History
The RBMK was the culmination of the Soviet nuclear power program to produce a water-cooled power reactor based on their graphite-moderated plutonium production military reactors. The first of these, AM-1 ("Атом Мирный", Atom Mirny, Russian for "peaceful atom") produced 5 MW of electricity (30 MW thermal) and delivered power to Obninsk from 1954 until 1959.
By using a minimalist design that used regular (light) water for cooling and graphite for moderation, it was possible to use natural uranium for fuel (instead of the considerably more expensive enriched uranium). This allowed for an extraordinarily large and powerful reactor that was also cheap enough to be built in large numbers and simple enough to be maintained and operated by local personnel. For example, the RBMK reactors at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania were rated at 1500 MWe each, a very large size for the time and even for today.
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