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Article: As Russia's nuclear power plants deteriorate, a choice looms: Safety or electricity. (Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- June 16, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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KURCHATOV, Russia _ The chief engineer at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant here, Viacheslav Riakhin, has little money to pay his employees, and none to buy parts to keep his four reactors going.
He has been reduced, at times, to bartering with suppliers: electricity for equipment. Mostly, he's running his plant on luck.
A fifth unit was under construction here in 1986 when a reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine exploded, precipitating the deadliest disaster in the history of nuclear power. Construction stopped while the reactor was redesigned. Now, there's no money to finish it.
But there are parts.
``If stuff has to be replaced, we take it out of Unit Five,'' said ...