It's not only that, but also nuclear plants run by for profit organisations, where cutting corners will at some level be appreciated to ensure the bottom line.
/edit: it's funny that here many are calling for tougher regulation, while in other post many who are pro nuclear complain about toomuch red Tape and top much security.
Personal profit, zealotry, career seeking, incompetence, design flaws, political agenda. This also includes the design phase. The RBMK reactor was an irresponsible design from the onset, even without the unknowns.
Graphite moderated reactors are prone to graphite cracking, as also evidenced by UK's AGR reactor fleet. Maybe pebble bed reactors are safer, because new pebbles are continuosly fed in and the spent ones are extracted for reprocessing. We'll se how the HTR-10 and the HTR-PM fare.
Golden parachute. Millionaires losing bonuses or equity never need to tighten their belts. Almost everybody who lost equity had no say.
The test pilot would be covering for a person actually responsible. Charges were probably to force fingering that person. But if that person wasn't charged, then it is all just business expense.
The handling, as in, the reaction once the top officials actually understood the magnitude of the situation, was nothing short of spectacular.
No expence was spared cleaning up the mess, removing top layer of soil at a massive scale and enclosing the failed reactor in sarcofagus. This expence and reputation damage contributed considerably to bringing the end of USSR.
You've got to keep in mind how little was known about lethality and handling of radiation back then, compared to today. In fact good chunk of today's knowledge comes from Chernobyl.
It's not a universal rule that all for profit companies will "cut corners." Airplanes are vastly safer than other forms of transportation. When the public found out that Boeing cut corners with their design of the 737 max, their share price dramatically plummeted, signaling that this was the wrong decision.
Also, cutting corners isn't necessarily worse for nuclear than other energy sources. More people die from wind turbine accidents than nuclear power.
/edit: it's funny that here many are calling for tougher regulation, while in other post many who are pro nuclear complain about toomuch red Tape and top much security.