On this day 34 years ago, a misguided and poorly executed test of safety systems was conducted by inadequately trained operators on a poorly designed reactor that employed no secondary containment - the RBMK-1000 - at #Chernobyl. The rest is history. 1/

Whilst anti-nuclear types will be (misguidedly) utilising the anniversary of the accident at Unit 4 @ #Chernobyl as an opportunity to illustrate the dangers of nuclear power *as they see them*, there was a contemporaneous event that is particularly noteworthy 2/

and that was an arguably more aggressive 'station blackout' test that was conducted - with a very different type of reactor and with very different results - just over 3 weeks earlier at @argonne national laboratory in the USA; 3/

On 3 Apr 86, 2 tests were carried out to demonstrate the passive-safety features of the sodium-cooled fast reactor EBR-II. In the 1st test, and w/ ~60 scientists from around th world to witness th event (in what on th face of it might seem to have been a mass-suicide attempt) 4/

and with the reactor running at FULL POWER, the main primary cooling pumps were shut off. The result? Within 5 minutes the reactor power dropped to near zero, with no damage whatsoever to the fuel or reactor. Here's a pic of the scientists. Look worried don't they? 5/

The next day another test was conducted, but this time th flow in th secondary cooling system was also stopped. As anticipated, as th primary cooling system became hotter, th fuel, sodium coolant, & structure expanded, and th reactor shut down with no human interaction AT ALL 6/

EBR-II was the prototype of the IFR (Integral Fast Reactor), which - if it hadn't inexplicably been given the chop by Congress in 1983 - might have heralded a very different trajectory for the nuclear industry, and for us ALL in respect of #ClimateChange 7/

This was 1986. Just *imagine* what we could do now...

Ends/