DISADVANTAGE OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT IN RUSSIA

1. Radioactive waste problems in Russia

The Russian Federation government has plans for a rapid expansion of its atomic power
industry. However, there is a strong public opposition to its development and inadequate
financial resources for its sustainability. Furthermore, this plan is not backed by a sound strategy
to manage the resultant radioactive wastes. The existing atomic power stations already face
problems in the storage and safe disposal of their wastes. These arise because of limited on site
capacity for storage and the paucity of waste processing facilities. Many Russian military nuclear
facilities also have had a sequence of problems with their radioactive wastes. Attempts to
ameliorate the impacts of discharges to important water sources have had variable success.
Some of the procedures used have been technically unsound. The Russian navy has traditionally
dealt with virtually all of its radioactive wastes by disposal to sea. Many areas of the Barents,
Kola and the Sea of Japan are heavily contaminated. To deal with radioactive wastes 34 large
and 257 small disposal sites are available. However, the controls at these sites are often
inadequate and illegal dumps of radioactive waste abound. Substantial funding will be required
to introduce the necessary technologies to achieve acceptable standards for the storage and
disposal of radioactive wastes in Russia.

2. Nuclear Poisoning at Mayak

- Mayaknear Chelyabinsk 210 kilometers south of Yekaterinburg, just to the east of the Ural
Mountainsis the home of Russia's main disposal facility for nuclear waste. Situated near a
secret nuclear-weapon-producing complex named Chelyabinsk-65, the facility opened in
1949. Between 1948 and 1951 untreated waste with as much radioactivity as half a
Hiroshima bomb were released into the tributaries of the Techa River. A nearby swamp was
converted into a mile-long, open-air radioactive lake called Lake Karachai. Radioactive water
from the Techa River has flooded nearby villages.

- Entire towns in the region have come down with leukemia and other radiation-related
illnesses. One of the worst hit places was Muslyumovo, a village of 2,500 Tatars, which
obtained its drinking water from the Techa river. Men became infertile, farmers found their
joints ached so much they couldn't operate their tractors. The frequency of genetic
mutation in children was three higher than other places in Russia.

- In 1957 the overheating of a nuclear waste container caused an explosion of a liquid waste
holding tank at the nuclear facility near Kyshtym (now Mayak). A radioactive cloud of 20
million curries was released and spread out over 23,000 square kilometers. The disaster was
caused by a cooling system failure. Hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to large
amounts of radiation. Some 8,015 people died and 17,000 people were evacuated. More
than 30 small communities in a 460-mile area were wiped off the map. The radioactivity of
 40 Hiroshima bombs drained into a Lake Karachai, creating highly-toxic radioactive
sediment. In 1967, during a particularly hot and dry summer, Lake Karachai dried out and
wind and dust storms carried radioactive dust into surrounding villages and forests.

- Lake Karachai has been named by the Natural Forces Defense Council as the "most polluted
spot on Earth." Some 100 million curries of radioactivity, including strontium 90 and cesium
137 remain in lake. The groundwater and even the air is contaminated. The area is prone to
storms and earthquakes which could spread the radiation. No efforts was made to clean up
the area even though more radiation may have been released from there than at Chernobyl.
Soviet scientists monitored villagers as if they were human guinea pigs, telling them nothing
while secretly diagnosing their weight loss, aches and weakness as symptoms of chronic
radiation sickness.

3. Condition of Russias Nuclear Power Plants

- None of Russia nuclear power plants has a complete safety certificate. Many have been
cited for hundreds of violations. Even so the government wants to build more nuclear
plants, including 40 "fast breeder" reactors that use plutonium for fuel. Some of Russias
nuclear power plants rely on the same technology as the plant at Chernobyl. The Chernobyl
reactor was a RBMK-type reactor. A total of 17 of these reactors were builtfour in the
Ukraine 11 in Russia and 2 in Lithuania. Most of the other reactors in the former Soviet
Union are similar to those in the United States and Europe.

- One problem with many Russian nuclear power plants is that they do not have concrete
containment domes, which contain the radiation, like those found on Western countries. In
2003, the United States made a deal with Russia to build two-coal burning power plants in
exchange for closing three plutonium reactors regarded as among the most dangerous in
the world.

- Russia's nuclear power facilities are aging. The working life of a reactor is considered to be
30 years, but Russia has an active life extension program. The period for extension is
established by the government as 15 years, and 21 of Russia's nuclear reactors, accounting
for half of the country's operating nuclear capacity, are 30 or more years old. Eleven of the
country's 34 nuclear reactors use the high-power channel reactor (RBMK) design employed
in Ukraine's Chernobyl plant. Russia's newest reactor, the 1,011 Megawatt electric (MWe)
Rostov 3 reactor, was connected to the grid in December 2014, and it is expected to begin
commercial operation in the third quarter of 2015. [Source: U.S. Energy Information
Administration, July 2015 ~]

- The industry's financial problems, along with the disaster that occurred at the Chernobyl'
plant in Ukraine in 1986, have raised questions about nuclear safety. Western countries
have provided financial assistance in some cases because of their concern about Russia's lax
standards of handling nuclear materials and the continued use of outmoded equipment.
Russia's piecemeal environmental laws have led to indiscriminate dumping and burial of
 radioactive wastes, which are creating severe environmental problems. The theft of nuclear
materials has become another source of danger emanating from Russia's nuclear energy
program. [Source: Library of Congress, July 1996 *]

4. Chernobyls disaster

- The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated
with inadequately trained personnel (It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and
the resulting lack of any safety culture).

- The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core
into the atmosphere and downwind some 5200 PBq (I-131 eq).

- Two Chernobyl plant workers died on the night of the accident, and a further 28 people died
within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation poisoning.

- UNSCEAR says that apart from increased thyroid cancers, "there is no evidence of a major
public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 20 years after the accident."

- Resettlement of areas from which people were relocated is ongoing. In 2011 Chernobyl was
officially declared a tourist attraction.

- The 1986 Chernobyl accident :

On 25 April, prior to a routine shutdown, the reactor crew at Chernobyl 4 began preparing
for a test to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power to the main
circulating pumps following a loss of main electrical power supply. This test had been carried
out at Chernobyl the previous year, but the power from the turbine ran down too rapidly, so
new voltage regulator designs were to be tested.A series of operator actions, including the
disabling of automatic shutdown mechanisms, preceded the attempted test early on 26
April. By the time that the operator moved to shut down the reactor, the reactor was in an
extremely unstable condition. A peculiarity of the design of the control rods caused a
dramatic power surge as they were inserted into the reactor. The interaction of very hot fuel
with the cooling water led to fuel fragmentation along with rapid steam production and an
increase in pressure. The design characteristics of the reactor were such that substantial
damage to even three or four fuel assemblies can and did result in the destruction of the
reactor. The overpressure caused the 1000 t cover plate of the reactor to become partially
detached, rupturing the fuel channels and jamming all the control rods, which by that time
were only halfway down. Intense steam generation then spread throughout the whole core
(fed by water dumped into the core due to the rupture of the emergency cooling circuit)
causing a steam explosion and releasing fission products to the atmosphere. About two to
three seconds later, a second explosion threw out fragments from the fuel channels and hot
graphite. There is some dispute among experts about the character of this second explosion,
 but it is likely to have been caused by the production of hydrogen from zirconium-steam
reactions.

- Economic impacts:

1. Damage directly caused by the accident.

2. The cost of sealing off the reactor. It is crumbling, exposing the environment to
contamination again. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a
group of foreign donors are building a replacement. It will be completed in 2017 and
cost 2.35 billion euros.
3. Creating an exclusion zone of 30 kilometres around the power plant.
4. Resettling 330,000 people.
5. Health care for those exposed to radiation. The leak immediately doused 1,000 people
with high levels of radiation. Four thousand children later came down with thyroid
cancer from drinking contaminated milk. Also, more than 600,000 emergency workers
were exposed. Many died or suffered severe health issues.
6. Seven million people are still receiving benefits payments in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
That costs Ukraine at least 5% of its annual budget and Belarus at least 6% of its budget.
7. Research to find out how to produce uncontaminated food.
8. Monitoring environmental radiation levels.
9. Toxic waste clean-up and disposal of radioactive waste.
10. The opportunity cost of removing farmland and forests from use.
11. Loss of power from the Chernobyl plant itself. Unit 4 was shut down. Reactors 1, 2 and 3
were restarted in October 1986. They produced power until December 2000.