Chernobyl Disaster

In its attempt to be a leader in the nuclear power industry, the Soviet Union took risks that proved to be disastrous. Soviet nuclear power reactors were built with a major design flaw, and on the 26th of April 1986 this design flaw caused the greatest nuclear energy disaster in history of the human race. Nuclear power reactors are extremely complicated pieces of machinery with a variety of safety features built into them, however, the Soviets' design had a problem; in the event of a total power failure the system was designed to use back-up generators to power the cooling system and prevent a total meltdown. But the back-up generators required a period of time to reach maximum output, some 60-75 seconds, and in this time the core could possibly begin to meltdown. (Smith 2) Soviet nuclear engineers had hypothesized that a fan used for cooling another part...
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