Nuclear power debate 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas, and 8 for nuclear. Nuclear power plant accidents rank first in terms of their economic cost, accounting for 41 percent of all property damage attributed to energy accidents. The Chernobyl steam explosion was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. A steam explosion and graphite fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as
South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant following major upgrade work, unit 1 was given a 10-year license extension, which will take it beyond its original 30-year design lifetime. Similar extensions are planned for units 2 and 3, licensed until 2015 and 2019, respectively. The main supplier of fuel for nuclear power plants in Ukraine has been TVEL, with whom NNEGC signed a contract for the supply of nuclear fuel for Ukrainian WMR in 1997 until 2010. Under a US-Ukrainian initiative to reduce Ukraine's dependency on Russia for fuel, tied to the dismantling of its nuclear weapon arsenal, Energoatom had been using reactor core of unit 3