CHERNOBYL TO CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR SOVIET ELECTRICITY
The Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster
has left Soviet plans to extend nuclear power stations
unchanged, but will in the long run cause major problems for
the electricity industry, a Western expert said.
    West German economics researcher Jochen Bethkenhagen, in a
report presented to a NATO economics seminar, said increased
targets for Soviet nuclear energy output showed the April,
1986, disaster had not caused any change in Moscow's energy
policy.
    But the accident was expected to prompt design changes in
future Soviet power stations to "exclude manipulations of safety
equipment" of the sort that occurred at Chernobyl, he said.
    This will presumably result in substantial delays in the
completion of reactor blocks and in stricter quality controls
during the construction of nuclear power stations, he said.
    Bethkenhagen said the Chernobyl accident was also likely to
have frustrated for a long time Soviet hopes of exports of
nuclear power stations to countries outside the Comecon bloc.
    "It is also doubtful that the talks with China, Syria, Libya
and Iraq with regard to Soviet deliveries in the next few years
will have positive results," he said.
    The meeting heard views of academics and Kremlin-watchers
on the impact of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on energy
policy.
    Several participants today argued that Gorbachev was
unlikely to extend his internal economic policies to the energy
sector, at least for now.
    Bethkenhagen said high energy growth targets set by the
Soviet Union up to the end of the decade showed Moscow intended
to stick to a rigid supply-, rather than demand-oriented
policy.
    Norwegian academics Arild Moe and Helge Ole Bergesen said
that the Soviet fuel industries represented such a pillar of
the economy that immediate reform was tricky. "Any 'experiment'
on a large scale cannot be allowed, because the negative
consequences if a reform backfires will be too great," they
said.
 REUTER
