In an interview with The Associated Press, Alexander Bolgarov spoke of inexperienced workers, poor oversight and layers of bureaucracy as contributing to a rash of equipment failures that delayed the reactor’s startup.
A US nuclear specialist said the engineer’s account added to concerns about the long-term safety of the power station.
Bolgarov predicted that Iran’s inexperience with nuclear power means it will rely on Russia to operate the reactor for the next five or six years. “They still do not have a nuclear culture necessary to run such a plant,” said the Moscow-trained engineer, who returned home to Lithuania this spring after two years in Iran.
Bolgarov is the first insider to grant an on-the-record interview about the secretive project, built by the Russian company Atomstroyexport and commissioned in a formal ceremony September 13.
In the interview last month in Riga, Latvia, Bolgarov disclosed previously unreported details of glitches that plagued Bushehr as technicians struggled to get it started.
Careless welders failed to flush rusty sludge that was later found in fuel assemblies in the reactor core, he said, and other technicians may have mishandled a test that wrecked one of the plant’s emergency pumps. He also said that the plant shut down in August after bearings on one of its huge turbines malfunctioned.
David Albright, a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, said Bolgarov’s description of construction errors raise questions about Bushehr’s safety. “It’s a little disturbing,” he said, because hidden flaws in the facility could lead to a major accident in five or 10 years.
A 30-year-old German-made emergency cooling pump malfunctioned during testing last winter—a failure that was previously announced by Iran and Russia. Bolgarov said he was never able to determine if a plant technician was monitoring the pump during the test, as required, to ensure the critical piece of machinery worked properly.
After the accident, the plant’s three other old, German-made emergency pumps were examined and found vulnerable to similar problems. Concerned that pieces of the failed pump had contaminated the core, Iranian officials removed Bushehr’s 163 fuel-rod assemblies for examination in February, cleaned out the reactor cooling system, and reinstalled the fuel assemblies in April.
Aware of the challenges Iran faces at Bushehr, Russia has said it will manage the plant for at least two years and possibly as many as five before turning it over to Iran to run.