ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the Joint US-Russian Electric Power Alternatives Study. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has also dramatically increased its own bilateral efforts, focusing on helping the nations establish a nuclear safety culture based on a strong, independent regulator, in contrast to an approach motivated primarily by considerations of unimpeded energy production. While there are differing points of view about the intrinsic safety of Soviet-designed reactors, in the judgment of many the technical safety of these reactors is not the most serious safety issue facing the people of Russia and Ukraine. Russia needs to privatize the nuclear sector—converting it into stock companies—and provide guarantees to private and foreign investors. Thus, progress on nuclear safety will depend increasingly on economic reforms; on the willingness of western commercial interests to invest in these economies; and on the willingness of the operating organizations of Russian, Ukrainian and certain Eastern European plants to invest in their people.
