While Communist governments reigned in Eastern Europe, Soviet-designed nuclear energy technology was the order of the day.
The VVER plant design--the Soviet equivalent of the West's pressurized water reactor--was exported to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany.
Following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, Western experts--concerned about the widespread use of the VVER technology outside the USSR--took a hard look at the plant's design and operation. What they learned increased their concern.
Three models of the VVER were in operation or under construction in Eastern Europe--the older Model V230 and newer Model V213 of the 440-megawatt design, and a 1000-megawatt model called the VVER-1000.
For an overview of the principal strengths and deficiencies of Soviet-designed plants, see Soviet Nuclear Power Plant Designs.
The countries of Eastern Europe, like the USSR itself, produced studies of the VVER that served as the basis for upgrading the plants to improve their level of safe operation. These countries also explored the impact of quality control, preventive maintenance, operator training and sound management on plant safety. Some progress was made in the years after Chernobyl. But with the domino-like collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989, nuclear safety activities proliferated.
At the time the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, 21 VVER units operated in Eastern Europe. With the exception of one 1000-megawatt unit at Kozloduy in Bulgaria, all were 440-megawatt reactors--14 the older Model V230, and six the newer Model V213.
At the Greifswald plant in former East Germany, the four Model V230 units in operation came under increasing scrutiny after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. West German regulators and the International Atomic Energy Agency cited numerous design and operating problems that compromised safety at Greifswald. Bonn asked Berlin to close two of the units in early 1990. Then, in the wake of German reunification, Bonn closed the two remaining units.
Convinced that backfitting to German safety standards was not economically feasible, the unified German government decided in early 1991 to decommission the four units, close Unit 5, which was undergoing testing at the time, and halt construction on six other units--four VVER-440 Model V213s at Greifswald and two VVER-1000s at Stendal.
In Poland, the only nuclear plant under construction--consisting of four VVER-440 Model V213 units--was canceled in 1990. The project, plagued by stop-and-start construction because of money shortages, labor strife and public protests, was rejected by Gdansk voters in a spring referendum. The Polish Council of Ministers scrubbed the partially built Zarnowiec plant in September 1990.
The four other countries with VVER units--the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria--continue to operate them. Although levels of performance and safety vary from plant to plant, all the units have benefited from the exchange of information and experience--among these countries themselves as well as between them and the West.
Until its collapse, the Soviet Union provided nuclear fuel for Soviet-designed reactors in Eastern Europe, and took back the spent fuel for reprocessing. But the country's disintegration, together with a 1992 environmental law prohibiting the import of nuclear waste into Russia, disrupted the traditional arrangements. Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy has chosen to interpret the law as excluding spent fuel that is imported for reprocessing, negotiating new arrangements with the countries of Eastern Europe for fuel supply and reprocessing at market prices and in hard currency.
In June 1994, however, the lower house of Russia's parliament--the Duma--approved a draft law on handling radioactive waste that prohibited the import of nuclear waste into Russia. In November, the Duma reversed its position and, unable to support a complete ban on imported spent fuel, sent the draft law back to a parliamentary committee for revision.
In September 1995, the Russian government issued a decree stating that all radioactive waste received by Russia must be returned to its country of origin after 20 years. Under this decree, countries shipping spent fuel to Russia would--after 20 years--presumably either have to take back the fuel, if Russia were unable to reprocess it, or accept the waste, if Russia did reprocess the spent fuel.
Russia's new law on nuclear energy, signed by President Yeltsin in November 1995, codifies the Ministry of Atomic Energy's current practice of circumventing existing environmental legislation by defining spent fuel as a raw material. In late December 1995, Yeltsin reportedly vetoed a nuclear waste law approved by both houses of the Russian Parliament that would ban the import of spent fuel by defining it as waste, not a raw material.
WANO Exchanges. Under the auspices of the World Association of Nuclear Operators, chartered in May 1989, managers or chief engineers from every nuclear plant in Eastern Europe have visited Western plants to observe operating approaches and have hosted visits by personnel from Western plants.
IAEA Missions. Hungary was the first Eastern European country to ask, in 1988, that an International Atomic Energy Agency mission review operational safety practices at its nuclear plant. Since then, at the request of each country, the IAEA has reviewed safety practices, operating history and incident prevention at all operating nuclear plants in Eastern Europe.
VVER Regulators' Association. At the initiative of Bulgaria's regulatory agency, the Association of State Nuclear Regulatory Bodies of Countries Running VVER-Type Reactors was launched in December 1993. The association--which seeks to improve the safety of VVER reactors by cooperating in the development of regulatory policy and safety requirements--held its first meeting in Budapest in May 1994. Representatives of regulatory agencies in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Russia, the Slovak Republic and Ukraine attended, as well as observers from the IAEA, the G-24's Nuclear Safety Committee, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Germany's GRS.
Connecting Eastern and Western Grids. The utilities of the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and Poland created their own grid network--Centrel--in 1992, and in 1993 cut themselves off from the former Soviet network. Centrel's goal is to link up with UCPTE, the West European grid. But before it can do that, it must demonstrate the ability to operate autonomously without compromising customer supply. Integration is expected before the end of the decade.
December 1995
