The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in on April 26, 1986. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history. A nuclear meltdown in one of the reactors caused a fire that sent a plume of radioactive fallout that eventually spread all over Europe.

On April 26, 1986, a test was scheduled at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to test a method of keeping the reactors properly cooled in the event of a power grid failure. If the test had gone as planned, the risk to the plant was very small. When things did go wrong, though, the potential for disaster was miscalculated and the test was continued even as serious problems arose. Meltdown occurred at 1:23 AM, starting a fire that dispersed large quantities of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. The amount of radioactive material released was 400 times more than the amount the atomic bombing of Hiroshima released. The fallout would be detected in almost all parts of Europe.

Before the accident

Nuclear reactors require active cooling in order to remove the heat generated by radioactive decay. Even when not generating power, reactors still generate some heat, which must be removed in order to prevent damage to the reactor core. Cooling is usually accomplished through fluid flow, water in Chernobyl's case.

The problem at the Chernobyl plant was that following an emergency shutdown of all power, diesel generators were needed to run the cooling pumps. These generators took about a minute to attain full speed, which was deemed an unacceptably long time for the reactor to be without cooling. It was suggested that the rotational momentum of the winding down steam turbine be used to power the pumps in the time between shutdown and the generators being ready. A test was devised to test this method in 1982, but the turbine did not prove to be successful in providing the required voltage as it spooled down. Two more tests would be conducted in the following years, but would also be unsuccessful. The fourth test was scheduled to be run on April 25, 1986.

The experiment was devised in such a way that if it had gone as planned, the disruption and danger to the plant would be very minimal. First, the reactors would be brought down to low power, between 700 and 800 megawatts. Then the steam turbine would be run up to full speed and then turned off. The power generated by the winding down generators would then be measured to determine if it was sufficient to power the cooling pumps in the time before the diesel generators got up to full speed.

By 1986, the plant had been running for two years without the implementation of a method to keep the cooling pumps running continuously following an emergency shutdown. This was an important safety measure that the plant was lacking, which presumably gave the plant managers a considerable amount of urgency in completing another test.