When a safety regulation is issued in the West, it is to avoid accidents. When the Soviets issue one, it is because one has happened. And when the Politbureau gets involved, it must have been a serious one, though "serious" to the Soviets means "damaging the state" --with or without loss of life.
On July 15, the Politbureau approved "additional measures to raise the reliability and safety of nuclear power plants and the establishment of a USSR State Committee to enforce safety regulations in nuclear power technology." It had just heard a report on "gross violations of state discipline on the part of the heads of individual ministries..." There follows a list of scapegoats (for the Party itself is infallible), from the central ministries down to the keyword: Volgodonsk. That is the site of Atommash, [AtE Jan 81] which produces nuclear reactors on an assembly line, but nowhere near as many as called for by the planners.
What exactly happened is not yet clear; it is the usual world of rumor and speculation. Since the reactors manufactured at Atommash (including, it is believed, submarine reactors) are said to be fueled elsewhere, a release of radioactivity is unlikely. Well informed British observers believe that the cascade of hydroelectric plants and the resulting lakes along the Volga have caused the water table to rise gradually until the foundations of the Atommash plant are now undermined and possibly flooded
¾a serious setback to the Soviet nuclear industry. Other industrial plants in the region may be similarly threatened; and TASS mentions "gross violations of state discipline...in designing, building, and operating production, communal and cultural projects in the city of Volgodonsk." (Residential projects do not matter¾they are only for individuals.)On Aug. 20, Izvestiya brought a long interview with two leading nuclear scientists, in which only very general reasons were given for the establishment of the new State Committee overseeing nuclear safety
¾ the accelerated rate of nuclear development, which involves "masses of new people in the production and operation of nuclear equipment."
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Vol. 11, No. 2
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 11, No. 2 Date: November 29, 2004 11:08 AM Title: Surprised?
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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