Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes
For the first time ever, we have confronted in reality the sinister power of uncontrolled nuclear energy.
Gorbachev, Mikhail. Address on Soviet Television. 14 May 1986, Moscow.
There had been so much nuclear activity—military and civilian—that he thought it inevitable, either by intention or accident, that there would be some catastrophes. Chernobyl and the crash of a nuclear bomb equipped plane in Spain destroyed the two areas for years thereafter proved him prescient but fortunately none of the “incidents” were bad enough to affect millions of people significantly although the damage of Chernobyl is still being discovered.
Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine was not only an expert in nuclear reactors and power, but he was known as a safety perfectionist with a safety record in the Navy that is still marveled at. President Carter, as a naval officer, had worked for Rickover and himself was technologically knowledgeable about nuclear power. He asked his old mentor to chair the investigating the Three Mile Island incident. Rickover actually recommended to the President that much of the report be secret, assuming that reform would take place quickly if the nuclear power industry were not killed by the damning expose of inept personnel and the lack of safety processes with a very dangerous process. However, few reforms were made nationally, and Rickover, 6 years later, grew to regret his recommendation for secrecy.
Corporations in the nuclear business argue that Nuclear power is less expensive than otehr forns of ower that are in common use. However, when a nation adds the huge cost of maintianing a scientific infrastructure to inspect and regulate the nuclear power plants, and the costof establishing the contingency capability of popularion evacuation and containment when there is a nuclear accident, and then the cost of safely stopring and containing the spent but deadly radioactive fuel, the incredibly high cost of insurance, then it is clear that nuclear power is the most expensive form of power. However, some countries do it better than others with France being the only country at the beginning of the 21st century that operated nuclear power safely and efficiently. The United States, Russia and Japan had huge costs
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a Russian and former Soviet politician. The eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, he was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was also the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, although he had moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.
