Lack of safety features
The situation is grave because, unlike US reactors, they lack essential safety features such as concrete containment domes capable of holding radiation in case of an accident leading to major leaks.
They have potentially fatal deficiencies in the areas of design, equipment and materials.
US inspectors last year visited the plants, however, and gave priority to a series of urgent safety upgrades proposed by Russian experts in order to avert a disaster during the final phase and shutdown of the reactors.
These will be designed and put in place under the authority of the US Energy Department's Pacific Northwest National Lab at a projected cost of US$25 million. Significantly, these upgrades will not extend the life of the reactors.
Russia is also worried by the repercussions of large-scale unemployment among its nuclear specialists. Layoffs on the proposed scale may well pose significant proliferation risks when nuclear weapons scientists and technologists are forced to seek work elsewhere.
Specialists at the plants are promised jobs under a US-financed "nuclear cities" program, which aims to boost job chances for the former Soviet weapons scientists. But tens of thousands of such specialists are already unemployed.
Washington is now considering boosting the scheme by creating jobs in Russia in a bid to head off fishing expeditions by rogue states or terrorist organizations keen to net nuclear expertise from the pool of unemployed Russian scientists.
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