Retrospective on Chernobyl accident by Leonid I. Urutskoev
Channel: Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project
Date: 2023-05-11

Webinar No. 9 of the winter-spring 2023 session of the Klimov-Zatelepin seminar was held on May 10, 2023 (Wednesday) between 16:00 and 18:00 Moscow time.

A retrospective look at the Chernobyl accident
d.p.m.s. Leonid Irbekovich Urutskoev
Many different articles (scientific, semi-scientific and anti-scientific), books (by professionals, semi-professionals and outright amateurs) have been written about the Chernobyl accident, as well as many memoirs of various people who were directly involved in the aftermath of the accident. The list is so long that it makes no sense to even try to review it. Such a high publication activity of people, in my opinion, is due to several reasons. One of the reasons is the fact that the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Chernobyl nuclear power plant) is, although sharply negative, but an important event in the history of the USSR. After many years of the triumphal procession of nuclear energy, a catastrophe occurred, the consequences of which had to be eliminated, without exaggeration, by the whole country. And people, feeling their involvement in the "historical event", wanted to highlight their personal contribution to the common cause. As a picture emerges from many strokes of an artist's brush, so from the memories of various participants in these events, a palette of mass heroism and professionalism displayed by the liquidators is formed.
The first part of the report is devoted to my memories of the most difficult period in the aftermath of the accident - the summer of 1986. Of course, like any memories, they are extremely subjective. But egocentrism is an inherent property of any person. I would very much not want the listeners of this report to get the impression that the purpose of the speech is an attempt to "perpetuate" one's contribution "to the common cause." On the contrary, I sincerely believe that “Chernobyl” gave me much more than I “could return” with the results of my work. Unfortunately, our contribution to the elimination of the consequences of the accident, especially at its first stage, was negligible. But on the other hand, it was during this period that we clearly understood the formulation of problems for ourselves, which determined the direction of our scientific activity for many years.
As for the clarification of the causes and the physical mechanism of the accident itself, there are many ambiguities and direct "inconsistencies" with the official version on this issue. Apparently, this is precisely the reason for the unceasing interest of researchers in the Chernobyl accident, despite the many other important events taking place in the dynamically changing World around us. The leader of this seminar, VN Zatelepin, compiled a long and varied list of issues that he would like to be covered in this report. But to do this in one report is simply impossible, if only because of the time limit. In addition to purely time constraints, an attempt to make a single report would cause certain difficulties for the audience, since the listed questions relate to various areas of physics: nuclear physics, reactor engineering, geophysics, elementary particle physics and rather subtle issues of quantum electrodynamics. Each of the listed areas of knowledge uses its own terminology, with which it is necessary to familiarize the participants of the seminar during the report, which takes a lot of time. Therefore, the workshop leader and I made the following decision: if after this report the workshop participants remain interested in this topic, then in the fall we will continue to talk about other aspects of the Chernobyl accident.