Book ID: CBB001510002

Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry (2015)

unapi

Schmid, Sonja D. (Author)


The MIT Press


Publication Date: 2015
Edition Details: Book Series: Inside Technology
Physical Details: xxxi + 362 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

The Chernobyl disaster has been variously ascribed to human error, reactor design flaws, and industry mismanagement. Six former Chernobyl employees were convicted of criminal negligence; they defended themselves by pointing to reactor design issues. Other observers blamed the Soviet style of ideologically driven economic and industrial management. In Producing Power, Sonja Schmid draws on interviews with veterans of the Soviet nuclear industry and extensive research in Russian archives as she examines these alternate accounts. Rather than pursue one “definitive” explanation, she investigates how each of these narratives makes sense in its own way and demonstrates that each implies adherence to a particular set of ideas---about high-risk technologies, human-machine interactions, organizational methods for ensuring safety and productivity, and even about the legitimacy of the Soviet state. She also shows how these attitudes shaped, and were shaped by, the Soviet nuclear industry from its very beginnings. Schmid explains that Soviet experts established nuclear power as a driving force of social, not just technical, progress. She examines the Soviet nuclear industry's dual origins in weapons and electrification programs, and she traces the emergence of nuclear power experts as a professional community. Schmid also fundamentally reassesses the design choices for nuclear power reactors in the shadow of the Cold War's arms race. Schmid's account helps us understand how and why a complex sociotechnical system broke down. Chernobyl, while unique and specific to the Soviet experience, can also provide valuable lessons for contemporary nuclear projects.

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Reviewed By

Review Alex Wellerstein (2017) Review of "Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 229-230). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001510002/

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Authors & Contributors
Sidorenko, Viktor
Schmid, Sonja D.
Kuchinskaya, Olga
Eckart Conze
Tanja Penter
Dunlap, Christopher Thomas
Concepts
Nuclear industry
Nuclear power stations
Nuclear power; atomic energy
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Technology
Cold War
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
Soviet Union
United States
Russia
Japan
Belarus
Saudi Arabia
Institutions
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968)
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