Summary

Chapter Four, “Secrets of the Peaceful Atom,” describes the history of Soviet nuclear energy, comparing and contrasting it with its Western counterparts. It is not a comprehensive history, but rather highlights some of the important events that would lead directly to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The RMBK, the type of nuclear reactor used in Russian, won out over a few other safer, more efficient designs because it was cheaper and faster to build. Its flaws were known but dismissed or concealed from the beginning, and even some of its safety measures removed in order to meet the USSR’s growing needs for electricity. Because it combined the graphite model used in the UK with the water and steam model used in the US, it contained the instabilities of both and the fail-safes of neither. Major disasters at nuclear power plants like...