Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

by Andrew Leatherbarrow

Curie herself noted that, “one of our joys was to go into our workroom at night... the glowing tubes looked like faint fairy lights.2”

Dr. C. Davis, who wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Medicine that, “Radioactivity prevents insanity, rouses noble emotions, retards old age, and creates a splendid, youthful, joyous life.3”

Nuclear power reached its peak in terms of number of reactors operating in 2002, with 444 in use, but it wasn’t until 2006 that the highest level of nuclear-generated electricity record was set: 2,660 Terawatt-hours for the calendar year.22

The total number of fatalities from accidents relating to civilian nuclear power is relatively low - far lower than deaths related to conventional coal, oil or hydro-power accidents.

Defense in depth aims to avoid accidents by embracing a safety culture, but also accepts that mechanical (and human) failures are inevitable. Any possible problem - however unlucky - is then anticipated and factored into the design with multiple redundancies. The goal, therefore, is to provide depth to the safety systems; akin to the way Russian dolls have several layers before reaching the core doll. When one element fails, there is another, and another, and another that still functions.

Good definition of defense in depth.

When his wife saw him, she was shocked. “It was not my husband at all, it was a swollen blister.133”

still summoned enough energy to get up the following morning and go back to work, explaining to his wife, “You can’t imagine what’s going on there. We have to save the station.136” He died two weeks later on May 7th, in a hospital in Kiev; the third victim of Chernobyl.