[A-List] Russia: The Fruits of Reform

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Russia fears a wave of techno-calamities next year
Dawn ^ | 17 December 2002 | Nick Allen



MOSCOW: It's sure to grab Hollywood moguls searching for a new angle on
mayhem and destruction, and the Russians have kindly given them a working
title: "Problem 2003".

This is the year when many experts predict that dilapidated Soviet-era
industrial machinery, heating systems, communications, gas and oil
pipelines, maybe even nuclear reactors, will finally wear out and start to
break down, plunging the country into an endless cycle of so-called
technogenic disasters.

"In the first nine months of this year the number of industrial accidents
and disasters in Russia rose 33 per cent, and that is an alarming
statistic," Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said recently in an
apparent sign that it's already begun - even if he avoids referring to a
specific crisis in 2003.

While it's acknowledged that the modern age and nature's wrath now produce
an increasing number of disasters globally, the technical variety can arise
at a geometric rate in Russia because of the failure to replace and update
aging resources.

And not just in remote regions overlooked by maintenance and investment
managers. The Moscow Confederation of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs
estimates that 60 to 80 per cent of production equipment in the capital is
worn out, TV-Tsentr television reported.

Meanwhile, 2003 is also the year that Russia's annual foreign debt
repayments total a thumping 15 billion dollars, leaving little over for
modernization or for tackling major accidents that may occur.

As the government also scrabbles to boost defence and security spending as
pledged, savings will be likely made in areas like technical safety,
including nuclear safety projects, ecologists warn.

"Those are usually the first candidates to be deleted as the past 10-year
experience shows," the Norwegian environmental group Bellona said in a
recent report.

Not very reassuring when nuclear power is at stake. Energy policy critics
point to two 20-year-old power stations near the northern city of St.
Petersburg and on the Kola peninsular by Norway which reach the end of their
design lives in 2003 but now look set to keep working.

If experts have pondered the hazards of aging technology for years, fears of
a looming crisis were publicly voiced after a short circuit caused an
inferno in Moscow's Ostankino television tower in August 2000.

Built in the 1960s, the 537-metre structure had no automatic fire-
extinguishing system.

"This new emergency shows the poor state of our essential facilities and the
country as a whole," said President Vladimir Putin. "Only the economic
development of the country can ensure that in future we can avoid such
cataclysms." But for all the grim prognostications, the public is generally
still none the wiser about what to expect. While no one disputes there is a
genuine danger, the time frame of the anticipated breakdowns is a mystery in
itself.

A cute detail Spielberg or Cameron might like to add in the blockbuster is
that the feasible lifespan of many technical components is simply unknown.

Fearful of retribution if their particular element of a system failed or
wore out, Soviet designers often built equipment extra robustly so it would
last way beyond the designated service period.

One example was the Mir space station, scheduled to fly for five years but
which operated three times as long before controllers reluctant burned it up
in the atmosphere in 2001, adamant that it was still good for a few more
years.

So which is it to be for Russia's tired, creaking installations and
equipment - to chug on indefinitely like Mir, or flare and burn like
Ostankino?