Word: chernobyls
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Publicly, however, Moscow describes its nuclear generators as thoroughly up < to date. In an article on Chernobyl in the February 1986 issue of Soviet Life, an English-language publication, Ukrainian Power Minister Vitali Sklyarov boasted that "the odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years." In any case, he added, "the environment is also securely protected...
...recent article in another Soviet publication revealed local worries about safety at Chernobyl. A story printed a month or so ago in Literaturna Ukraina, a Kiev publication, attacked shoddy building practices and workmanship at the power station. Writer Lyubov Kovalevska, who lives near the facility, noted "deficiencies" in the quality of construction and demanded that "each cubic meter of reinforced concrete must guarantee reliability and, thus, safety." The article's headline: "It Is Not a Private Matter...
Following the Chernobyl accident, the Soviet Union reportedly closed all reactors that were built with the same design, a total of some 20 units that produce an estimated 5% of the country's electricity supply. Nonetheless, the Soviets seem certain to press ahead with their ambitious program of nuclear construction. Gorbachev has made atomic energy, which provides 11% of the country's power, a cornerstone of his drive to double the size of the Soviet economy by the year 2000. Thirty-four new nuclear plants are under construction. The plants are needed all the more because Soviet oil reserves...
Outside the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl meltdown is likely to cast a long global shadow. "Chernobyl will reanimate the entire nuclear debate in Western Europe," said Thomas Roser of Bonn's Atomforum. "All the people who object to nuclear power will have this week's disaster as a symbol...
...clearly spoiling for a fight. That is nowhere more true than in West Germany, where confrontations between protesters and police have long been common. Says Dieter Kersting, a leading opponent of plans to build a fuel-reprocessing facility in a forest clearing near the Bavarian town of Wackersdorf: "The Chernobyl catastrophe clearly strengthens our position." Noting that officials have consistently called the chances of a meltdown virtually nil, Kersting added, "Who can believe those assertions...