itself had already been relocated by this time. Earlier I described the work before and after the containment of the accident, but an even more essential element of the decision of our Government Commission on 26 April was the question of the population. Yurchenko Yury Fedorovich was the director of this organization. And when Nikolai Ivanovich Rizhkov in a politburo meeting spoke his words about how nuclear energy was inevitably moving towards a grave accident, immediately all these facts, accumulated over many years, somehow aligned in my mind, and his words highlighted that it really was so. Secondly, the absence of systematic thinking on the part of the station management involved with this case. We were all already used to how this very old yet good demagogue, with a loud confident voice, could narrate how good things were in our ministry, for an hour. An investigation was started. He, Mikhail Sergeyevich, spoke for two or three minutes. Numerous councils, interdepartmental or departmental, created an overall atmosphere of joint responsibility for the quality of the device. At the same time, under my leadership, work developed in the field of safety of chemical production, which also poses a great danger. What kind of conversation did you have with him? It was all tangled up. 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