[Image] PART IV: Despite the Disaster, Nuclear Power Grows in Former Soviet Union By Charles Recknagel and Lawrence Holland Prague, April 18 (RFE/RL) -- When Soviet scientists opened the world's first nuclear power station 42 years ago in Obninsk, a science city 100 kilometers south of Moscow, officials hailed it as the dawn of a new age of energy. Soviet leaders told the country that the "peaceful atom" would soon arrive in homes and factories everywhere, bringing unlimited electric power and a better life. Today, the Soviet Union has dissolved, but the dozens of nuclear power stations Moscow and the socialist governments of Central and Eastern Europe built remain in operation. There are 47 nuclear reactors in five former Soviet republics -- Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and Armenia. Another 19 reactors are located in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia. In many of the countries, the plants are a crucial source of power. When a resident of Kyiv turns on the electricity, there is a 50 percent chance the energy comes from two reactors still operating at Chernobyl. Those two reactors are among 15 operating reactors in the Ukraine, which together generate almost one third of the country's electrical energy. Residents of Lithuania are even more dependent on nuclear energy. Two reactors located at Ignalina, about 60 kilometers from the capital Vilnius, supply more than 80 percent of the nation's energy. Armenia is so desperate for energy it has reactivated a reactor at the Metzamor plant, which was closed after the 1988 earthquake. Some experts consider the site a safety hazard because of its proximity to the earthquake fault line. Today, despite the Chernobyl accident -- the use of nuclear energy continues growing in the east. Throughout the region, 21 new nuclear reactors are under construction, compared to six in the West. The reason is economics. David Kyd, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an international nuclear regulatory body in Vienna, says Chernobyl sparked a public outcry around the world against nuclear power. But many eastern countries have been unable to find affordable alternatives to it. "In Western Europe and North America, I think (Chernobyl) did have a profound psychological impact and that has been reflected, in part, in the slackening sales of reactors," Kyd says. "(But) in the East, I think people are still wedded to the idea that nuclear is a fundamental source of electricity and one that they can ill afford to do without, because they do not have the money for alternatives and hence they have to live with it, knowing that it's a calculated risk." Ukraine is one example of the economic problems forcing many eastern countries to continue developing nuclear power. Immediately after the Chernobyl accident a wave of anti-nuclear sentiment swept the country. Environmentalists criticized nuclear power as an industry run directly from Moscow which took little account of Ukraine's own interests and ecological concerns. Within four years after the accident, Ukrainian legislators had placed a moratorium on commissioning any new reactors. But the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 forced the legislators to reconsider. Ukraine had hoped to use low-cost gas and oil from Russia as an energy substitute for new reactors, but the price of the Russian products rose after Ukraine's independence. By October 1993, Ukraine's parliament revoked its nuclear plant moratorium in the face of the huge bills for importing energy. Leonard Bennet, an economic expert at the IAEA in Vienna, predicts that eastern countries will continue to use nuclear energy for decades. He says that for developing countries which lack sizeable oil and gas resources of their own, nuclear reactors and hydroelectric dams offer the lowest cost energy supply for expanding an industrial base. Both are expensive to build but inexpensive to operate. Today, as many eastern countries have few remaining sources of hydroelectric power to exploit, nuclear energy offers them the possibility of generating more power wherever it is needed. Bennet also says that both nuclear and hydroelectric energy are less expensive than burning coal, which many eastern countries have in abundance. The coal must be mined, and burning it creates its own pollution hazards which are expensive to control. But there are voices that warn that existing nuclear power stations in the East are unsafe. Alexei Yablokov is the head of the Ecology Committee on the Russian National Security Council and an advisor to President Boris Yeltsin. He spoke with RFE/RL in his offices in Moscow. Yablokov says nuclear power stations in the East were poorly constructed. And he says nuclear plant personnel in Russia do not have the same technological expertise as western plant operators, something he says it will take generations to change. Yablokov is not alone in expressing worries. In addition to the two operating reactors at Chernobyl, reactors at Kozloduy in Bulgaria, Ignalina in Lithuania, Kola in Russia, Bohunice in Slovakia, and Metzamor in Armenia, have been the focus of particular concern. All were listed as safety risks in a report prepared by a group of nuclear experts for the U.S. Department of Energy last year. The report cited either design flaws or the quality of plant personnel as cause for serious concern. There are 15 RBMK reactors, like those built at Chernobyl, currently operating in the East. In addition to the two still in use at Chernobyl, 11 are operating in Russia and two operate at Lithuania's Ignalina plant. Carol Kessler of the U.S. State Department recently told a conference in Washington that the RBMKs are inherently unsafe. Russia's Yablokov says the same. The main design shortcoming cited about the RBMKs is the absence of a containment structure. Unlike plants in the West, RBMKs do not have large containment vessels to keep radiation leaks from reaching the outside environment. The other main type of reactor in the East is the VVER, which is more similar in design to those found in the West. But early versions of the VVER, used at the plants in Armenia, Russia, Slovakia and Bulgaria listed in the U.S. Department of Energy report, also lack containment structures. Concerns over construction, design and personnel at nuclear plants in the East raise the fundamental fear that another Chernobyl is possible. "Can there be a repeat of Chernobyl?" asks Yablokov. "It is possible. The reactors are the same ones, what can you do about it, the same kind of (RBMK) reactors are still at many plants.(And) the VVER reactors, as we know from the engineers, are unacceptably dangerous. That's not us speaking. That's the constructors."