The Chernobyl accident (power excursion) was the result of a controlled emergency shut down test, that would occur (needed in the event of a no load situation).
Chernobyl wasn't on their grid at the time. Nothing anyone did on their grid would have made any difference.
That accident required a lot more than loss of the water pumps for 30 seconds. Normally that alone would not have resulted in a failure.
Although the Russian reactor did not have a containment vessel and has been criticised for being an unsafe design compared to the US designed PWR, it could be argued that a containment vessel may have resulted in the much more catastrophic '
China Syndrome ' type accident that was only barely avoided in the 3-mile island accident a few years before.
Chernobyl and TMI were completely unrelated failures, with entirely unrelated lessons to be learned. It's not only wrong but _dangerous_ to lump them together since understanding one does nothing to prevent recurrence of the other.
A western-style containment system might not have contained a power excursion on Chernobyl's scale but it would not have hurt. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine any scenario at TMI, including total core melt, where lack of containment would actually have helped.
Previous Topic
Index
