ClaudioAlmeida

Much has been written about recent social, political and economic changes in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, its impact in the world, and specially in Vienna. I have the advantage of living through this stage of History at the IAEA, and, through my work with the countries of this region, I have been deeply affected by these changes. In this article I would like to share some experiences from a nuclear safety engineer point of view.

My first IAEA assignment, when I was still living in Brazil, was in 1980 on a safety mission to Krsko in former Yugoslavia, (now Slovenia), an Eastern European country about which I new only three facts: the capital was Belgrade, the president was Tito, and they had a nuclear power plant similar to the Brazilian one. Beyond that, I had heard of Yugoslavia as a "communist country," and that was sufficient for a Brazilian, living under a rightist military dictatorship, to be scared to death.

Through this assignment I got to know the head of the IAEA Safety of Nuclear Installation Section (Enzo Iansiti), and in 1983 I joined the section as a computer codes specialist. For the last 13 years I have been working in the Nuclear Safety division of IAEA, in projects related to eastern european countries, and therefore I have had the opportunity to see the changes in the nuclear industry in these countries and their relationship with the international nuclear community from a privileged position. It is this experience that I want to share with you.

To make things easier, I will divide this recollection in periods which correspond to different Historical phases in Europe, which also correspond to different phases of the nuclear industry's relations between east and west.

1983-1986

When I arrived at IAEA in August 1983, a colleague from USA (Lester Epel) had installed in the IAEA computer some western computer codes for the simulation of accidents in nuclear power plants. The idea was to provide a tool for developing member states which were embarking on a nuclear programme and which had no capability to perform the accident analyses that are necessary for the assessment of their plants during the licensing process or plant modifications. Geographical distances limited the use of these codes to countries near Austria, and, therefore, the main users of the codes were Yugoslavia, Hungary and Bulgaria. (Later on former Czechoslovakia and Poland also joined the programme).

Unfortunately Lester left the IAEA a few months before my arrival, and few days after setting my foot in the VIC and trying to understand the (mainframe) computer system, I got the first visit from Hungarian experts to perform calculations for WWER plants with the RELAP (American) computer code.

At this time, exchanges of information between east and west in the field of nuclear safety were basically nonexistent. Relations were based on distrust, boycott and espionage. Because of that, it was a condition of the code developers that the code could only be used on the Agency computer, and the users had no access to the code itself. They could only submit the input data and obtain results. User manuals were made available, but the code source deck and the detailed code structure description were not provided.

Mistrust was a reciprocal feeling. The eastern european specialists would not voluntarily discuss their problems and the objectives of their calculations and would not provide us with plant descriptions that would allow us to understand better what they were calculating. Of course, that made the provision of assistance a difficult task.

With the assistance of computer section personnel (Katty Lewis) I got access to the experts' input decks and, through a cumbersome process of "reverse engineering", started to design the first schematics of a WWER plant from the input data (an inverse process to the one performed during input data preparation).

During this process I found some inconsistency in the data which I could not explain to myself, and I decided to question the Bulgarian specialist, at the time the second group of visitors came to Vienna. To their surprise, I had discovered some error in their input, which were giving them bad results, and which they had been trying to identify for months.

This incident made them realize that an independent check of their calculations and the exchange of information with other groups could be an effective means of improving the quality and reliability of their results. This started the cooperation among code users on WWER data, which was one of the main achievements of the project at that time.

To promote the exchange of information even more, the Agency used to organize meetings of computer code users. The first meeting in which I participated took place in Varna, Bulgaria, in the Summer of 1984. Although it was a relatively small meeting, simultaneous interpretation between English and Russian was provided by the Agency, and 4 interpreters had to be included at a significant cost to the meeting budget. There were some western participants to the meeting, but the majority of participants were from Eastern Europe, including a representative of the former Soviet Union.

Varna is an attractive holiday resort on the shores of the Black Sea, and the meeting took place in the vacation home of the Academy of Science. The town, however, was full of tourists, including a large number of Red Army soldiers stationed in Bulgaria. And one could see on the streets banners and placards saluting "our friendly Soviet brothers".

During a dinner at the meeting I excused myself to go to the washroom and was shown the direction by my counterpart. In the corridor I could find only two doors with what I imagined were the words "Gentlemen" and "Ladies" written in Cyrillic! Since I could not even guess which door I should use, I returned to the table to request the assistance of one of the interpreters. That day I decided that I had to learn some Cyrillic, at least to be able to find a toilet in case I should travel without an interpreter!

Later when the project was reformulated to specifically address the safety of WWER reactors, the meetings became smaller and more like workshops. My first visit to former Czechoslovakia was for one of these meetings. Again I was very apprehensive because of the stories I had heard about repression in Czechoslovakia and the 30 min. check at the Austrian/Czech border. To my surprise, my first activity in Piestany was to participate in a catholic mass upon the invitation of the Polish specialists participating in the meeting.

A workshop in Warsaw included a visit to the Stanislas Kostka church where Father Popieluszko used to preach, and where one could see the Solidarity banner from the back, in the church park, since they were not allowed to exhibit them properly.

In Austria at that time, a favourite day trip I used to make with Brazilian visitors was to go to Morbish, in Burgeland, and drive around the Neusiedler See until the road finished in a barbed wire fence. This view of the physical "iron curtain" was very impressive for any of us living so far from the problems of a divided Europe.

But, 1985 was the year of the rise to power of Michael Gorbachov, and we started to hear about "glasnost" and "perestroika". And exactly in this region of the Austro-Hungarian border did the president of Hungary decide to lift off the "iron curtain" under the quiet eyes of the Soviets. To see this barbed wire transformed into symbolic roses was one of the most impressive sights for me. Since that moment I believed that the "eastern block" as we knew it could not last much longer.

1986-1990

On 26 April 1986, the day of my fortieth birthday, Chernobyl's number 4 reactor exploded. Because the radiation released to the environment could be measured in several western countries, it was difficult to hide the accident, like the Soviets had done with previous radiological accidents in the Urals. However, it is not difficult to imagine the type of information the West would have obtained should the Chernobyl accident have occurred before the time of "glasnost" and Gorbachov.

The accident completely changed the international nuclear community's attitude. The Soviets had to admit the weakness of their nuclear programme and the deficiencies of their reactor designs. The Eastern European importers of Soviet technology realized the implications of the deficiencies which they had already identified. The West came to realize that "a nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere". All realized that the only possible solution to these problems was international cooperation.

The meeting to review the Chernobyl accident, in August 1986, was the biggest technical meeting of the IAEA. The interest of the international community was so great that it required the issuance of special passes even to IAEA staff and the use of the IAEA board rooms with an internal video connection to the UNIDO board room. The documentation brought by the Russians was translated in record time, and the transparencies for the presentations were prepared in a nonstop effort during the weekend. However, in my opinion, the Agency missed the opportunity to provide continuity in the analysis of the accident from the reactor safety point of view. And, once the INSAG meeting report was issued, no additional activity took place in the field of RBMK safety until 1992.

The WWER reactors exported to Eastern Europe, however, became the centre of attention of the international nuclear safety community. This had less to do with the level of safety of the individual design, but was a consequence of the opening which had occurred in the new democracies of Eastern Europe, and the willingness of their specialists and regulators to seek assistance from the Agency and in the West.

During a trip for a project workshop in Budapest in Summer 1989, we drove by several Trabants abandoned in the road by Eastern German drivers who were crossing the Hungarian-Austrian border on foot. Budapest itself was full of East Germans waiting for an official opening of the border which occurred on the 3rd day of the workshop. On our way back to Vienna, we drove by the tents of the Austrian Red Cross and other organizations which were in charge of assisting and processing the welcomed newcomers.

Therefore, when on 11 November 1989, the Berlin wall finally fell, it was not really a big surprise for me.

1990-1996

In the middle of 1990, at the time I was ready to return to Brazil at the end of my seven year contract, the Agency increased enormously its assistance to WWER users, and I was asked to join the newly created Extrabudgetary Project, as one of the few westerners with WWER knowledge. This was a good opportunity to use my knowledge and expand into other areas of WWER design review.

The safety review mission to the Temelin plant, in June 1990 was the first direct interaction with Russian design institutes. The mission had western experts from Westinghouse, Framatome and Siemens, and an invited expert from Kozloduy plant in Bulgaria, Radka Milanova, currently working at Westinghouse. We used to spend the day fighting with the tens of Russian experts and the nights reviewing the results around a wonderful dinner prepared by a Czech chef, specially hired for the mission. The Bulgarian expert would not say a word in front of her Russian colleagues, but, after dinner, over a glass of wine or a hot tea, she would describe the details of the problems they were having in the operation of Kozloduy-4, their first WWER-1000.

A similar mission was organized to the Belene plant, and a complete design review of the old WWER-440/230 was performed in February 1991. The subsequent mission to all WWER 440/230 plants was the main activity of the project in 1991/92. The mission to Bohunice (Czechoslovakia at the time, now Slovak Republic) was uneventful. But the mission to Kozloduy revealed such large deficiencies which led the Agency, for the first time, to warn a Government that it considered it not advisable to continue to operate the plant. This led to an urgent reaction from the international nuclear community, which resulted in the establishment of the European Community assistance programme for Eastern Europe and a prompt WANO on site assistance to Kozloduy.

The mission to Novovoronezh (one-time Soviet Union, now Russia) was much more exciting, but, unfortunately, I did not participate. On the second day of the mission, 19 August 1990, the tentative coup to depose Gorbachov occurred in Moscow. Although our 15 experts were not directly affected, they recount the commotion at the plant with the news, the interpreters crying and the practical suspension of the review work. Fortunately the coup was short lived and 3 days later the experts could report the celebrations of Yeltsin victory over the rebels and the return of Gorbachov to power.

The next mission, to the Kola plant in the Soviet (now Russian) polar region, was just a few weeks later. It included a day tour of Moscow, which did not take us to the Kremlin, but rather to the new attraction in town: the Russian Parliament, the remaining barricades, the place where the only civilian was killed and the discarded remains of the statue of the founder of the KGB.

The transitions in Eastern European countries and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, led to a different list of problems in the nuclear safety area. Lithuania, a small country, inherited the 2 largest reactors of the world, the two 1500 MWe RBMKs at Ignalina. Although the reactor has been derated to 1000 MWe, the country is still struggling to establish an adequate infrastructure.

A similar situation occurred in Ukraine, which now has 5 WWERs and 4 RBMKs in operation and a couple of reactors under construction.

On a smaller scale, but somehow as significant, the newly created Slovak Republic found itself with four operational plants and two under construction, but with most of the regulatory infrastructure remained in the Czech Republic after the separation.

A peculiar situation occurred in Belarus. The country has the largest contaminated area due to the accident at Chernobyl. However, the country cannot benefit from nuclear power, since it has not a single power plant operating in its territory.

In Kasakstan, a sodium cooled fast breeder reactor used for desalination of water and power production is in operation in Aktau (former Sevcenco), while its design basis and operational experience documentation remain in Obninsk (Russia). Fortunately strong cooperation among these countries is being maintained and the flight connections between Aktau and Moscow are easier than the connection between Aktau and the capital Almati.

In the Russian Republic most of the former Soviet Union infrastructure remained, but the administrative chaos resulting from the reform course has created several difficulties for efficient assistance from west.

Still, from my point of view, the main change has occurred in the attitude of the international nuclear community. The boycotts and mistrust of the 1980's have been transformed into a relationship of assistance and cooperation. So many bilateral and multilateral agreements have been established in recent years that the European Community had to create a coordination mechanism and establish a data bank of projects, nowadays containing more than 300 entries.

Regarding the Agency, technical cooperation agreements have been established with all the newly independent countries and cooperation with Russia has increased. The Agency has also reinforced its position as a mechanism for assistance and exchange of information.

As for me, as a simple staff member, I am still watching CNN every night to try and guess how the political and social events of the day will determine my work of tomorrow.

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