This is essentially a nuclear reactor, each rod controls the intensity of the nuclear reaction.
Discussion
As a student I visited a nuclear power plant, and it was impressive but somehow also scary when you think about the enormous energy density.
It's insane to think that humanity was granted an enormous amount of free clean energy and we decided to make WMDs with it. Smh. Nuclear weapons are an absolutely insane concept when you think about it. Also, I wonder how many reactors in the U.S. are graphite-moderated? 🤔
Well, even the graphite moderation wasn't a single point of failure on Chernobyl, I think the tipped their rods with graphite so as they SCRAMd the reactor they had a sudden jump in SUR as the control rods shot into the core. They should have been using stainless as a happy medium between poison and water, preventing that.
That’s exactly the point where Tschernobyl failed … 💥