The Truth About Chernobyl.

        The middle part of the book focuses on the accident its self and the technical aspects that prompted it.  As the story the goes the reactor that exploded, No.4, was not running as routinely but was set up to perform a test.  The test was to see how long the kinetic energy of the blades of the generator connected to the reactor would continue to spin in the inertial rundown.  This was of particular interest because in the event that the reactor had to be taken off line the inertial rundown could be used to power the reactor safety systems rather than having a secondary power source.  This might not sound like a badidea at first but interestingly all other nuclear power plants in the region refused to do the experiment for fear it was to dangerous.  Chernobyl was the only plant willing to do the experiment.  This can be credited to the man in charge, Fomin.  

        During the course of the experiment there were several actions committed that lead to the demise of the plant.  The first and most critical was that the Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) was shut down. This was done so that the ECCS would not kick in while the experiment was being performed and potentially cause heat shocks which could damage the equipment.  Once shut down, the ECCS could not be reactivated and thus if the reactor began to over heat it could not be cooled.  Secondly, while the experiment began to go astray, the absorber rods that are used to control the reactor could not be lowered in because of system power loss.  Once this happened the reactor temperature dropped dramatically and began to be poisoned by products of radioactive decay such as iodine and xenon.  This lead to the turning point of the situation; there were two options either to let the reactor stand for 24 hours until the reactor could be restarted and abandon the experiment or increase the power to prevent further poising.  Fomin, who was overseeing the experiment, wrongly insisted on the latter.  Initially, the senior reactor control engineer, Leonid Topunov, opposed Fomin on the decision to increase the power to the reactor, but quickly backed down at the prospect of loosing his job.  A bad decision on his part as increasing the power of course proved to be detrimental as hydrogen built up in the tank began to explode setting a off a chain reaction of explosions, the rest of which is history.  It was the culmination of these actions that created the deadly formula for this systemic accident.

        Final Chapters of the book look at the aftermath of the accident.  Medvedev takes up several issues here, first examining the madness the ensued after the explosion.  Relying manly on testimonials of those that were at or near the plant, Medvedev demonstrates the lack of disaster planning and the chaos that resulted.  He then looks at the poor execution of evacuation of local residents, which did not even take effect until the following day, and how the actual imminent danger was downplayed to prevent wide spread panic (this would later prove to cost hundreds of lives).  Medvedev then describes and recounts his role in the damage assessment and decontamination effort and the poor job done in encasing the reactor in a concrete sarcophagus.  Lastly, and perhaps the most heart wrenching is the testimonials of the victims from their hospital beds as they lay in agony and waited for the radiation to take its course for better or for worse.  From a comparative perspective, Chernobyl released 50 tons of radioactive fuel into the atmosphere that day, unleashing ten times the radioactivity of that of Hiroshima.    

        In retrospect, Medvedev does an effective job explaining what happened , but is still open to some criticism.  To begin with, he positions himself as the protagonist throughout the endeavor which leads one the question if he has any biases and is being truthful or is just telling the truth as he sees it.  Second of all, Medvedev was never present in the control room before or during the accident, so, taking eye witness accounts, testimonials, and some intuition he attempts to reconstruct the events that occurred in a seamless narration.  Putting all the pieces together what results is something less fluid and unified than piece mill and more like patchwork.  Medvedev jumps around a lot going between past and present as well frequently going off on tangents, as a result he has a tendency to repeat himself in an attempt to remind the reader of what transpired prior to the tangent.  Ultimately, however, Medvedev presents convincing warning to the use of nuclear energy and the necessity for heightened safety measures and precautions, reinforcing the idea of building reactors underground.  Furthermore, Medvedev comments on the necessity for professional sense, this of course tying back to Toptunov who allowed his professional sense to evade him when he backed down to Fomin during the critical moments prior to the accident.  Furthermore, Fomin himself showed no professional sense when he allowed his pride and ambition to get a head of him and was so focused on completing the experiment that safety became secondary.  Fomin broke the golden rule of engineering and as result the highest price was paid, human life.  Hopefully this will stand as a testimonial to all current and future engineers so that such a tragedy may not be repeated.