Problems
Among the catastrophes was the Kraton-3 explosion in Vilyuy, Yakutia in 1978, that was supposed to unearth diamond-rich ores. Instead, the amount of diamonds was insignificant but the plutonium pollution of water was much higher than predicted. According to Yablokov, the level of plutonium in the drinking water of Vilyuy region 20 years after the explosion is ten thousand times higher than the maximal sanitary norm.
Another catastrophe resulted from the Globus-1 explosion near the village of Galkino, 40 kilometers from Kineshma city on September 19, 1971. It was a small underground explosion of 2.5 kilotons that was a part of the seismological program for oil and gas exploration. Unexpectedly a large amount of radioactive gases escaped through cracks in the ground, creating a significant radioactive spot two kilometers in diameter in the relatively densely populated area of European Russia. A small tributary of the Volga, the Shacha, changed its location and threatened to flood the explosion site. This could have led to nuclear pollution of the entire Volga region. Some engineers suggested building a sarcophagus (similar to the Chernobyl's "Object Shelter") covering the site, and excavating a 12 km channel to shift the Shacha river away from the place of the explosion, but the plans appeared prohibitively expensive.
The experiments ended with the adoption of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing at Soviet sites in 1989. Although this primarily was designed to support Mikhail Gorbachev's call for a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons tests, the Russians apparently applied the moratorium to peaceful nuclear explosions as well.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Explosions For The National Economy
Famous quotes containing the word problems:
“All problems are finally scientific problems.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“There is an enormous chasm between the relatively rich and powerful people who make decisions in government, business, and finance and our poorer neighbors who must depend on these decisions to alleviate the problems caused by their lack of power and influence.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“While the onset of puberty can vary by as much as six years, every adolescent wants to be right on the 50-yard line, right in the middle of the field. One is always too tall, too short, too thin, too fat, too hairy, too clear-skinned, too early, too late. Understandably, problems of self-image are rampant.”
—Joan Lipsitz (20th century)