Summary of Richard Rhodes's Arsenals of Folly

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In 1986, the nuclear physicist Stanislav Shushkevich thought the institute’s reactor was bleeding radiation. It was in people’s hair and clinging to their clothes. It was near danger levels at the front door.

#2 When someone finally called the institute to report an accident at Chernobyl, it was already too late. The graphite core of the massive, concrete-encased reactor had flashed to high-pressure steam in four seconds. The upper biological shield, which was made of concrete blocks, began to bubble and dance.

#3 The Chernobyl disaster was the result of two explosions in the space of less than four seconds, which blew open the reactor and its contents. The reactor was sealed within a metal tank filled with a mixture of helium and nitrogen to prevent the graphite moderator from burning.

#4 The Soviet Union had suffered 13 previous reactor accidents before the one at Chernobyl. Between 1964 and 1979, there were several fuel assembly fires at the Beloyarsk nuclear-power plant east of the Urals near Novosibirsk.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822518209

IRB Media

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Insights on Richard Rhodes's Arsenals of Folly

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 1986, the nuclear physicist Stanislav Shushkevich thought the institute’s reactor was bleeding radiation. It was in people’s hair and clinging to their clothes. It was near danger levels at the front door.

#2

When someone finally called the institute to report an accident at Chernobyl, it was already too late. The graphite core of the massive, concrete-encased reactor had flashed to high-pressure steam in four seconds. The upper biological shield, which was made of concrete blocks, began to bubble and dance.

#3

The Chernobyl disaster was the result of two explosions in the space of less than four seconds, which blew open the reactor and its contents. The reactor was sealed within a metal tank filled with a mixture of helium and nitrogen to prevent the graphite moderator from burning.

#4

The Soviet Union had suffered 13 previous reactor accidents before the one at Chernobyl. Between 1964 and 1979, there were several fuel assembly fires at the Beloyarsk nuclear-power plant east of the Urals near Novosibirsk.

#5

The first information that reached Moscow was a coded signal about two hours after the explosions. The numbers invoked the highest state of emergency. The Soviet nuclear-power industry was managed by the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, the branch of the Soviet military-industrial complex that was also responsible for producing nuclear weapons.

#6

The Soviet government sent officials to help with the crisis, but they were not prepared for such a large disaster. They improvised, using sand from a riverside quarry to try to smother the burning reactor.

#7

On Saturday night, the helicopter crews began dumping material into the reactor. By nine p. m. , the level in the street nearest the reactor had reached 1. 4 rem per hour in Pripyat. The government ordered the town evacuated at midnight.

#8

The town of Pripyat was evacuated on Sunday morning, April 26. The authorities ordered the evacuation because the radiation level in the streets was 10 rem per hour. The town council sent high school girls door-to-door dispensing potassium-iodide tablets to the townspeople.

#9

When Shushkevich and the other scientists at the institute began warning people about the severity of the accident, they were met with silence. When they tried to warn people, they were met with threats.

#10

The initial response of the Soviet government to the Chernobyl disaster was to conceal it from the public. The government commission that was set up to investigate the accident produced reports that consisted mostly of preliminary fact-finding, without any conclusions at all.

#11

The government commission had reported to Moscow on Sunday. Ryzhkov carried the report into the regular Monday morning Politburo meeting. What to do about the report occasioned intense debate. In the past, every nuclear accident had been treated as a state secret.

#12

The Soviet system’s obsession with secrecy had emerged from its messianic conception of authority. The RBMK reactor was a dual-use design, developed in the 1950s as a production reactor to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, then adapted for civilian power operation in the 1970s.

#13

The Soviet Union broadcast a simple, misleading statement on national television at nine p. m. on Monday night: From the USSR Council of Ministers: An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant—one of the atomic reactors has been damaged.

#14

Pravda