Xenon eats up neutrons, thus making the chain reaction more difficult to maintain. Because of this, the operators were surprised when the reactor went to a lower power than they had expected. To get the power of the reactor to its expected value, the operators pulled the control rods out further than they would ever do in any normal situation.
Finally, the reactor went up to the power level needed for the test. Unfortunately, the Chernobyl reactor was designed in a dangerous manner, allowing the reactor to get hotter if bubbles formed in the water coolant flowing past the fuel. As water boiled in certain locations of the reactor, this power instability started rearing its head. Apparently, one of the operators noticed this highly unstable situation and pressed the button to insert the control rods and shut down the reactor.
But, an even more serious design flaw was in the control rods. The neutron poison in most of each rod had a small graphite tip on the bottom. This graphite not a neutron poison and is usually beneficial to chain reactions. So with the control rods all the way out, inserting them for the first few inches displaced some water without introducing any neutron poison, and this actually increased the power of the reactor. This led to more boiling of the water, which resulted in even more power and then positive feedback took the reactor power sky-high, immediately boiling all the water to steam.
The steam pressure was so great that it blew the lid right off the reactor and through the roof of the reactor building which was not one of those steel containments, by the way. It was just a concrete building. With no more coolant, the fuel heated up and became molten. He was confused but ultimately went about his day, believing the equipment was malfunctioning.
Only later he realized that a line of workers who were entering the plant were all setting off that same radiation detector. While Swedish diplomats questioned authorities in Moscow, Higginbotham said, Moscow authorities continued to deny that anything was wrong.
A dramatic trial taking place in the aftermath of the tragedy was not as public as it appeared on HBO. And while the press was invited to the trial, they were only really invited to cover opening statements.
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