Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Chernobyl, from the border of Ukraine and Belarus and about north of Kiev. Construction of the plant and the nearby city of Pripyat, Ukraine to house workers and their families began in 1970, with Reactor N. 1 commissioned in 1977. It was the third nuclear power station in the Soviet Union of the RBMK-type (after Leningrad and Kursk), and the first nuclear power plant on Ukrainian soil. The completion of the first reactor in 1977 was followed by reactor N. 2 (1978), N. 3 (1981), and N. 4 (1983). Two more blocks, numbered 5 and 6, of more or less
Nuclear power power is a safe, sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions. Opponents, such as Greenpeace and NIRS, contend that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. Some accidents have occurred in nuclear power plants. These include the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union in 1986, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, and the more contained Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979. There have also been some nuclear submarine accidents. In terms of lives lost per unit of energy generated, nuclear reactors have caused the lowest number of fatalities per unit