Yeltsin pushes expanded nuclear program

March 17, 1993
Issue 

By Renfrey Clarke

MOSCOW — Antinuclear activists in Russia plan a vigorous campaign against a new government program which would increase sharply the number of nuclear power reactors operating on Russian territory. The government's plans were set out in a resolution approved by the cabinet in late December.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s nuclear power was the cornerstone of the Soviet government's plans to develop electricity supplies in the European USSR. Today, nuclear plants account for 25% of electricity generation in the central part of European Russia, and for no less than 60% in Leningrad province.

The nuclear industry went into a lull following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Until authorities recently approved the starting up of a new reactor at the Balakovskaya plant near Saratov, the last new reactor to be commissioned in Russia went into operation in 1990.

But now the pro-nuclear lobby is claiming that its product represents the "only alternative" for meeting Russia's power needs in coming decades. The government's December resolution provides for three reactors, including the Balakovskaya unit, to come on stream by 1995.

In the years from 1996 to 2000 another six reactors are to be brought into operation, and between 2001 and 2006, a further seven.

In theory, construction of new nuclear installations will begin only after they have been approved by a state-convened commission of experts, and only if the local and territorial authorities agree. However, antinuclear activists point out that the resolution adopted by the government directly contravened many points of the law "On the Conservation of the Environment" passed not long before.

The resolution was adopted without having gained the necessary approval of the Committee on the Environment of the Supreme Soviet, or of the Service of the Presidential Adviser on the Environment and Public Health. Nor had it been studied, as required, by an independent environmental commission involving representatives of major political parties and popular movements.

A number of prominent figures, including President Yeltsin's chief adviser on environmental matters, Professor A.V. Yablokov, have attacked the government's plans.

The most urgent concern is the safety of the reactors. One of the generating units slated for completion by 1995, the Kursk 5 installation in Central European Russia, is of the same RBMK type as the reactors at Chernobyl.

A team of European Community experts who recently completed a study of the remaining Chernobyl reactors declared that they were unfit to operate by Western safety standards. The team's report listed hazards that included the lack of doors to stop a fire from spreading. Safety ally separated and could be knocked out at the same time.

According to spokespeople for the Russian nuclear industry, such shortcomings will be remedied in the new Kursk reactor. But all Chernobyl-type reactors incorporate a number of design features, such as the use of graphite as a moderator, that are inherently dangerous.

For that matter, the VVER pressurised-water reactors on which the industry now concentrates are not models of safety either. At Balakovskaya in 1991, there were 50 unplanned shutdowns due to malfunctions. In March 1992 a short circuit at the plant caused a fire which took 40 minutes to put out.

There are also economic reasons why the nuclear option is a bad one. Most of the projected reactors are very large and will require hugely expensive construction work lasting many years. Large numbers of workers will be drawing wages and exercising demand, while the product corresponding to their exists only in remote prospect. Inflation, already perilously rapid, will be given a hefty kick along.

Meanwhile, is Russia even going to need the electricity the "nukes" will generate? The government evidently projects that industry will grow substantially in the next decade — a questionable assumption at best. Even if the economy recovers and expands, energy needs could be met relatively quickly and cheaply through energy-saving measures. At present, most Russian industries use far more electricity per unit of output than their Western counterparts.

Why, then, is the government going ahead with a massive program of nuclear construction? The Soviet diseases of industrial "gigantism" and bureaucratic empire-building are far from having been wiped out. Bodies like the Atomic Energy Ministry and the large construction organisations remain powerful and well connected, with a remarkable ability to influence even the findings of commissions of highly qualified scientists.

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