MOSCOW — Now that 20 years have passed since the Chernobyl tragedy, I would like to express my opinion on certain things. It is very important to assess Chernobyl correctly through the prism of real facts and risks. In many cases, its aftermath was exaggerated hundreds and even thousands of times, and not without a contribution of the press. This had adverse effects because words are a factor that seriously affects people's health. The damage done to the economy and social life in a number of areas was associated with the wrong information and misjudgment.

The medical records of the exposed people do not confirm that Chernobyl had a disastrous effect on their health. Here is an example from the statistics of the Kurchatov Institute Medical Service: All of its 600 research fellows who have regularly visited Chernobyl during these 20 years (and some of whom are still there) have good health records and continue working.

Or take a different aspect: Chernobyl showed that the nation was not ready for a disaster, although a similar case took place before. An explosion followed by radioactive emission occurred at the Chelyabinsk Mayak Chemical Plant in the Urals in 1957. The Soviet authorities instructed to classify all information concerning the accident, including the analysis and conclusions made by the best scientists and experts who had been studying the causes and consequences of the accident at Mayak.

There is one more sad lesson: The priceless Chernobyl experience, which was not classified, proved to be useless anyway. Nobody in the whole world has asked for it, or tried to study. This is very bad because this experience is extremely valuable. It can be used for modeling human conduct in an emergency, or for special training. Regrettably, it is impossible to completely rule out the risk of technological accidents at nuclear power plants, although very much has been done to enhance the safety of atomic power engineering in the years since Chernobyl. Nor can we ignore today's political situation with its real threat of terrorism.

Even in Russia we do not keep the Chernobyl experience at hand, which would be a reasonable thing to do. Only atomic scientists have learned the Chernobyl lessons really well. The RBMK reactors (the first type of the Soviet reactor at nuclear power plants) were immediately upgraded and made safe. They continue working successfully. Hence, it was possible to make them reliable even before the tragedy, but a mistake was made. This was the problem rather than the fault of the then-young nuclear power engineering. For lack of experience, accidents at the first nuclear facilities took place in other countries as well, not just here.

Although nothing is completely failsafe, today we guarantee the safety of reactors. We also guarantee that even if an accident happens by virtue of some incredible reason, it will not lead to evacuation or have any other negative effects on the health and prosperity of the people involved.

In the last 10 years, Russia has not built a single new nuclear power plant but the generation of nuclear energy grew from 12 percent to 17 percent for this period. This growth has been achieved by better control, modernization of nuclear power plants, and a whole number of other factors. Natural resources — oil, gas and coal — are non-renewable, and the world's energy requirements are growing. In this context nuclear power engineering has very good prospects and no real competitors. Further progress is simply impossible without it.

Since the tragic day 20 years ago, the physicists have been trying hard to defeat radio phobia, and prove to the people that atomic power engineering brings light and heat to their homes. Have they done all they could? The drawbacks that this industry had, and some of which were revealed by Chernobyl, have been largely overcome. Nuclear power engineering has evolved incredible safety measures. I'd call some of them even somewhat excessive. In general, the experience amassed today by the physicists and designers, and the high safety standards of nuclear power engineering, guarantee that accidents similar to Chernobyl will never repeat.

The likelihood of serious accidents at nuclear power plants is very low; it is much lower than in mining or the chemical industry, or on regular transport. Our phobia of nuclear power engineering is largely a prejudice.

Yevgeny Velikhov is an academician with the Russian Academy of Sciences and is president of the Kurchatov Institute Russian Research Center. He wrote this for the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti.