Soviet’s Scrap a New Atomic Plant In Face of Protest Over Chernobyl. By Bill Keller
The public outpour against nuclear energy after the Chernobyl reactor disaster prompted the Soviet authorities to abandon plans to build a nuclear power plant in the Black Sea region. The disaster fuels anti-nuclear demonstrations in other parts of the world and Soviet attempts to reassure an increasingly skeptical population about plans to double atomic energy by the year 2000.
According to the authorities in the Soviet Union, the protests against the scrapped Krasnodar nuclear power plant was not official but rather an unofficial underground movement. It was leaked to a German environmental magazine that the protest had blocked plans for two new plants in and around Minsk and Odessa. However, the official statement was that such was not the case and should it have been it would have been announced. Officials subsequently obliged the protesters and scrapped the plans for the Krasnodar plant. Such actions by the ruling population were never experienced before and fears arose that other projects would be threatened in the same way.
Prior to Chernobyl, atomic energy was considered profitable, however, the events that took place not only preempted Soviet plans but also raise public advocacy against nuclear power in other European states and the United States in their respective countries. The Soviet on the other hand was determined to move forward with their energy expansion plans first by changing safety standards and procedures, secondly reassuring the citizens that all other reactors were safe and the model and type of reactor at the Chernobyl plant would not be used in future plants.
Summary by Shaun Liu