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why on earth did they build the RBMK

Page history last edited by Andrew Alder 3 years, 6 months ago

A page of energy issues and see also why on earth did they build the BWR

 

 

 

So I asked my friend, where is this black smoke coming from? - Jimi Hendrix, House Burning Down

 

As everyone here probably knows, in 1986 a nuclear power reactor at Chernobyl in the then Soviet Union exploded in the first catastrophe that the nuclear power industry had suffered.

 

What many do not know is that the Western nuclear industry had condemned the design as inherently unsafe and irresponsible even before it was built. See Bombs Wastes and Accidents and scroll down to Chernobyl

 

(And I suspect that they don't know either that RBMKs are still operating... the oldest design of power reactor still in operation... and that some will not shut down until 2030 or later on current plans.)

 

So why was it built?

 

Two answers, and they can both be summarised as money.

 

All other water cooled power reactor types use some sort of special nuclear material... separated isotopes such as enriched Uranium or heavy water, or artificial Plutonium produced in another reactor. And these are all expensive. As is gas or liquid metal cooling.

 

Wouldn't it be nice to make a water cooled power reactor using natural uranium fuel and a graphite moderator? Well, that design is possible, but it has some drawbacks. It's inherently unstable. But the Soviets thought they were clever enough to live with this.

 

In fact the RBMK didn't just burn natural Uranium, it was able to be fueled with spent fuel from the Soviet PWR program. Even cheaper, and even less stable. They now use enriched fuel, which makes the reactor more stable, but also more expensive to run.

 

The other money question has to do with Marxism. Even using natural Uranium fuel, the RBMK was cheap to run; Using recycled PWR fuel it was even cheaper as noted above. It was expensive to build, but in a Marxist economy, capital and income are not interchangeable as they are in the West. This was also a factor.

 

And of course the result was ka-boom.

 

And the other related question, and equally painful, is: Why did the environmental industry breathe not a word of criticism of the design until after the disaster?

 

At least part of the answer is that the Western anti-nuclear industry in its early days had two under-the-table supporters (and possibly financial sponsors)... Big Coal, and the Soviet Union. 

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