This report examines the nuclear power system in Russia, in which government remains determined to pursue development of needed energy sources via nuclear power plant construction. However, the literature reveals that prior to the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the region's operating nuclear power plant facilities were largely unsafe, poorly maintained, and operated unprofessionally. Poor waste disposal, dumping of wastes on open land, and numerous accidents or other hazardous incidents characterized the Soviet supervisory regime; these same behaviors have continued in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, leaving the entire nuclear power infrastructure vulnerable to further dangerous meltdowns.
The Russians are, however, actively engaged in developing or planning to develop a series of new nuclear power facilities located in close proximity to major population centers where electrical energy is most desperately needed for industrial, commercial and residential use. Some regulatory and other efforts are being created to prevent a repetition of the Chernobyl meltdown and other "incidents" and "accidents" that have typically characterized the sector. The report presents statistics on nuclear power facilities and development plans.
Political and economic upheavals over the past decade have weakened the ability of the Soviet successor states to monitor and control their potentially dangerous nuclear assets, assets that include completed weapons and other nuclear materials, as well as nuclear power plants (Lee, 2003). A strong theoretical possibility exists, according to Lee (20030, that nuclear materials and even complete weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could be removed from insecure stockpiles, trafficked abroad, and sold to virulently anti-Western states and groups. Additionally, in the case of nuclear power facilities developed and operated to produce inexpensive and much-needed energy resources, the potential f...