TV Channel One (Russia)//

V.POZNER: The Pozner show is on air. The show's guest today... It's hard to find more proper and fit one. This is head of Rosatom Sergey Kirienko. Good evening, Sergey Vladilenovich, thank you for coming.

S.KIRIENKO: Good evening, Vladimir Vladimirovich.

V.POZNER: Perhaps you know that having introduced our guest we usually ask questions sent by our viewers to Channel One website. There were many of questions. And as you understand, all of them were of nearly the same content, though differently worded. Therefore, I would like to say to our viewers: don't feel hurt, but I haven't taken any of your questions with me because all of them are in the script I devised for myself and which now will be followed. A year ago you said as follows: "A renaissance is ongoing in the civil nuclear power." Given what is going on in Japan, what has occurred and is occurring, is this word still appropriate?

S.KIRIENKO: Not so unambiguous already. I think it's rather not. Though, if this word is replaced with "the inevitable development of nuclear power", I will keep on this position and I think that in spite of the tragic events happened in Japan, nuclear power development in the world is inevitable.

V.POZNER: What did you mean when you said "the renaissance?"

S.KIRIENKO: It's not me who has used the word first; I am not to assume the authorship. It's rather a sense of order of the day. Because, by the middle of last year, everyone, who did not use nuclear power, was striving to build a nuclear power plant immediately. At times, I even had a question on whether each of those countries who declared that really needed it? But this was a sense of order of the day that it was necessary not only from the standpoint of the power generation development, but also from the standpoint of conditions of the sustainable development. I think, now this order of the day has expired.

V.POZNER: I see. All our viewers, especially those who live in our Far East, of cause, are expecting me to ask one question regarding their safety or non-safety, and I will ask this question, certainly. But still before this I want to ask you about the following thing. So you have an aikido black belt. And generally, these Oriental martial arts, they are not only and not so much power, but take account of some other things and, on the whole, are linked to psychology, moods and so on and forth. And they were invented by the Japanese to a greater extent, though not only by them. What is your assessment of spirit, behavior of the Japanese after all things that have happened to them, starting from the earthquake and tsunami, and the accident at the nuclear power plant?

S.KIRIENKO: It inspires the greatest respect with me. I can't say surprise, because I really know the Japanese and Japanese culture rather well and I expected something like this. This is the nation that was becoming in conditions of a permanent threat from the environment. In other words, they live on the land that is of little use for humans to live; external aggressive phenomena constantly happen there - earthquakes, tsunami - which constantly threaten life. The nation has become with this. By the way, I believe the Japanese martial arts philosophy is in fact based on this in many respects, since the aikido also is based on the principle that says you must use external energy, must be able to feel this energy, you must not try using your own force against it end on but you must unite with it and try to control it. This is how the Japanese feel about environment. There is resignation, if you like. They understand that this is inevitable; they cannot change nature of their country; and they are not going to leave it. But on the other hand, what induces colossal respect in me is courage and a feeling of national unity. Because the way they act, how they help each other... I even don't speak about technologies; just see they repaired roads within six days. It is hardly to understand how it can be done, but it's technology. There, prices did not spike in stores, and no one try to cash on someone's misfortune. There is no marauding at all, not a single fact, is it? I feel colossal respect towards that country. There is something to learn from.

V.POZNER: Yes, I absolutely agree with you. By the way, I wanted to ask you what one should learn from this nation. You have already said everything. You mentioned the word "technology", building the roads. Starting from the post-war time Japan has been considered a number one country of cutting-edge technologies. And in instance we get to know that the Japanese asked Germany for robots for remote operation in the reactor. What is one to make of this? It means, maybe, we are mistaken about their advanced cutting-edge technology? Why do they turn to Germany? Unexpectedly. For me, at least.

S.KIRIENKO: No, it's not unexpectedly. I still believe that the Japanese are one of advanced nations in terms of technologies. The issue is what technologies. Nuclear technologies are a rather close club, which is certainly built up on weapons programs; all nuclear technologies emerge as a supplement to weapons programs. And this is a club which is very hard to get in. It is not only the money issue which you are ready to spend for this. This is the issue of an entire generation of specialists who must be brought up. Let's be realists: the Japanese have never been an advanced nation in nuclear technology. The Japan's nuclear technologies have been borrowed, as many others. They are perfect in adapting foreign technologies; they are able to develop them. But Fukushima nuclear power plant where all these events happened was designed by the American specialists. It is General Electric, but the Japanese just borrowed the technology. Because the Japanese have never been most advanced in nuclear in the world, though they have been able to do a lot, that's true.

V.POZNER: Did you mean that when you said that the Japanese specialists who work at this nuclear power plant at Fukushima were lacking of "fundamental, deep knowledge?"

S.KIRIENKO: I did not say that. I was understood that way, and perhaps, correctly. I was saying a somewhat different thing. I was saying not only about specialists of this plant. Though, you know, I try not to say criticism now. The people are doing their outmost and today, in my view, they are doing right. They missed only first several days; today, they are doing everything possible and our task is to help them today, not to criticize. A debriefing will be later.

But speaking about fundamental knowledge, I rather say the following. Pursuing energy sources, mankind starts working with ever more high powers of nature. And most important thing is respect towards these powers of nature. In other words, the higher power of nature you engage, the more respect you must show to it. When do problems in high-tech industries arise? When there is a feeling that everything is very easy and can be described by procedures and a person who works with such powers does not need some basic knowledge, he may be given a procedure instead: "Step one, step two, step three." No way. Not with these powers. Conclusions are yet to be drawn out, but, perhaps, one of the problems for the TEPCO, which was operating these nuclear power plants, is that it is not a specialized nuclear utility; it's a company which is engaged in power generation in general: it operates thermal plants, nuclear plants, and they pursue a uniform logic to operate them. In a normal situation, given especially the Japanese discipline,
procedures are a perfect fit. Procedures do not always work in extreme situations.

V.POZNER: Today is 27-th of March and on April 26 the will commemorate the 25-th anniversary of the accident at Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Since that time the expression "Chernobyl lessons" have appeared. So can be said that the Japanese haven't learned these lessons? And maybe they are paying for this? Or maybe not? Means, they failed to learn something, from the Russian experience?

S.KIRIENKO: Still, let's start from the fact that Fukushima nuclear power plant was built in 1971. It first reactor came on in 1971, while Chernobyl happened in 1986. They couldn't take account of Chernobyl in design and construction of this plant; therefore, neither General Electric, which designed it nor the Japanese who built it did not take account of the Chernobyl experience, and it couldn't be otherwise. This is the first answer.

The second answer. Regretfully, the history of mankind is such that we always learn better from our own mistakes. Certainly, greatest lessons of Chernobyl were learned exactly by the Russian nuclear power. Nobody has done what we have done rebuilding the system technology and introducing changes of that scale and extent.

And thirdly, one cannot directly parallel Chernobyl and Fukushima. I even don't mean consequences (they are not comparable), I mean the cause. Chernobyl is a human error. What is the main lesson of Chernobyl? The main lesson of Chernobyl (we tackled on this already) is when man starts being disdainful towards powers of nature he employs, the nature punish him. Chernobyl is a human error. At some point of time, man felt everything was so simple that he can deviate from apparent truths.

What was done? What was the main lesson of Chernobyl? Nuclear power plants have to be protected from a human error. There are only two solutions. Multiply redundant automation has come in; all our plants are fitted with four independent automation systems and man can't interfere with them - they can't be switched off, unkeyed. It was in Chernobyl. And secondly, these are so-called passive safety systems which do not depend either on man or electricity or timely turned switch or pushed button. I will give you an example: at Fukushima the rods which shutdown the reactor are in the bottom part and electricity or operation of mechanical systems is needed to introduce them. And what if they fail? After Chernobyl, at all our reactors the control and protection rods are on the top and are hanging on electric magnets. Power is lost... they drop without any action, even if a man will not push buttons. Certainly, these lessons were not learned there [at Fukushima].

But the most important thing I would like to tell about, Vladimir Vladimirovich. I understand that in the context of the tragedy that is
unfolding, these words may be perceived in a strange way sometimes. But it's a frank judgment. Fukushima is an old, 40-year old plant, has demonstrated a fantastic reliability. If we look at the current picture in Japan, everything is ruined but the plant is still there. Let's judge correctly. The nuclear power plant has withstood a magnitude 9, maximum possible earthquake. And withstood it in a routine, prescribe way. In spite of the fact that its control rods are in the bottom, they were inserted in the core and the reactor was shut down and the plant operated under a magnitude 9 earthquake. Nothing withstood: oil refineries were set on fire and exploded, chemical facilities collapsed with hundreds of dead people. The nuclear power plant withstood. Then, electricity was lost. The nuclear power plant withstood. This 40-year old plant without Chernobyl lessons leant. One hour after emergency diesels turned on and it operated quite normally.

What is the main problem, and what is a mistake of designers and builders of the nuclear power plant we can speak of? They did not provide for a simultaneous impact of an earthquake and tsunami. It would have withstood them all, separately. The tsunami came an hour later; much severe that safe shutdown tsunami (certainly, it's also a mistake). Again, what did the tsunami destroy? The tsunami did not destroy the nuclear power plant. The tsunami destroyed the water intake system, a very simple engineering system which had not been designed for a wave of that size. Further, the whole thing aggravated: the water intake is destroyed, cold water is not supplied to the nuclear power plant, so overheating starts.

In terms of independent safety systems, the solution is quite clear, technically. It means just that the problem was that all these water intake systems were redundant... The specialists have a notion: common cause. In other words, they could fail due to a common cause. One wave destroyed all water intake systems. This means a design error (this is also a lesson we learned from Chernobyl) that prompts to have one more water intake system which cannot be destroyed due the same cause which disrupted water supply to diesel generators.

V.POZNER: Since we are talking about technical things... If I understand correctly, a service life of reactors at nuclear power plants is 20-30 years. Is this true?

S.KIRIENKO: Design service life of the first reactors was always 30 years and now it is 60 years.

V.POZNER: It means that at Leningrad NPP this service life has ended. It has been extended, if I'm not mistaken, for 15 more years.

S.KIRIENKO: НIt is not so. How the life extension is done? What is the service life in general? When the first nuclear power plants were designed, nobody knew how long they would work. It depends on what would happen with metal. The main task is to retain the colossal energy inside the reactor vessel. Therefore, at that time specialists were not able to calculate how long this metal would withstand that neutron flux. So what did they do? The said: "We guarantee 30 years for sure, therefore, let's put it [in design] the 30 years, so far." Further on, there are special inserts in the pressure vessel; just a metal bar is inserted in the pressure vessel. It is taken out and inspected for metal conditions at a certain frequency during outages. If metal is reliable, one can speak of life extension.

What is done in this regard? It's an essential thing. First, they never extend for 15 years. By the way, we cannot make a life extension decision. One of Chernobyl lessons is that an entirely independent system of control has been created; this is Rostechnadzor of Russia which is directly subordinate to the Government. And an operating permit and permits for any changes are given solely by this entity. So the body grants this license as follows. They say: "You have proved these 15 years to me, but I will give a 3- or 5-year permit. In 3 years you'll come back and demonstrate the safety again. And only in this case I will grant you another three years." Thereat, there is the second condition, which is also essential. If a nuclear power plant was built, for example, in 1980 and applies for life extension in 2010, the extension would be granted only is it is brought up to the 2010 standards by modernization. Not to the standards which applied at the time of its construction.

As to Leningrad NPP, when it was built... There is probability logic in nuclear power; in other words, there should be protection against any event, which probability is... At that time, it was once in thousand years, ten in the power of minus three. Today, Leningrad NPP's reliability is two orders of magnitude higher. In other words, it is protected against any events which may occur with a probability of once in one hundred thousand years. And again, the Fukushima lesson. If Chernobyl was a human error, the Fukushima lesson is as follows. As regards operability of nuclear power plants, economics, technology, mankind has the right of employing the probabilistic approach and say that if an event could occur in less than once in million years, it can be neglected. It's true for economy, but not for the people's safety.

Most important lesson which mankind and nuclear power should learn in the first place is that we must design our facilities so that the people's safety (and safety means that a threat of radiation release off-site the plant itself) must be guaranteed even if a probability of the event is less than once in a million of years or ten millions of years. This is the most important lesson that must be leant.

V.POZNER: Well, people's safety. We are approaching the question an answer to that is waited by many people and the answer "you should not fear" is anticipatorily rejected. I don't know why, but people are like that: "Since we are told that everything is alright, it means that something is wrong, for sure." I will ask it after the ads break. Let's wait until then.