What caused the catastrophic Chernobyl nuclear accident?
Paraphrased from Wikipedia articles The Chernobyl accident is considered the most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history , both in terms of cost and casualties. It has been approximated that about four hundred times more radioactive material was released from Chernobyl than by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How does a nuclear reactor work? As explained in the HBO mini-series Chernobyl by the character playing Valery Legasov, Chief of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster who later exposed the design flaws - A nuclear reactor makes electricity with steam. The steam turns a turbine which generates electricity. Where a typical power plant makes steam by burning coal, in a nuclear plant, we use something called fission. We take an unstable element like Uranium 235, which has too many neutrons. A neutron is, (like a) bullet. So, bullets are flying off of the uranium. Now...if we put enough uranium atoms close together, the bullets f...
