And now for something a bit different... Russia.

According to the World Nuclear Association, Russia began researching the properties of radioactive materials in the early 20th century and commissioned and built the 5MWe Obninsk reactor — the first of its kind and the first to function as a power source — in 1954. These were followed by several more, until the country had 25 nuclear reactors powering the nation when the Chernobyl incident happened in 1986.

Although Russia currently has 32 nuclear reactors in commission, not everyone agrees with the idea of powering the country with a source of energy that caused an unspeakable, nearly immeasurable amount of damage almost three decades ago. Others argue that it is necessary to power a country of Russia's size and population. It's important to note that the country is currently attempting to curb its nuclear reliance by building hydroelectric plants in order to balance out the power sources.

Statistics provided by Europe's Energy Portal state that in 2009, the Russian Federation used 135 Terawatt-hours of nuclear energy, which places them fifth on the list of countries' nuclear consumption amounts. The amount of power Russia managed to generate in 2009 — roughly 149 Terawatt-hours — makes the country pretty much break even in terms of their energy production and consumption ratio.

An April article from The Telegraph summarises the opinions of both leading specialists and general non-involved parties about whether Russia has become too reliant on nuclear energy. In this article, we learn that Russia has a) devised and passed a plan to build 20 more nuclear reactors and somewhat paradoxically, also b) plans to cut down on its nuclear energy reliance within a couple of months. This idea is directly reflected in the fact that, when polled, nuclear power is the best alternative when compared to hydropower or gas. Along these same lines, the voters also maintained that the Russian Foundation should be focussing its efforts on improving the current condition of the reactors.

After researching a bit about Russia, I found it interesting that instead of calling for the shutdown of all the nuclear plants located throughout the country — despite the system's faults, members of the Russian Federation seem to have accepted the usefulness and convenience of nuclear energy and thus are not calling for the shutdown of plants that the nation relies on.