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Most of the reactors now in use and under construction are uranium and graphite devices of a type long since phased out in the West. Soviet industry cannot produce more modern pressurized water reactors fast enough. A huge nuclear components plant scheduled for completion at Volgadonsk is far behind schedule and is an obvious source of embarrassment to Soviet power planners.
The Soviets are going nuclear quickly. They now have four pressurized water reactors, with a rated total capacity of 1,440 Mw, on line at Novovoronezh. A fifth, designed to produce 1,000 Mw, is under construction, and several more 1,000-Mw plants are planned.
Also in the works is a major expansion of the breeder reactor program, which has been stalled in the U.S. because of questions about reactor safety and concern over the breeder's role in the production—and proliferation—of plutonium, a highly toxic substance that can be used in weapons. The Soviets have a breeder reactor, which is used both to generate electricity and to desalinate water, on line at the Caspian Sea port of Shevchenko. They have a 600,000-kw breeder under construction near Beloyarsk in the Urals. They plan to build even more of these reactors, which, to the joy of power planners and the dismay of many others, produce more plutonium than they consume. Indeed, Mikhail Troyanov, a well-respected and tough-minded physicist who serves as deputy director of the Obninsk laboratory, predicts that after 1990 breeders will be the backbone of the Soviet energy system. Says he: "I don't see any difficulties in going to plutonium."
In fact, Soviet scientists envision few of the problems that concern even pro-nuclear Americans. Most feel that their present system for handling low-level radioactive wastes provides ample protection. They are cooled off by storage in on-site "swimming pools" for three years, then shipped to a reprocessing plant where their radiation is reduced even further, and finally they are pumped into deep wells. The scientists also insist that their country's method of disposing of highly radioactive wastes, which are also stored underground, is adequate. They figure that Americans worry too much about waste.
Soviet scientists insist that nuclear reactors are safer than other types of power plants and claim that many of the safety devices accepted as essential in the West are unnecessary. Their attitude can be unsettling to those who assume that even the best reactors must be treated with respect. At the Kurchatov, for example, scientists seemed blissfully unconcerned as visiting journalists leaned against flimsy railings to gaze down into an open experimental pool reactor and marvel at the blue radiation glow that emanated from its fuel rods. While the radiation itself was under water and posed no hazard, a dropped camera or notebook, not to mention a reporter who might have fallen into the pool, could have contaminated the reactor and forced its shutdown.
The energy authorities say that the Soviet public shares their confidence in nuclear power. Vitaly K. Sedov, director of the Novovoronezh nuclear power station, even claims with a straight face that his country has never been bothered by anti-nuclear demonstrations like those that have besieged nukes in the U.S.