I oversaw the U.S. nuclear power industry. Now I think it should be banned.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. In fairness, the RBMK reactor that exploded, didn't even HAVE a containment.

It just flat doesn't have what we would consider a containment. At all.

Add to that, the RBMK has a positive void coefficient. In western designs, water is a neutron moderator, causing the neutrons to hang around and hit more fuel, giving more reactivity. If it flashes into steam in ours, reactivity DECREASES because neutrons escape without reacting. In the RBMK, if the coolant water flashes into steam, the reactivity INCREASES. So you can get a runaway effect. That's how a 1mw thermal reactor hit 33mw of thermal output (according to the stuck instruments in the control room) at the moment it exploded.

Add to that graphite moderation, with physical cracking/thermal damage preventing insertion of the boron control rods, AND the reactivity margin where the rods did work (There is a delay when you insert the rods, between the loss of water moderation displaced by the rods, and the damping effect of the boron, where reactivity actually increases)….

The whole design of Chernobyl looks less like a power plant, and more like a bomb. This wasn't a simple case of 'things going wrong'.