Nuclear power industry of the USSR Far East: plans and problems of creating an industry

Introduction. The article discusses the plans and identifies the problems of creating a nuclear power industry in the Far East of the USSR in 1960-1991, reveals the historical reasons for the development of regional projects of nuclear power plants, and determines the conditions for their implementation. Materials and Methods. The study is based on a corpus of unpublished sources, including declassified documents found in federal and regional archives. The study uses a state-centered and regional approach, as well as traditional historical and historical-economic methods. Results. Planning for the creation of a nuclear power industry in the Far East began in the late 1950s - early 1960s during the preparation of long-term plans for the economic development of the region. In 1966-1976 the first experimental low-power nuclear power plant - Bilibino NPP in Chukotka was built. Since the early 1970s projects of two large nuclear power plants were developed, in the mid-1980s the USSR government included them in the programs of economic development of the region. Discussion and Conclusion. There were no conditions for the creation of a nuclear power industry in the Far East, when the USSR economy was in crisis. Problems such as the weak construction industry of the Ministry of Energy of the USSR, the material and technical insecurity and underfunding of the facilities it built, the shortage of labor resources and qualified personnel, did not allow the construction of nuclear power plants in the Far East to be launched. In the late 1980s the Far Eastern public after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant negatively perceived such projects. With the collapse of the USSR and the fall of the regional industrial complex, the problem of an acute shortage of energy resources that regional nuclear power plants had to solve was smoothed out. At present, there is no such problem in the energy supply of the Far East.