At its peak in 1982, nuclear power in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

accounted for 6.5% of total

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

consumption and the total nuclear capacity installed was 18 GW. However, nuclear power within the Soviet Union declined severely as a result of the 1986

Chernobyl Disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...

History

The first

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

constructed in the world was the

Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant (russian: Обнинская АЭС, Obninskaja AES; ) was built in the "Science City" of Obninsk, The power plant proved successful in its experiment and four years later, the Siberian Nuclear Power Station with a 100 MWe capacity was installed and subsequently increased to 600 MWe. Following the development, commercial power stations were constructed in Beloyarsk, Novo-Voronezh, Kola, Leningrad, and Armenia. In the year 1960, the Soviet Union had a nuclear power capacity of 605

MWe The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt ...

. By 1975, this capacity was increased to 4.7 GW. At this point, the Soviet Union was committed to developing an aggressive nuclear power program. Throughout the 1970s, approximately 10% of electricity powering the

came from Nuclear Power Plants and predictions made by Deputy Minister of Power Energy aimed an increase by approximately 400-500% by the year 2000. All Soviet power reactors were designed by the

Ministry of Medium Machine Building The Ministry of Medium Machine-Building Industry of the USSR (russian: Министерство среднего машиностроения СССР - Минсредмаш СССР, МСМ СССР) was the government ministry of the Soviet Uni ...

(''Sredmash''), the key Soviet ministry for administering the Soviet

nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

complex from 1953 until 1989 (when it was reorganized into the Ministry of Atomic Energy and Industry of the USSR). The reactors were ordered and administered, however by the

Ministry of Energy and Electrification The Ministry of Energy and Electrification (Minenergo; russian: Министерство энергетики и электрификации СССР) was a government ministry in the Soviet Union. It was the agency responsible for the Soviet Unio ...

(''Minenergo''), which was in charge of power production and plant operation. The differences in institutional culture, priorities, and expertise between these two industries have been argued to be core to understanding the choices made by the Soviet Union in the field of nuclear power, notably in its embrace of the controversial

RBMK The RBMK (russian: реактор большой мощности канальный, РБМК; ''reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalnyy'', "high-power channel-type reactor") is a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor designed and buil ...

reactor design, which was developed with a priority on ease of local construction, economical value, and the possibility (never implemented) for

dual-use In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...

production — with core safety concerns being either de-prioritized or kept secret.

Chernobyl accident of April 26, 1986

On April 26, 1986 an uncontrolled power increase occurred within the core of Reactor No. 4 at the

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP; ; ), is a nuclear power plant undergoing decommissioning. ChNPP is located near the abandoned city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine northwest of the city of Chernobyl, from the Belarus–Ukraine border, ...

causing an explosion within the core that destroyed the reactor itself, and vented radioactive materials into the atmosphere and surrounding environment, causing dozens of immediate deaths related to the containment of the accident, and potentially tens of thousands of later deaths from cancer. The Chernobyl disaster is one of two disasters ranked as a Level 7 on the

International Nuclear Event Scale The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was introduced in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of safety significant information in case of nuclear accidents. The s ...

for the spread of radioactive material and environmental effects, and there are significant areas of Ukraine and Belarus that are still considered contaminated by the accident. Following the 1986 accident, stances on nuclear power changed, especially so in the USSR. The incident highlighted the threat of the country's 24

reactors, which were found to have been created with major operational flaws that cause uncontrollable spikes in energy during a reactor's emergency shutdown procedure. These required re-design or replacement to meet safety standards for operation. The event slowed the nuclear energy program of the Soviet Union, which would not see reinvigoration until after the collapse of the

in 1991.

List of Reactors

References

{{nuclear-power-stub

History

Chernobyl accident of April 26, 1986

List of Reactors

See also

References