Citation Needed - The Chernobyl Disaster

Episode Date: May 17, 2017

The Chernobyl disaster, also referred to as the Chernobyl accident, was a catastrophic nuclear accident. It occurred on 26 April 1986 in the No.4 light water graphite moderated reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, in what was then part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). During a late night safety test which simulated power-failure and in which safety systems were deliberately turned off, a combination of inherent reactor design flaws, together with the reactor operators arranging the core in a manner contrary to the checklist for the test, eventually resulted in uncontrolled reaction conditions that flashed water into steam generating a destructive steam explosion and a subsequent open-air graphite fire.[note 1] This fire produced considerable updrafts for about 9 days, that lofted plumes of fission products into the atmosphere, with the estimated radioactive inventory that was released during this very hot fire phase, approximately equal in magnitude to the airborne fission products released in the initial destructive explosion.[1] Practically all of this radioactive material would then go on to fall-out/precipitate onto much of the surface of the western USSR and Europe. The Chernobyl accident dominates the Energy accidents sub-category, of most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history, both in terms of cost and casualties. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011.[2] The struggle to safeguard against scenarios which were, at many times falsely,[1] perceived as having the potential for greater catastrophe and the later decontamination efforts of the surroundings, ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles.[3] During the accident, blast effects caused 2 deaths within the facility and later 29 firemen and employees died in the days-to-months afterward from acute radiation syndrome, with the potential for long-term cancers still being investigated.[4] The remains of the No.4 reactor building were enclosed in a large sarcophagus (radiation shield) by December 1986, at a time when what was left of the reactor was entering the cold shut-down phase; the enclosure was built quickly as occupational safety for the crews of the other undamaged reactors at the power station, with No.3 continuing to produce electricity into 2000.[5][6] The accident motivated safety upgrades on all remaining Soviet-designed reactors in the RBMK (Chernobyl No.4) family, of which eleven continued to power electric grids as of 2013.[7][8]   From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster   Final skit music  "Dangerous" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/  

I Can we open our eyes now? Not yet Seriously, it's been like 17 hours. Okay, okay Now it's it's a field he's gonna murder us nothing No, silly's behind the field. The nuclear power plant? Yeah! No, no, no, not, no.

I bought it! Come on! Nuclear power! Way the future! We are gonna make a fortune! I quit the show. You quit a lot. I'm in. See? That quit a lot. I'm in. See, that's the spirit. Tom gets in.

He likes, none of us know anything about a nuclear power plant. And this seems incredibly dangerous. C'mon, we'll figure it out. Five best friends working together. We are not best friends. Cecil, I know you're upset by the situation, but they'll wash out, say untrue stuff, right? Not now. Right here. In this moment, while we're all celebrating, say untrue stuff, right? Not now. Right here.

In this moment, while we're all celebrating, our fuck, what was that? No idea, it keeps going off. Hell of a noise, though, right? We're gonna kill so many people, not best friends, by the way. Where do we put the coal? I think the top.

Hello and welcome to CitationNeeda, the podcast where we choose a subject for you to single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Noah Luzon's host of the Skating Atheist Godolph in Movies and The Skeptocrat and I'm here to to move this episode along because our panels essentially are heard at cats with access to microphones and Google Docs. So let me introduce to you first my two co-hosts from the shows I just mentioned he then write an Eli Bosnick thanks Noah you're part of my sexual fantasy too what appreciate that you

guys have access to Google docs yes and from Chicago the host of the cognitive dissonance podcast please welcome Tom and Cecil Oh, you know like like a cat. I also have hair everywhere I'm like the Grinch, but it's my penis. That's two sizes too small I probably should have advertised that I'm not real good at this That's not bad also like the Grinch watching children celebrate Christmas helps it grow. There's a whole bunch of just watching.

This is just watching. Have a whole hard drive of just watching. All right. So I know we're all really excited to dive into someone reading bullet points from Wikipedia to all of us, but we should take a moment before we start to thank all our wonderful Patreon supporters for this show. Seriously, without you, this show would not exist. And I evidence that by the fact that we don't have you yet, and the show doesn't exist

yet. So talk. What person plays thing phenomenon or a concept? Are we going to be talking about today? Well, the interest of cheerfulness today, we are going to discuss this share noble disaster because the Easter, I get it. Okay. Cecil. talking about today. Well, the interest of cheerfulness today, we are going to discuss the sure noble disaster. Because at Easter, I get it. Okay, Cecil.

I presume you've read the article and you're ready to ramble. Like Robert Plantell. Yeah. For those in our audience under the age of 85, Robert Plant was a musician back when ugly people were allowed to play guitar. It's a simpler time.

We let you sing on our shows. That's fair. It's very fair. Yeah. Yeah. Here's in joke conquer. Jesus Christ. Mom.

Mom. Hey, that guy's tutters glued to his face. That's fine. Put him on stage. It wouldn't stop. Mom. Wow. Are you on heroin?

I'm on my own. So at the risk of distracting Eli, there's Cecil. Why don't you tell us all about the Chernobyl disaster? Since we're all cheery and laughing anyway. So it all starts in the early morning hours of April 24th, 1986. I was getting ready to go into high school and Eli was not born yet. True fans. And I was right with the world still.

Yeah, we're right. Right. Again, simpler times. In the Chernobyl plant just outside the town of Pripyat in the former USSR, they were conducting a test on reactor four. And in very simple terms, they wanted to cover a cooling gap that is created during the emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor. All right. Give it a month and fixing the cooling gap is going to be Sean Spicer's new name

for climate change. Is anybody else amused that this story begins with people attempting to behave responsibly? I mean, this is why I actually avoid responsible behavior at all costs. This is what causes nuclear disasters. So that's not exactly going to be a consistent motif here, Tom, but we'll find out. So the reactor uses its power for cooling while it's running, but when it shuts down, it needs to have another power source to keep it from blowing up. So they use these large diesel generators for this. They'd be started in 15 seconds and then they'd get up to speed in about 45 seconds or they're about.

I'm sorry, they're about. So they don't want to have that word in the manual for fucking giant Holocaust machine that splits atoms and defines God. They're Boris. How much uranium fucking ballpark a bunch like a shit like this much. Tell me when stop. Tell me when stop. Good. They're about. Stop there about. We run nuclear power plant. So like I said, there's this one minute gap there and that's the, that's where the problem comes in.

This is like an unacceptable amount of time for a reactor. It's totally unacceptable. So how much time is acceptable for your reaction to it? Less than a minute. I found this out. So the theory that they're using is basically they could use the steam turbine as it ran down under residual pressure to run the coolant pumps for 45 seconds. And then that's enough time to get the generator sort of up and running.

Look, I got to clarify, they built a fucking nuclear reactor. And then they test the theory about what they should do if something goes wrong and they test it while it's running. Like, oh, guys, let's see if this were, nope, no, that, everyone's that now. We just, right. This is the problem you saw before you build the nuclear plant. This is, this is not a manage on the fly situation. Right? At least, if you don't solve it before you build a plant, at least before you turn it, yeah.

Right, right. It's running now. What happens if we turn it off? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, probably blows up a gills as well. So to test this, they had planned to slow the reactor down, and then get the pumps running just to see if a slow reactor would be able to run the pump. To see what's happening.

Yeah, I get the feeling some guy just kept asking about stuff like this ahead of time. He's like, hey, should I check to see if nerd? So to get the snowball that turns into a fucking giant avalanche started, the test was supposed to happen during the day shift when there was more competent people there, but because there was a problem with another plant, the Chernobyl plant had to pick up the slack and they were not in a position to lower the power to do the test. And the night shift had very little time to prepare for this particular test. Yeah, again, I got a paraphrase here

just so I understand. So they created an emergency to test to see what happens in an emergency using their least competent staff members. Yes. Then I got this. I got to fucking continue. I distillate the variables. Well, I could go wrong.

Again, nuclear plant. I feel like you want all competent people, right? Like, more than 100% of the people at the nuclear plant should be graded their job. It's not Quiznos. So you know what? Dave, who stands at the other side of the oven and just spreads on the guac.

As part of fission. Did they think they're like winning something? Like I were up like 50 new clears to nothing fourth quarter. Said in the B squad, whatever. I believe it's proud to be new culors. New culors. Well, anyway, so they start this test right now. I believe it's probably just nuclear. No, nuclear is here. Oh, good.

Well, anyway, so they start this test right after midnight. And this is where the Wikipedia article actually gets really complicated. And in fact, too complicated for a half an hour podcast. But in summary, they lowered the power. And because some of the reactions, the power dropped well below the 700 megawatt range. So they decided to manually get the power back up to the proper range to do the test. And while they were doing that, they started ignoring cooling alarms. Again, this is way more complicated than I'm summarizing it.

But the gist is, it is suspected that they ignored them because they wanted to increase the power, the power sort of back up to the level that they actually need. Okay. I'm no nuclear physician. You sure about that? You know? You lost nothing. But I feel like ignoring cooling alarms is key. Yes.

Like an important period. My Tom would be like, that's a bad sign. We should stop this. Guys, we can finish talking about fight club in a second. Let's deal with this alarm in a Where we are physically You know I ignore a lot of things deadlines court dates high blood pressure, right? But I don't know fucking warnings at nuclear power plants

What I just don't I run into a ditch and take cover with a low coolant light comes on in my car fuck that That's what they need just every power plant needs a meat so then as part of the test They added some more water to the pumps and increased the coolant temperature to like a dangerous level Then the power was still not where they needed it So they shot off to pumps and they started to remove the rods manually. And the rods I'm talking about here inhibit nuclear reaction. They're called control rods. And at this point, all but the 18 fail safe rods were removed. And then everyone took off their safety suits and released wild animals. So then there was

this feedback loop that had to do with steam and how much less it absorbs neutrons than liquid water and how quickly the reactor is heating up, causing more steam, absorbing less neutrons, et cetera, et cetera. And at a certain point, either they hit the giant O-fuck button, which is also known as the EPS button or something else happened, and it lowered the control rot. The ones that inhibit the nuclear reaction back into the reactor. All the ones that were taken out sort of went back in, but they didn't go all the way down because they fractured partway down and it did not look good for home star runner.

You shouldn't put home star runner chart. Yeah, right. Yeah. Number one. Not twice. Yeah. right. Number one. Yeah, not twice. I made you this nuclear. Yes. For those who don't know, home star runner was the first cartoon ever on the internet.

It was a man talking to himself and drawing four pictures an hour. There was a racist wrestler we enjoyed. I know. He answered emails, which were like texts for old people. So the instruments at this point didn't really register exactly what happened. Or was he flat and fired? Yeah.

Well, because it shot up, the last sort of thing that they were able to recover was that it shot up to 30,000 megawatts thermal, which is 10 times normal. Oh, wow. So, okay, let me guess. They were then able to use all that power to cool everything off and bring a beer reactor back to normal and everybody lived happily ever after. Well, I don't want to spoil it. So why don't we take a short break for everybody's favorite mid-episode use of interstitial music, apropole of nothing?

All right, sounds like a plan. I will play the theme song, then I'll run upstairs and get my PJs brush my teeth and we can finish this delightful bedtime story after the skip. Okay, guys, I keep telling you this over and over again, but I cannot work every shift here. I've been man in these pumps since last Easter. Parts of me are starting to sluff off. Parts of me that I need. And I keep telling you, we got this. You've got really no offense.

Look, I trust you fine Cecil, but uh, Easter three? Yeah, well, they're the night crew, they don't actually do anything. Hey, come on man, I'm right here! What is your job title, Tom? The actual, just, I just want the fucking actual title. Yeah, a nuclear plant... worker. Nuclear plant worker?

You're the principal radiological safety engineer. Yeah, so I work at a nuclear plant. Nuclear plant worker, you're the principal radiological safety engineer. Yeah, so I work at a nuclear plant. Nuclear plant workers. Sounds about right. I think I've given you a hard time again, Tom. Yeah, man, they don't have any faith in me. Alright, well, did we bring up our issue? No, not yet. Dear God, what issue?

Hammocks. Guys, we have been over this. We are not getting a hammocks. You can't sleep at work. Uh, strong disagree, proved it. Yeah, I mean, it's not easy to sleep here, but the hammocks will help. Thank you, exactly. You guys, we have to test the emergency cooling system tonight. You cannot be asleep. You know, I'll just do it.

You can't do it. No, your eyes are bleeding. You can't run a nuclear plant single-handedly forever. My god! I'm not even sure how you're still standing. Look, I got this, guys. I totally got one. Could go wrong. Look, I could go wrong.

The reactor core could overheat. An auto-control chain reaction could occur. And a massive cloud of radioactive dust could blanket Europe. Yeah. He seems upset. I think he needs a hammock. And we just breathed that up. We are seriously going to die. And we're back. Thanks for sticking around to hear the end of this wonderfully uplifting story of human

error Cecil. When we last left our heroes, there was a very exciting narrative of water, cooling things. It's repeating, I know. So let's speed things up a bit. Kaboom. Boom. More like Kaboom. 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 1,000. Louder Kaboom. For those younger listeners, Kaboom is an old people word

for explosion. Only old people use Kaboom. Yes. Okay. Well, what the kids saying? They don't say anything to Snapchat it. Exactly. They put it on Facebook live too soon. I didn't even say Cleveland. Like we all thought Cleveland, I ain't saying. I said it now, but I feel like I was well, but by this time anybody hears this, it won't be too soon anymore. So I think you're okay.

Exactly. It's just perfect. That's perfect timing now. All right. Yeah. Just record everything with Eli years ahead. All right. So you were saying something about some awesome sounding.

Yes. So, so well, the first explosion was from steam. And that blew the 2000 ton plate through the roof of the building. And then there's the second one, which terminated the nuclear reaction, which started a graphite fire according to some. And then there's also a note on Wikipedia that the graphite didn't burn in the incident. And I'm going to leave that up to smarter people than I to make that call. Okay. Below 100 atmospheres graphite turns directly to gas. So it doesn't really have a melting point. But at 100 atmospheres at Melsora of 4,700 Kelvin, nuclear meltdown tends to max that around 3,100 to 30. Oh, I'm sorry. Would you said leave this to smarter people than you? You didn't mean me at all.

Did you? Shit. I'm sorry. Did Lucinda help you with your homework again? I just Lucinda titrating in the other room. 3200 Noah, 3200. Pretty sure graphite doesn't burn that hot. It was clearly the juice. I agree. Reactor fuel doesn't melt graphite beams. Part of some bizarre Chicago version of Rochambot or are you just expressing the opinion? It's fuel graphite, black person, black person, right? That's how he life plays it. I said I was dropping the Cleveland thing and then you throw it right back in my face.

Okay, so after the explosion, the roof of reactor three was lit on fire. And as you can imagine, there was a large release of a radiation, but because some of the radioactive detectors or dose meters were defective, I'm just making sure you get teradactyl who whistles like the Flintstones. It's a living. Well, because they're defective,

the person running the operation, his name was Alexander Akeema of, I'm going to fund pronounced in that correctly, didn't think that the reactor itself had been breached. So many people continued working throughout the whole night and none were protective gear and most of them died in about three weeks. Wait a minute. I got to back up again.

So just a 2000 ton plate blew off of a building. And this fucking Alexander guy's like, everything's probably fine guys, back to work. That guy. Well, yeah, I mean, and that was the smaller explosion. I mean, when you can, when you can make out the terrified faces of the pedestrians below your plane, it's time you just ignore the out of the Alex. That's an awkward morning rally the next day trying to lead a chant. Everyone's two weeks to move. We are team Karchenko and we are the stop losing hands. This is gross. You're all grusing me out. So the firefighter crews start to show up to put out the fire and some of them don't know and think it's just an electrical fire and not a problem with the reactor.

A natural assumption at a nuclear power plant that again just blew up twice. Yeah, I'm surprised they showed up at all. If I were a firefighter, they would have been like something with the nuclear plant. Nah, I'm going to let them work it up. You know, with these sirens on on people get out of our way, I'm driving the wrong fucking way. The hell of a day to retire. So when the thing, weight kaboom, as I said earlier,

the graphite exploded and caught on fire or didn't catch on fire. And there was radioactive graphite laying around. And some of these firefighters are kicking it out of the way and I'm just picking it up and commenting on hot is and that guy's dead now. But in any case, a lot of them are actually dead. Yeah, a lot of them are actually dead and they literally killed themselves by putting these fires out.

So reactor three didn't fail. Cecil, I know you're trying to paint a tragic picture, but these characters keep back to Super casual about the nuclear plant being on fire just picking up shit. They don't recognize stirring their tea with it. I'm saying this is a little on them. This is a little on them. In Soviet Russia, radio activates you.

I've been waiting this whole episode to bust that out. I'm really how was really pleased with that. So the rest of the world doesn't know that this is happening, of course. And pretty much the rest of the USSR is also in the dark. That power plant humor. I'm totally killing it. Oh, yes. Until a radio alarm goes off in Sweden

Fuck down with the radiation alarm goes off It's like with a smoke alarm goes off and you're cooking a steak like god damn fucking things are over sensitive And for you like steak is tofu that tastes good And scream that's name before I die. Okay, so I know that thus far this has been all real disaster and not at all uplifting. So let's take a minute or two to talk about some real heroes. Their names are Alexi and an anko, Valery, Bez Polov, and Boris Baranov. See, so there's this huge problem other than the melting down reactor.

The problem was that there's a bunch of water that accumulated from the disaster and from the firefighters, and the core had melted the graphite and all the surrounding material into what they call a coreium, which is basically radioactive lava. Oh, I know this. And these three were the raining for is hot lava champions, right? I think we're fucking awesome. Couch cushion, a couch cushion. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I feel like this just all these stay on paper until we have a zero radioactive lava situation. Nerd, we're doing the live, living on. So this corium is slowly burning its way through the floor of reactor four because it's basically

a fucking neutron star. And the problem is that it's on a collision course with this water that is collecting underneath it. And if it reaches it, some speculate that the explosion would be way worse than what happened already. Oh, oh, good. More speculating. Yeah, they tried running an emergency test.

Maybe that'll help. This is the only first time it's ever happening in history. So these three guys, they step up and they volunteer to open these slew skates that are holding all this water in manually. They have to, of course, enter this radioactive water in wetsuits. Then they get to the drain and they were able to avert disaster or more disaster, I guess. And what happened to them is a point of contention, actually. Some reports have them dying right there.

Others got, they say that they got radiation poisoning and died shortly after like a couple of weeks. And others, still others have them living into their 60s. And in my version, they've become princes of the unicorn kingdom. We've fucked you, U.S. They died right there. If they're in our farm, upstate, they're fine.

I'm just saying, if that last one's true, there's a chance I'll live less time than the guys who wrote a water slide through radioactive lava. And that is not okay. Well, shouldn't it eat so much vegan cheese? That guy is literally covered in green glowing And he, I need you to worry about your journey. And that means more exercise. So they also try to extinguish the core at this point or to slow it down and they dropped to 5,000 metric tons of sand, lead, clay and boron onto the reactor from a helicopter. It's a big helicopter. Yeah.

Yeah. You like describe what you're picturing right now. Is it a football field-sized helicopter filled with clay? Yes. So now there's a bunch of radio acted debris all over because remember the graphite I was talking about earlier and the handless fire fighter anyway, something has to get done with that. So they tried to use robotic and remote controlled stuff, but the radiation was way too high and that shit just totally stopped working. Yeah, the sensors just kept doing danger while Robinson and catching up with fire. So what do they have in a large supply that they don't care about?

Freedom is a freedom, international laws. Very small rocks, tomogotchi's churches churches While some of those answers may have been accurate except freedom and churches what they really had in abundance That they didn't give a shit about as people so they put people in suits and they had them work for 40 seconds Measured incidentally as one British for play seconds measured incidentally as one British for play. I'm the king of the Brits. I look a three quarter unit kind of guy in all the ways.

So they put it. They put them in in these suits for 40 seconds at a time. We'll actually put them up on top of the building at 40 seconds at a time. And they're exposed on this roof of the building to the bulk of where the debris is. And, you know, there's a ton of radiation up there. They actually called them bio robots. They renamed them. I like the name. Took the time to rename the disposable humans. Like, what do we call them? What do we call them? Alexander. Right? That's this fucking name. No, we need a name for these bio robots are going bio robots 44 seconds and you die

But I've got badges Bio robot Guys they gave these guys they gave these guys metals after was all done They were called the liquidators they gave them all the metals yeah the metals melted when it touched the liquidators. They gave them all the metals. Yeah, the metals melted when it touched. Yeah, right. They were called the liquid dated. Yeah. Yeah. So once the bulk of that work's done, they needed to make sure that the rain wouldn't get down there and blow up the world. So they had to cover this whole thing up. And they undertook the largest civil engineering task in history with 250,000 workers who had all reached their lifetime limits of radiation

to create a large concrete sarcophagus to keep the Toasty gooey center nice and dry. Hot, hot, good. Also known as a Chicago style solution to the round. At least we cover our garbage, dude. Mr. Owl has his work cut out for him. I'm just a supposed to take. The stuff that they dumped on top of the reactor actually melted into one of the basements

and formed this weird column and it's called the elephant's foot. And they found out about this thing with a remote camera. It's actually partially made of this brand new material called Chernobyl lights. And it was created by dumping shit on the core of a melting reactor. Some guy at a meeting trying to put a positive spin on it. You hear that Dave? Brand new material, huh? That's pretty cool.

Made a brand new material. Yeah, I give this five years before debirz markets. This is the only material that proves you really super duper fucking love it. I have to go below the conference. I can't conscious ring. Is it made of Chernobyl lights? No. I want to princess cut elephant feet.

Bitch. This elephant foot is, is actually really crazy. It's so radioactive. It is essentially like a madusa head. It gives off 10,000 rentions per hour, and that means if you're exposed to this thing for under a minute, you've received a fatal dose of radiation. And if you stay down there two minutes,

you start to actually hemorrhage. Jesus. How did they figure that out? She's like a flat bloodster in there doing a keg stand. Okay, that's one minute. I'm dead now. That's two minutes turning inside out now. You guys writing this down? So the radiation at this point now in the with the elephant's foot is not nearly as bad as it once was. There's actually people who could taken pictures of it. But initially, this thing we made, you could look at it and you would die.

Humans are fucking terrifying. There's a lot more to this, of course. The area was doused with radiation and it was around 100,000 square kilometers. There's a spike in thyroid cancer. Piglets were born that looked like something out of a Guillermo del Toro movie. Idris Elba. piglets were born that look like something out of a Guillermo del Toro movie. Idris Elba. Just a bunch of sexy SPs walking around. What are you doing? I want to fuck that pig.

I'm not even gay and I want to fuck that pig. So there's also a large number of abortions because of it. They suspect that at 150,000 elective abortions were performed on possibly healthy babies because of the disaster. Finally, some good news. Right. It gives radioactive half life a whole new meaning. Oh, a picture of fetus monster like Boltron comes together.

Oh, it doesn't. Except for it doesn't wield a sword as like a, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it doesn't really000 to 200,000, which is a nice, sourced error bomb. Some people think that this was actually the start of the fall of the Soviet regime there,

or this was the cause of its downfall. They say that the government dissemination on the subject made people distrust them and a change of relationship with government and the people. I didn't cover all that in detail because it seems like the, that's the effects of what happened rather than just the disaster itself. And in fact, we could probably do a whole episode on the effects of the disaster. Awesome. All right.

So if you had to summarize what you learned, what would you say? I would say when Doc Brown asked for 1.21 gigawatts, don't skimp on the fucking gigawatts. Also, don't conduct tests on a nuclear reactor while it's running. That's like experimenting on the different propulsion methods from the bus from the movie speed after it's already reached 55 miles an hour. All right, well, you read a whole article and gave us ample material to joke around about, but can you survive the gauntlet of questions by our panelists on Chernobyl related trivia? Well, like a Ukrainian firefighter, I'm ready to die trying.

You bet you're asked. You are. Okay. Well, Tom, why don't you start us off here? All right. Cecil, when designing a nuclear power plant, what pieces are not absolutely essential, but highly recommended. A, functioning radiation detectors. B, pre-tested safety systems.

C, a competent staff. Or D, Chernobylites, Bio-Robots, and Elephant feet. I have no idea what C even means. So I'm gonna fix it. Oh, I'm not staff. No, you're not you're fired. No, actually, it is a Chernobyl lights. It's always Chernobyl lights and it will always be Chernobyl lights. Cecil, which of the following is a real attempt to clean up and contain Chernobyl? A. Was it? Graphite fetch with the least popular shelter dogs in the area. Oh no!

B. A giant magnet at the bottom of a mixing bowl. C-City. Soying around the plant in a circle and hoping it would fall through the hole into space. Or D, a giant metal arch to slot over the concrete. C-City. Yeah, it's fucking deep because that concrete's not holding up. So they're going to put a fucking win a bago over it. And we're letting the Russians just figure it out on their own. Putin wants to send some reporters.

He doesn't like to check it out. All right, Cesar, I got one for you. What's the best way to defund nuclear power plants in the United States? Is it a publicized the fact that Hitler had a nuclear program? He publicized the fact that Hitler did not have a nuclear program. See both see both a and b plus swallow your body weight and gum. Is it D make a sting video of Planned Parenthood growing Dr. Manhattan out of stem cells? What I actually read that earlier, I thought you were talking about like a sting video like fields of gold. I was talking about that. That's exactly what I were talking about like a sting video like fields of gold. That's what I was talking about.

That's exactly what I was talking about. Or finally was it E vote for the green party instead of Hillary Clinton. What's the fucking worst thing? See, it's sadly sad. I don't want to talk about it, but I'm pretty sure. Okay, Tom, well, you had a question or expert, couldn't answer who gets to be our expert next week? Well, because I enjoy watching Eli spit fire and apple pluck the grade, I volunteer him as tribute.

Sounds fair. So we are still not live with the show and we're not doing a real favorite Twitter answer yet. But I really like this tweet at DRIL said, please do not say top notch to me unless you want to spend hours explaining what the fuck these notches are and who determines their hierarchy. I figured it just started out. What's we go live?

We'll have a whole thing here. But until then, we don't. All right. Well, for Heath, Tom Eli and Ciesl, I'm no a thank you for spending at least half an hour with us. Bill, next week we'll be back and Eli will be an expert on some. If you'd like to hear more from Heath, Eli and I check us out on the scanning atheist. God off of moves in the skeptic rat. If you want to hear more from from Heath Eli and I check us out on the scanning atheist. God, I'll film movies and the skeptic.

Grant. If you want to hear more from Tom and Cecil, check out their one third as many shows as us cognitive dissonance. We want to thank our patrons once again. And if you would like to become one of those people that makes this endeavor possible, visit patreon.com slash citation pod and join up for a per episode donation for more info on how to contact us. Check out our show notes on our website at citationpod.com.

And so until next time, this is no illusion, say and keep it random on Wikipedia, eventually, you'll find boobs. Conor McMurphy is a Boston Fire Fire that plays by his own rules. You programmed my windows and ran the fire hose to my car, man. Yeah, well, next time you won't park in front of a fucking fire hydrant. Yeah, but you flattened all my tires, you took an axe to the motor, you lit my car on fire and... And did you pee on it? Hey, hey, don't tell me how to do my fucking job asshole.

But sometimes, when you buck the system, the system bucks back. I can't keep covering for you, McMurphy. You let the old folks home burn down, but Chief, you're the one who hired the Chinese guys at Dispatcha. I didn't think it was that big a deal if a few old flocks melted. I got a transfer, McMurphy. You're a goddamn loose cannon. And in Kiev, he will meet his greatest challenge. We have fire at Chernobyl again! Call more fire station!

You don't need no more fire stations, Boris. You fucking got me. Now get in the truck before I slap you around. And he'll be pushed to the limits. Someone save my kid! Give me a goddamn hand! Baaah! Are you a paw?

Oh, whatever that thing is. Baaah! Claw! Baaah! Knuckle! This summer! Get the fucking hoses! I don't think water on nuclear fire is good idea!

Hey! Don't tell me how to do my fucking job, asshole! Mark Wahlberg is the last American firefighter. Now give me a hand for your claw. Baaaattos. Huff, huff. It's huff, I got it.