Diplomats generally don't make blanket statements about things like this and governments don't typically issue public denials of their diplomatic statements.

Not a good sign at all. I think it's safe to say that there are some safety issues with the Ukraine nukes. Are their nukes radically different than ours?

France disowns own diplomat on Ukraine Y2K risk PARIS, Aug 4 (Reuters) - France on Wednesday dismissed a warning by one of its own diplomats in Kiev about the hazards posed by the millennium bug in Ukraine, where the world's worst nuclear disaster occurred at Chernobyl in 1986. The French Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesman, Francois Rivasseau, said the warning "does not correspond to the current state of thinking at the ministry". An unnamed French diplomat based in Kiev was reported as saying that French nationals should leave Ukraine before the New Year holidays because of worries tied to potential millennium computer problems. Rivasseau denied that the diplomat had mentioned a risk of a nuclear accident and said the comments had been made in jest and were misinterpreted. Rivasseau said the embassy in Kiev had issued a statement on Wednesday saying there were "no grounds at the moment to issue any security advice whatsoever" to French nationals staying in or travelling to a foreign country around the time of the New Year. Ukraine's nuclear authorities have said the millennium bug will not affect its nuclear plants because of their unsophisticated computer equipment. But independent Ukrainian nuclear power expert Serhiy Parashin has said the plants could be paralysed. [G] [RNP] [FR] [UA] [DIP] [WEU] [EEU] [EUROPE] [Y2K] [POL] [LEN] [RTRS]

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1999

Answers

Jim,

As you know, I am not a nuclear expert, so please correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding, that the main superficial differences betwen the Russian reactor designs and our designs are that their reactors do not have dual containment vessels as ours do, and that the basic engineering design of the control rod systems are different. Our control rods are designed so that the must be physically pushed up against gravity, so that in case of problems, gravity causes them to fall out, thereby stopping the chain reaction and perhaps melt down, whereas theirs must be pulled out, requiring additional energy to stop the chain reaction. There are other major differences such as use of carbon, etc, but in simple design safety components, those two are generally it.

xBob

-- Anonymous, August 05, 1999

Jim and xBob, there is an IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) technical document recently out titled:

The Impact of the year 2000 issue on electricity grid performance and nuclear power plant operation in Bulgaria, the Russian Federation and Slovakia. It's at:

http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/program/y2k/tecdoc1095.pdf

Don't be fooled by the tecdoc number, the report was just issued (July, 1999). While this does not address the Ukraine, if anyone wants to know the situation in some former USSR countries, this document will enlighten you (and probably give you the creeps).

An excerpt: "Thus the sensitivity to the Y2K problem differs from region to region in the Russian Federation and with different interconnections outside of the Russian Federation. It is anticipated that the more modern equipment that is sensitive to the Y2K problem can be fixed relatively easy. The older systems that have outdated hardware and software will require considerable effort to fix. NO TESTING HAS BEEN DONE." [caps mine]

"On conclusion of the inventory, in the first quarter of 1999, a report was provided to the Russian Parliament..." [Yep, they have an inventory now.]

There is also a lot of information via various links at:

http://www.iaea.or.at/ns/nusafe/y2000/y2k.htm

(The January and most recent July, 1999 Workshop and Training Modules links have comments directly from the participants, as well as other good info.)

Then check out the articles in the latest IAEA Bulletin at:

http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/inforesource/bulletin/bull412/index.html

There's one article titled, "How Bad a Bug? Approching Y2K's Eleventh Hour" where the first sentence of the piece is:

"A hope and a prayer always helps in cases like this."

-- Anonymous, August 05, 1999

now we are down to 'hopes and prayers'... isn't that just ducky.

oh, those poor people in all those 'other' countries... thank god, it certainly won't happen *here*; we are 'on top' of it...'they' told us so... we are indeed blessed.

god forbid we should draft a petition to turn off all of our 'safe' nuclear reactors... that is toooooo reactionary.

i know what we can do... let's just sit here and talk about it until it happens!!!

-- Anonymous, August 06, 1999