The Children of Chernobyl: Engineers and the Campaign for Safety in Soviet-designed Reactors in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident and the end of the Cold War led to a campaign by the United States and Western Europe to improve the safety of Soviet-designed reactors in the former communist bloc and to close older reactor models that could not be raised to Western safety standards. This article explores how the engineers who collaborated across the former Cold-War divide dealt with reactor safety questions and how their solutions influenced international safety frameworks and national regulatory structures. In particular, it examines the reciprocal influences on Eastern and Western nations that emerged from safety debates among nuclear experts. Engineers in the former Soviet bloc gained critical Western safety knowledge and safety assessment tools. They became more technically capable of ensuring plant safety and protecting national interests. Western experts and their system of safety also changed. Work on exotic Soviet reactors forced them to define clearly their common standards and safety values, and they articulated them in international safety conventions and in guidelines developed by international safety organizations. Chernobyl and the end of the Cold War, then, led to the formation of a global community of experts promoting a common notion of reactor safety and professional values.