Just one small comment - the Soviet operators of nuclear plants were actually pretty good. I remember when I was in Kiev in 1994, the people from EDF, who were there on a long term mission to help the Ukrainians improve the safety of their reactors (knowing full well that another accident there would doom the industry in the West) were very impressed by the ability of their counterparts to manage and fine tune their plants. Of course, the problems were that the design was substantially less safe, and that it had little tolerance for human error, but there was still deep admiration for what their colleagues, as individuals, were doing with limited means and constraining designs.
That's not the way to run a nuclear industry, obviously - the problems were systemic, not just some local errors. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But according to Piers Paul Read's book, "Ablaze," which an UNSCEAR scientist told me is quite accurate, outlines the politics that were going on at Chernobyl, and the appointment of the head guy because he was a party functionary whose knowledge of nuclear plants was limited to a single correspondence course. He was an arrogant SOB who ignored the warnings of engineers.Then as the accident was in progress the coverup had already begun. That's what I meant by worst case on the human engineering side.
As you no doubt know, there are still old graphite reactors operating in Bulgaria. A nuclear engineer friend with EDF told me that they are a matter of concern.
All that said, I am glad that the countries of the former Soviet Union continue to use nuclear power and to spare the environment the deadly waste from coal combustion. And I am grateful to EDF for their guidance worldwide. Including in the US.
