Chernobyl Utopia in Flames_1of4_Paradise
Transcript
00:00May 6, 1986. Soviet nuclear engineer Nikolai Steinberg arrives in Chernobyl.
00:11Ten days earlier, a reactor had exploded at the nuclear power plant.
00:17It is the most serious accident in the history of nuclear energy.
00:21Block number four.
00:28I had a terrible impression when I went out to the power room.
00:35And at first, a terrible smell of ozone.
00:44Above the seventh turbine hole.
00:47That's why I stayed alive.
00:57Nikolai Steinberg is tasked with bringing the nuclear power plant back online as quickly as possible.
01:05The search for the source of the Chernobyl disaster changes his life.
01:11He uncovers the true causes and becomes a whistleblower.
01:16But only today does Nikolai Steinberg understand the full extent of this Russian-Ukrainian tragedy.
01:29Thirty years have passed.
01:31And now we look at it with different eyes.
01:35It's a repetition.
01:37Yes.
01:39During the war in the East.
01:41Everything is one to one.
01:46Good evening, comrades.
02:17The search for the truth.
02:22Chernobyl. Utopia in flames.
02:321961.
02:34A little over a decade after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union challenges the United States.
02:42The first man in space is a Soviet citizen.
02:46A triumph for the communist world empire.
02:51A victory in the competition of systems.
02:54Communism versus capitalism.
02:57The Soviet Union.
03:05This is also the time when Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, says that,
03:11OK, our goal is to catch up with the United States of America and outperform them.
03:19CBS News now presents a special report on one of the most unusual diplomatic events in recent history.
03:25The Nixon-Khrushchev-Moscow debate.
03:30Moscow, 1959.
03:33Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev meets US Vice President Richard Nixon.
03:56But when we see you at the doorstep, we greet you so kindly.
04:06It was difficult not to be optimistic in the late 1950s and 1960s,
04:12when you see the rates of growth of the Soviet economy.
04:17And the rates were around 10 percent.
04:23And year after year.
04:32Growth. Success.
04:36Television images.
04:40During the Cold War of the 1960s, the Soviet Union thought it was on a par with the United States.
04:47Nikolai Steinberg grows up in the country at this time.
04:52A young Soviet citizen inspired by a belief in science, technology and progress.
05:16We were interested in physics, physics and science.
05:19Gagarin flew.
05:21We learned to make gunpowder ourselves.
05:24We began to make rockets ourselves, small ones.
05:28Well, that's why this direction somehow matured in my head.
05:33But of course we were more inclined to nuclear.
05:37Well, it was the highest degree of achievement.
05:43The atom. That is what intrigues the young Steinberg.
05:48He studies nuclear engineering in Moscow in the mid-1960s.
05:54To master a process that electrifies the world in the 20th century.
05:59The nuclear fission of the element uranium.
06:05Uranium-235
06:10Uranium-235 has an extremely dense and one of the heaviest atomic nuclei.
06:16The atomic technology is able to split this nucleus by bombarding it with free neutrons.
06:25This fission in turn releases neutrons, which further split atomic nuclei.
06:34An atomic chain reaction occurs, generating energy, which until then mankind knew nothing about.
06:43I think the fascinating thing about nuclear power in the early days was simply this enormous density of energy.
06:50The idea that you could replace a coal power plant with a reactor core that would fit in a living room.
07:12In the 1960s, the Soviet Union decides to embark on an extensive research and investment program for dozens of nuclear reactors.
07:20The US is far ahead in nuclear energy technology.
07:24The Soviets are under pressure to forge ahead.
07:27Their desire was to build as many as possible.
07:31They knew that the safest reactor was the so-called water-water reactor.
07:36The Americans had their own equivalent of that reactor.
07:41The Soviet Union didn't have the industrial and technological base for building those reactors.
07:49While studying in Moscow, Nikolai Steinberg learns about the design for a Soviet super-reactor.
08:12To move quickly, the Soviet engineers revert to a design principle from the early days of world-wide reactor development.
08:20Based on this, they develop one of the largest and most powerful nuclear reactors in the world, the RBMK.
08:29The so-called RBMK reactor.
08:32The Big Power Channel Reactor.
08:36Because it was easier to build, it was really an adaptation of the reactor that was used for the production of nuclear fuel.
08:46The Big Power Channel Reactor.
08:51Because it was easier to build, it was really an adaptation of the reactor that was used for the production of plutonium
08:59for the atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs and enriched uranium.
09:04The basis of the RBMK is a technological channel, a pressure tube 8 centimeters in diameter,
09:12in which the atomic chain reaction takes place.
09:16It is full of uranium-235, the fuel.
09:20Designers arrange hundreds of these pressure tubes side by side, about 1,700.
09:27The advantage, the RBMK can be assembled in pieces, even in remote areas.
09:33A kind of Lego reactor for the new nuclear program.
09:38The construction of the RBMK fascinated the planners, because they thought,
09:44great, now we can scale this basic principle up to 2,000 megawatts output per plant.
10:00Even the first RBMK is one of the most powerful reactors in the world.
10:05It is the pride of the Soviet nuclear industry.
10:36In the early 1970s, northern Ukraine is a desolate region,
10:41full of forests and old villages, intersected by swamps and rivers.
10:47A gigantic nuclear power plant, the RBMK,
10:52is the only nuclear power plant in the world.
10:57In the early 1970s, northern Ukraine is a desolate region,
11:02full of forests and old villages, intersected by swamps and rivers.
11:08A gigantic nuclear power plant is to be built here,
11:13700 kilometers west of Moscow, 90 kilometers north of Kiev.
11:19In Ukrainian, the local population calls the place Chornobyl.
11:24In Ukrainian, the local population calls the place Chornobyl.
11:35Here, in the north of Ukraine, is where the newly graduated nuclear engineer Nikolai Steinberg is sent,
11:42directly after completing his studies.
11:45Steinberg is 24 years old.
11:48This is where his dream is to come true, a future in the heart of Soviet atomic energy.
11:54It is the winter of 1971.
12:18The secret project turns out to be a gigantic nuclear power plant.
12:25A nuclear power plant, the basis of which is the new Soviet super-reactor, RBMK.
12:32The plant is located in the city of Chornobyl.
12:37The plant is located in the city of Chornobyl.
12:42The secret project turns out to be a gigantic nuclear power plant.
12:47A nuclear power plant, the basis of which is the new Soviet super-reactor, RBMK.
12:53The plan is to build four of them here, and that is only the beginning.
12:584,000 megawatts of power for 5 million Soviet households.
13:03For the conditions at that time, it was the largest nuclear power plant in the world.
13:09Ukraine is important for the Soviet Union, as a center for industry and science.
13:23Chornobyl was the first nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
13:28And so it was really brought out in the propaganda.
13:33Chornobyl was the first nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
13:38And so it was really brought out in the propaganda.
13:48Builders of the All-Union Strike of the Komsomol Youth Building of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
13:54Builders of the All-Union Strike of the Komsomol Youth Building of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
13:59where the Red Army, together with the partisans,
14:04performed a heroic feat of forcing Pripyat. We swear!
14:09We swear!
14:11Reconstruction celebrations evoked victory over Nazi Germany, combined with faith in the future.
14:18The Soviet system was built on an ideology rooted in science and technology
14:25that was the basis of a society that would progress according to scientific logic and rationality
14:32and would eventually lead to the bright communist future.
14:39This is where they are supposed to live, the atomshiki, the nuclear workers of the Chernobyl power plant.
14:47For them, the Soviet power is planning a whole new city near the nuclear plant, in the middle of nowhere.
14:54Pripyat. A city for more than 40,000 inhabitants, designed on the drawing board.
15:01A city in which the utopia of socialism was to become reality.
15:14The call of a new city with modern apartments spreads quickly.
15:18Tens of thousands of young people come to Pripyat from all over the Soviet Union.
15:25Young Maria Kvatsenko is one of them.
15:31An architect by training, she becomes one of the city planners, responsible for the city's growth.
15:49Magnificent buildings, such as the large Palace of Culture at the center, give the signal.
15:55You, the residents, are special.
15:59It's the pinnacle of a movement.
16:02For Soviet times, the facilities for the community of Pripyat are exceptional.
16:08Nothing is lacking.
16:11Fifteen kindergartens, swimming pools, schools, modern apartment complexes.
16:17These are the building blocks of the city planners.
16:42Our city was like a business card of modern construction.
16:54Nuclear engineer Nikolai Steinberg is one of 10,000 who work at the nuclear power plant.
17:01He lives in the nuclear city of Pripyat.
17:06Steinberg gets married here, and his children are born here.
17:25The city and the nuclear power plant grow in parallel.
17:30For Steinberg and fellow residents, they belong inseparably together.
18:01Maria Kvatsenko is the city architect of Pripyat.
18:06She lives there with her husband and two children.
18:30I would say that my mother loved her job.
18:36Dad was always nervous about it, he was always angry.
18:41You have two children and a husband.
18:45Besides your job, you have a family.
18:50How is it possible, Marina?
18:54I don't know how my husband tolerated my work.
19:03I must say that he loved me very much.
19:17The city grows rapidly.
19:20Modern hydrofoils run to Kiev several times a day.
19:23The trip takes two hours.
19:26The city is located on the Pripyat River, the river which gave the city its name.
19:42Pripyat was a beautiful city along a gorgeous landscape with beaches and forests.
19:53And it attracted a lot of young people.
19:56By Soviet aesthetics, they were beautifully built and they were beautiful places to raise families.
20:05Pripyat is one of the youngest cities in the Soviet Union.
20:09The average age is 26.
20:22I don't know whether we moved to Pripyat by luck or not,
20:26but such a beautiful childhood as the one in Pripyat was a wonderful childhood.
20:41My mother came to visit me.
20:45We were at work during the day, but she went for a walk.
20:53I came home in the evening and asked her,
20:55why there are so many children and pregnant women in the city.
20:59She said, because men are at work, and at night they have children.
21:08Steinberg's mission is to build the new Soviet super-reactor at Chernobyl, the RBMK.
21:16He and his colleagues know the RBMK only from plans on paper.
21:21There is no prototype.
21:24They never tested reactors. They tested bombs.
21:29What they did instead of building a prototype,
21:34they built the first RBMK reactor at the plant that was near the city of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.
21:44So that was their kind of a testing ground.
21:52In 1975, Nikolai Steinberg is sent to a nuclear power plant in Leningrad for several months.
22:01The Soviet Union's first RBMK is in operation there.
22:10I was an intern, like an explorer.
22:15It was interesting, because you know how it was on paper,
22:21how it is when it is built, cold, and this is a hot working block.
22:26So in this respect, of course, it is interesting.
22:32The shift on November 30, 1975, is one Nikolai Steinberg will not forget.
22:40It is clear that something happened.
22:45Then there was silence, a lot of people, a lot of commands, and so on.
22:54But these were the first minutes.
22:57And then, I say, there was an instant reaction.
23:00All the outsiders were taken away.
23:02Attention, five, to the command. Everyone, leave the building.
23:05Attention, five, to the command. Everyone, leave the building.
23:11The reactor is out of control. Pressure tubes rupture. Radioactivity escapes.
23:17We were isolated, so that we knew less.
23:20Two weeks later, they let us in for the first time.
23:23But all the personnel, their mouths were shut.
23:26It was impossible to find out anything anymore.
23:33Nothing that happens in Leningrad is allowed to leak out.
23:37Because behind the development of the RBMK
23:40is one of the most powerful and secretive organizations in the Soviet Union,
23:45the Shredmash, disguised as the Ministry of Medium Machine Building.
23:51Shredmash
23:57The name of the ministry, Ministry of Medium Machine Building, means nothing.
24:01And it was designed to mean nothing,
24:05because the ministry was really in charge of the production of the Soviet atomic and hydrogen bombs.
24:15So it was a top-secret ministry.
24:20I'm sure the most powerful ministry that the Soviet Union had ever had.
24:26The military reactor means top-secret reactor.
24:30And once it is top-secret in the Soviet Union, it's secret forever.
24:35And everything related to that reactor becomes secret.
24:39So this is especially true about problems and deficiencies with the reactor.
24:46So no one at Chernobyl knew about the nature of the accident
24:53that they had at the Leningrad power plant.
24:58After all, the RBMK is to become the backbone of the Soviet nuclear program.
25:08They were trying to deal with the problems,
25:12deal in the way that would not jeopardize the mass production of other reactors,
25:17because they needed them for economic reasons, for economic purposes.
25:22In the 1970s, six nuclear power plants with a total of 26 RBMK units
25:28are planned or under construction in the west of the huge country.
25:34According to the plan, a new RBMK unit in Chernobyl is to be connected to the grid every two years.
25:43However, in Chernobyl,
25:47Nikolai Steinberg and his colleagues are already behind schedule
25:51with the construction of the first RBMK.
25:56This reveals that the advantage of the RBMK,
25:59the ability to assemble all reactor components on site, entails grave risks.
26:06Every weld is a source of error.
26:10The nuclear colossus inspires respect among the engineers.
26:16Almost 1,700 pressure tubes.
26:20The water supply for cooling must be determined for each one,
26:25adapted to the atomic activity of each uranium fuel rod.
26:39Imagine that you have a kitchen bath with 1,793 taps.
26:46And you have to regulate the water supply.
26:51More water, less water, depending on the profile of the field in the reactor, etc.
26:58A simple comparison.
27:01The nearly 1,700 pressure tubes are encased in thousands of graphite blocks,
27:08a concept from the early years of nuclear reactors.
27:13Graphite can be dangerous.
27:15It's extremely flammable.
27:19But those who need power use graphite.
27:25Graphite slows down free neutrons.
27:31This is because only delayed neutrons hit enough atomic nuclei of uranium-235.
27:44Only then does an atomic chain reaction occur.
27:50Only then does extreme heat develop.
27:54The water in the pressure tubes evaporates.
28:01The steam drives the turbines and thus the generators of the power plant.
28:21The operators learn to manage the nuclear chain reaction in the gigantic reactor core,
28:26which is almost 12 meters in diameter,
28:29with the help of 211 control rods.
28:33The control rods contain boron carbide.
28:37Boron carbide devours neutrons.
28:41The control rods reach every corner of the reactor core.
28:45They thus allow more or fewer neutrons for the nuclear reaction.
28:53But the system is causing problems.
29:00In general, there are a number of problems in the reactor that we have seen.
29:09We would have seen them earlier if our colleagues in Leningrad had told us.
29:15We have learned to make our own juice.
29:23Residents in nearby Pripyat,
29:25three kilometers from the nuclear power plant,
29:28have no idea of the problems with RBMK.
29:33The Potsenko family is visited by their grandmother every year.
29:38She lives in a small village in eastern Ukraine.
29:55Do you want to live here?
29:58There is a nuclear power plant nearby.
30:02You know, my husband took up all the physics textbooks, all the encyclopedias.
30:07He told his mother that it was safe,
30:12that everything would be fine.
30:20Maria Potsenko becomes the city's chief architect.
30:24Pripyat becomes the perfect backdrop for Soviet propaganda.
30:31Cameramen film a city that is to be a model for the entire Soviet Union.
30:43We need to grow faster to work in our native land,
30:48so that the Potsenko family can become a family.
31:18Because that's what you aspire for.
31:23So that was part of a broader culture than just political culture, political propaganda.
31:39Everything that was in the West was considered bad.
31:43Do you understand?
31:45If we are good, they are bad.
31:48I was brought up to be a pioneer,
31:52a Komsomol member, a party member.
31:56Whatever the party said, it will be.
31:59We used to say, forward to communism,
32:02when we will live better,
32:05when everything will be fine,
32:08and we all believed in it.
32:16In September 1977,
32:20the time has finally come at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
32:25The first RBMK in Unit 1 goes online.
32:34How do you feel?
32:36You are waiting for your child.
32:38Your father is waiting for his child too.
32:40Not just your mother.
32:42It feels like it's about to start.
32:54After six years, the construction work is completed.
32:59Unit 2 follows just one year later.
33:04During this time, nuclear engineers are trained all over the country,
33:10who studied nuclear engineering in Moscow.
33:13Breos conducts research on nuclear reactors for submarines or spacecraft.
33:19In 1981, he comes to Chernobyl.
33:23The RBMK is different from all the reactors he knows.
33:39It's not always like that.
33:41One part of the RBMK can grow, and the other part can fall.
33:47You have to run from one device to another.
33:50There are keys between the buttons.
33:53The remote control is several meters long.
33:56You can't sit there, you can't reach all the controls.
34:02It's a very troublesome time.
34:10What Breos experiences has been everyday life for Nikolai Steinberg for years.
34:17The reactor, with its nearly 1,700 pressure tubes,
34:22continues to cause massive problems.
34:28When you put the kettle on to boil, it heats up,
34:33and then it starts to boil.
34:37The reactor monitors all these things.
34:41It becomes unstable.
34:43It's hard to control.
34:46The RBMK often reacts unpredictably,
34:50especially at low power during startup or shutdown.
34:54Then excess water vapor is generated in the lower part of the reactor.
35:00Water vapor is less dense, which facilitates neutron flow.
35:06More neutrons lead to increased nuclear fission.
35:10The reactor generates more power,
35:13more heat, and even more steam.
35:17It's an effect that builds up,
35:20the so-called positive vapor bubble, or void effect.
35:26The graphite in the reactor then spurs the nuclear chain reaction on and on.
35:35It was assumed that this was the cause of the overheating.
35:42This was already noticed in Leningrad.
35:47It was also noticed in Messrhein in Chernobyl.
35:52This led to the fact that it wasn't really considered
35:57as a potential major danger for the RBMK.
36:03And the reactor operators of the RBMK are surprised by another phenomenon
36:08when the control rods are retracted.
36:11Their tips are made of graphite.
36:13In other words, the material stimulates nuclear fission.
36:17The reason?
36:18In the upper initial state,
36:20the control rods should not impede the nuclear chain reaction.
36:25This method is economical, but not without dangerous risks.
36:30When the control rods are inserted into the reactor to slow it down,
36:34the graphite causes the nuclear chain reaction to briefly increase.
36:49This defect was immediately understood.
36:53And it was said that it had to be redone.
36:56But the designer said that it was very difficult to change,
37:00and we couldn't do it.
37:03Steinberg is not alone in his criticism.
37:06High-ranking engineers from the Soviet nuclear power plants
37:10repeatedly press for improvements at the Communist Party in Moscow,
37:14or directly at ShredMash,
37:16the secret nuclear organization and designer of the RBMK.
37:21Since the system didn't have a free press
37:23and didn't have a way for whistleblowers to go public,
37:29what happened was that the people who saw the problems reported it up.
37:35They reported it to their respective directors, bosses, etc.
37:42And many of these complaints got stuck and didn't get pursued.
37:48With the construction of more nuclear facilities,
37:51the city of Pripyat is also expected to expand and grow.
37:56New residential quarters for a total of 150,000 inhabitants
38:01are slated for construction.
38:04This would make the city three times larger than originally planned.
38:09Nuclear engineer Alexey Breos encounters reservations
38:13about the Chernobyl nuclear project for the first time.
38:40In the nuclear power plant in the early 1980s,
39:08the 4th, 5th, and even 6th unit are under construction,
39:13all of them RBMK reactors.
39:18Meanwhile, rumors spread in the city about the reactor,
39:23about incidents like in September 1982.
39:54I picked up the phone and called the 1st unit.
40:00Grisha Shavtan, the head of the shift,
40:03and I told him, Grisha, the channel is jammed, the device is dead.
40:06The leaders of the shift ran away.
40:09We stopped there.
40:13We didn't have any more information about the accident on this unit.
40:17We worked at the same station.
40:20It's a secret.
40:28Shortly thereafter, Alexey Breos is sent to the main coolant line of Unit 2
40:33to prevent similar incidents in that unit.
40:37Once there, he encounters serious defects in the reactor.
41:08I was interested in the dose I received when I entered the reactor.
41:13They told me that the dose was normal, but that the reactor was jammed.
41:20If the engineers want to draw attention to the problems,
41:23there is another way.
41:26The Soviet secret service, KGB.
41:30In fact, there was a KGB department in every nuclear power plant.
41:33Everyone knew that.
41:35It was the so-called Pervaya Adyelenye, so department number one.
41:42Of course, they had networks of informal employees
41:46sitting everywhere in the power plant.
41:48And they were really specialists.
41:50You can see that in the reports.
41:52They simply had engineers who were in charge of the nuclear power plant.
41:57They simply had engineers who were in charge of the nuclear power plant.
42:02And that was quite a common way to practice criticism.
42:05That you say on this way, there were defects here and there,
42:08and in this way hoped that they would be reported to Moscow.
42:28In 1983, in a secret comprehensive report,
42:32the KGB staff even warns,
42:35the power plants with RBMK reactors pose the greatest danger.
42:40The reason is design problems of the reactor,
42:43in combination with missing protection mechanisms.
42:49Therefore, the Leningrad, Kursk and Chernobyl nuclear power plants
42:54are currently the most dangerous nuclear facilities
42:57with potentially highly dangerous consequences.
43:02All this remains top secret.
43:05In 1983, Nikolai Steinberg is transferred
43:09to another nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union.
43:14At Chernobyl, in the same year, Unit 4 is slated for completion.
43:19Oleksii Breos will work on this reactor,
43:22together with his colleague Boris Stolyarchuk.
43:43A gloomy premonition three years before the catastrophe.
43:47On the night of the accident, in 1986,
43:51the young nuclear engineer Boris Stolyarchuk will be on duty in Unit 4.
44:21I remembered him, it really was him.
44:51To be continued