TEN YEARS AGO: A glimpse of Soviet reality: the disaster's human factor (04/21/96)

TEN YEARS AGO

A glimpse of Soviet reality: the disaster's human factor

The article below was the first post-accident analysis published in The Weekly. It appeared on May 11, 1986.

by David R. Marples

The terse announcement by Radio Moscow (April 28) that there had been a nuclear accident at the Chornobyl atomic energy station in the Ukrainian SSR indicates a mishap of catastrophic proportions. In the past, the Soviet authorities have refused to acknowledge even the chance of an accident in the industry.

As recently as February 1986 Radio Kyiv was extolling the safety mechanisms at Chornobyl, commenting that the surrounding area was so pollution-free that the plant reservoir is even being used for fish breeding. It went on to note that after a quarter of a century of exploitation, "There has not been a single accident at a Soviet nuclear power plant."

The Chornobyl plant is located on the river Prypiat, about 130 kilometers north of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, a city of over 2 million persons. It is one of nine nuclear power plants either in operation or under construction in Ukraine, which is the center of nuclear energy in the European part of the USSR. Commissioned in 1971, the Chornobyl plant reached a capacity of 4,000 megawatts by the end of 1984, making it the largest plant in Ukraine, and one of the four largest in the Soviet Union.

Herein lies one problem. Since the construction of nuclear power plants in the USSR has traditionally fallen behind plan - "We are lagging behind by one year, like students who are behind in studying for their exams," declared a Soviet official this spring - efforts are being made to raise the tempo of construction by inducing workers to greater output, and even competition with other plants.

Two more reactors were scheduled at Chornobyl for the 1986-1990 period, but the first 1,000-megawatt block was supposed to be ready this year, or about 50 percent more quickly than the average time span between blocks officially advocated by the Soviet authorities. According to the Ukrainian newspaper Radianska Ukraina, (December 29, 1985), the Chornobyl plant was "leading the field" in the race to become the largest nuclear plant in the USSR.

The race to complete reactors forms part of the new Soviet plan to double the amount of nuclear-generated electricity in the USSR by 1990. In Ukraine the plan is for nuclear energy to account for 60 percent of electricity by the end of the century (it is currently around 12 percent). But the evidence suggests strongly that the industry is being pushed ahead before the creation of the necessary infrastructure.

In terms of technical personnel, for example, the Soviets have admitted that there is a gross shortage of specialists. The training of qualified cadres specifically for the nuclear energy industry is in its infancy. A faculty of nuclear energy - the first in the USSR - was created at the Odessa Polytechnical Institute only in 1975. A second was opened at Kyiv last year, along with the foundation of an Institute of Nuclear Energy at the Moscow Physical Engineering Institute. In short, only now are suitably qualified persons beginning to emerge in the industry.

It has also been a common practice in Ukraine and elsewhere to employ the services of students to help construct plants during the summer vacations. According to Komsomolskoye Znamia (the Ukrainian newspaper for Young Communists), in the summer of 1985 "bands of students" were working at the Odessa, Rivne, Chornobyl, South Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants in Ukraine. At the same time, Komsomol youth brigades at Chornobyl were declared to be working at 150 percent of the normal rates at the end of 1985. These two factors indicate both the haste of the operations and the disregard for safety shown by the Soviets in a situation when the economy demands that the industry be stepped up.

In February, Radio Moscow criticized workers at the Odessa plant in Ukraine for their failure to keep pace with scheduled plans. On the following day, Radio Kyiv followed suit, this time declaring that the construction of the station at Rivne, in western Ukraine, was taking place "in an unstable fashion." But while pressure has been maintained, workers' needs have been ignored. Late in 1985, Ukrainian party chief Volodymyr Shcherbytsky visited the plant at Zaporizhzhia, pointing out not only that the plant was short of equipment and had failed to recruit the necessary personnel, but also that the local authorities had failed to improve transport, medical and commercial services, and that there were no recreational facilities for workers.

In the event of the possible meltdown of the uranium graphite reactor at Chornobyl - and the strong probability of fatalities at the plant both directly and in the long-term through the effects of radiation - the question has to be raised as to why the Soviets have developed the industry with such speed and with so little concern for the human factor.

Two reasons suggest themselves. In the first place, the USSR is facing an energy crisis. Traditional coal reserves at the old European coalfield in Siberia have fallen behind schedule in addition to necessitating extortionate expenditure on transportation. Current problems in the oil industry have forced Mr. Gorbachev to rely to an increasing extent on nuclear energy as a reliable Soviet power source.

Second, the Ukrainian plants are also being constructed as part of a concerted plan to develop nuclear-generated electricity for the East European countries. For example, the plant being constructed at Khmelnytsky (western Ukraine) is to service Poland and Czecho-Slovakia; the South Ukrainian plant is being funded jointly with Romania and will serve both that country and Bulgaria. Evidently, the Chornobyl plant also was part of this integrated system to supply nuclear power to Eastern Europe. Ukraine's location on the Soviet western borderland renders it an ideal location for such "cooperation."

The Soviets have now paid the penalty for placing economic needs above safety factors. Despite their acclaimed safety record, a smaller accident was reported at the Rivne plant in 1981, but evidently had little impact on the authorities. Two nuclear heating plants under construction at Odessa and Kharkiv appear to be dangerously close to major population centers. And the size of the catastrophe at Chornobyl suggests that the city of Kyiv may be endangered, despite its relative distance from the scene. The accident has not only imperiled human life, however. It has put into question the entire 12th Five-Year Plan for 1986-1990.

The future of the industry in the USSR remains in some doubt.

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