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They say that about 400 thousand people worked as part of the Apollo program, which delivered man to the moon. How many of these names, other than the astronauts themselves, come to mind when you try to remember who designed the spacecraft and oversaw its construction? Personally, not at all. All this was done by contracting companies. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had many amazing engineers and scientists, but the core of all Soviet space science at the very height of the space race was three people; It was they who set the pace in research and innovation, ahead of the Americans by whole years. Ultimately, however, their internal bickering and favoritism, among other things, led to the Soviets being unable to land on the Moon. If in the USA the largest defense corporations were engaged in design and construction and did it for profit, then in the USSR under Stalin the free market was considered inadequate and economically unprofitable. Projects were allocated by the government to project bureaus in accordance with a central plan so that the best way manage available resources. But as George Orwell once said in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” If the head of the design bureau was in harmony with the authorities, his projects were often looked upon more favorably than those of others, whether he was able to provide the best solution or not. Soviet scientists carried out their research in separate organizations, called the OKB abbreviation - “experimental design bureau.” If some ambitious engineer or scientist had an extraordinary idea, or he showed exceptional suitability for the required type of work and had good connections, he could be entrusted with the management of his own design bureau. These were medium-sized organizations and their job was to come up with ideas and make prototypes, which were then transferred to larger factories for construction. However, in the space industry the scale of production was still very small, so such design organizations themselves carried out the entire scope of work on the project, entrusting subcontractors (other design bureaus) with its individual subsystems - engines, control systems, etc. Each design bureau had its own code number; with its help, they tried to hide the nature of the factory’s activities from foreign intelligence services, but for internal use the bureau was called by the name of its chief designer, a man who bore full responsibility for the success or failure of everything that was done under his leadership. The largest design bureau was OKB-1, headed by the most a famous person in the history of Soviet rocketry, Sergei Korolev is the creator of the first satellite, Vostok and lunar probes, without which there would have been neither the dog Laika, the first animal in space, nor Yuri Gagarin, as well as the super-heavy launch vehicle N-1, the Soviet analogue " Saturn 5" from the Americans. Even such a personality influential person, like Korolev at the very peak of his career, remained a closely guarded secret for anyone outside the very top echelons of power for fear of an assassination attempt by foreign agents. The rest of the world, including many cosmonauts, knew Korolev only by his initials, or simply as the chief designer. As a boy, at the very dawn of the Soviet Union, Korolev became interested in aircraft design. At the age of 22, he began working at the OPO-4 aircraft design bureau, and by the age of 30 he became the leading design engineer of the Tupolev TB-3 heavy bomber. At the age of 23, Korolev, together with his friend Friedrich Zander, created the Jet Propulsion Research Group (GIRD), one of the first centers for the development of rocket science with state support. The group later merged with the Leningrad Gas Dynamics Laboratory, forming the Jet Research Institute (RNII) - the place where he would meet the second of our trio, Valentin Glushko, a talented rocket engine designer, and the lives of all our heroes would take a sharp turn for the worse. During the great Stalinist purge of 1937, the patron of the RNII, Marshal Tukhachevsky, was sentenced to death as an enemy of the people. On June 13, the Inquisition reached Korolev’s bureau; Glushko was accused of complicity in anti-Soviet activities and sentenced to eight years in labor camps. Unable to withstand the torture, Glushko slandered Korolev in exchange for a reduction in his sentence. Korolev was sentenced to 10 years heavy work and sent to Kolyma, to a gold mine that was part of the Siberian Gulag system. But soon the knowledge of both was needed again - in the war with the Nazis. The trials that befell Glushko were not so severe - he, still a prisoner, was allowed to head the design bureau, where he, together with other prisoner-scientists, developed liquid-propellant rocket engines. In 1940, Korolev was returned to work, first in the Omsk “sharashka”, a prison-type design bureau, from where he was then transferred to another, already in Kazan, where Korolev’s boss turned out to be none other than Valentin Glushko, who betrayed him. After the end of the war, Korolev and Glushko, despite mutual hostility, worked on projects for new missiles. Glushko now headed his own bureau, OKB-456, and was the leading designer of rocket engines in the USSR. Korolev’s task was the disassembly and engineering analysis of captured German V-2s in one of the departments of NII-88, which would soon become known as OKB-1. In February 1953, Korolev was asked to speed up testing in order to begin building the largest rocket in the world, a launch vehicle capable of lifting a three-ton warhead and delivering it along an intercontinental trajectory over a distance of 8 thousand kilometers - enough to hit targets on US soil. Korolev saw it as a composite rocket, in which four boosters are located around the main upper stage. The huge main engine of each of them directed thrust using four nozzles - nothing like this had ever happened before. Korolev coordinated the work of 36 organizations, including the bureau headed by his old rival, Valentin Glushko. Glushko agreed to build engines for the new rocket, but insisted that control over the process of their creation remain entirely in his hands. Since 1954, four-chamber RD-107 engines have been passionately tested on experimental benches, and yet the first tests failed miserably, Glushko’s designs literally burned out. However, in 1957, the R-7 rocket was delivered to the launch pad at the almost completed, world’s first cosmodrome Baikonur in Kazakhstan. In May, the first “Seven” was launched, which turned out to be a failure, but after a series of failures with subsequent improvements, on October 4, a historical event occurred - the Korolev rocket launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik-1, into low Earth orbit. The victory was not easy for Korolev and only intensified the competition between representatives of the Soviet aerospace industry. Here the figure of a third rival appears - rocket designer Vladimir Chelomey, who relied on his family of universal rockets, especially the heavy launch vehicle UR-500, which would later become the Proton - a design that is still in use today. Chelomey was the youngest of the three and, apparently, the most ambitious. Independently of German scientists, he developed the first Soviet pulse-jet engine and created the first anti-ship cruise missile. His design decisions, resulting from work for the military department, turned his OKB-52 bureau into a rocket-building empire that dealt with intercontinental ballistic missiles, military satellites, launch vehicles and anti-ballistic missiles, and he himself - in his own words - became "the most dear person of the Soviet Union." Instead of the mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene favored by Korolev, the UR-500 operated on a mixture of nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. These hypergolic components spontaneously ignited upon mutual contact - something Korolev was categorically against for safety reasons. Choosing this solution allowed Chelomey to work with Glushko, who for some time liked hypergolic engines, and he agreed to build first-stage engines for the UR-500, the famous RD-253. In addition, Chelomey had one significant advantage - good relations with the head of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev, whose son Sergei worked at OKB-52. Chelomey assured Khrushchev that with his rocket, flying around the Moon with a crew of two would be much cheaper than using the gigantic N-1 Korolev launch vehicle. But in October 1964, Khrushchev was removed, and Leonid Brezhnev, a longtime ally of Korolev, became head of state. With the resignation of Khrushchev, Korolev began to be in charge of all plans for manned space flights. After the fall of Khrushchev, Chelomey did not lose the support of Defense Minister Andrei Grechko, but after his death in 1974, relations with the new Minister of War and chief curator of rocket science, Dmitry Ustinov, were not easy. Although Chelomey was still supported by Brezhnev, his position was no longer as strong as under Khrushchev. By this time, the Soviet space program will begin to noticeably lag behind the American one. In 1961, President John Kennedy announced that America had set a goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Korolev decides to speed up work on the N-1 rocket, but Glushko refuses to produce the massive oxygen-kerosene engines necessary for the rocket. Instead, he proposes to make huge hypergolic engines, which, according to Korolev, are too dangerous for manned flight, and a serious conflict breaks out between the two designers. Finding himself in a difficult situation without the engines he needs, Korolev turns to the Kuznetsov OKB-276 bureau. Although the bureau does not have much experience, and large engines cannot be built on its basis, its specialists invent a design that is not so large, but very effective - NK-15, and subsequently NK-33, one of the most efficient oxygen-kerosene engines and to this day. To create the necessary thrust in the first stage of the N-1 rocket, thirty NK-15s must be used, but the complexity of the fuel supply and control systems for all these engines will still bring many difficulties to the project. And only three years later, the Soviet command made a decision similar to the American one to land on the Moon. Meanwhile, Korolev is speeding up work on the N-1, which he is confident will be able to take astronauts to both the Moon and Mars. However, there is not enough funding, and Korolev is waging an endless war with Chelomey for the necessary resources. Add to this long hours of overwork, constant stress - and now, stress does its job. Korolev had already suffered a heart attack in 1960, and in addition to this, doctors found that he had a kidney disease. On January 14, 1966, he was supposed to undergo routine surgery to remove a polyp in colon, but the years of imprisonment took their toll - the heart and the immune system weakened, and the chief designer died on the operating table. Two weeks after his death, the first spacecraft, Luna 9, made a soft landing on the lunar surface. The leadership of OKB-1 and the N-1 project was taken over by Korolev’s former deputy, Vasily Mishin. However, Mishin lacked the connections and ability to interact with the Soviet system that Korolev had in abundance, and after four failures at N-1 launches, Mishin was removed and his place was taken by Korolev's arch-rival Glushko. By that time, the Americans had landed on the Moon, even the Apollo program had been canceled, and space flights no longer aroused the same enthusiasm. In 1974, Glushko put an end to the N-1 project and ordered the destruction of all its components, but this order did not reach Kuznetsov, and he simply mothballed all NK-33 engines, which in twenty years will be sold to the USA, where they will be modified and used for launch of Antares. Glushko began designing the Buran, the Soviet space shuttle, and its heavy Energia launch vehicle, which he hoped could one day be used to create a lunar base. The irony of fate is that the man who refused to build a large oxygen-kerosene engine for Korolev and thereby unintentionally contributed to the collapse of the N-1, now realized that such a decision would turn out to be the best for Energia, so that it would not be inferior in power to boosters with a solid fuel engine from the American shuttle Glushko was unable to overcome the combustion instability of a large single-chamber engine and resorted to a four-chamber engine design to create the RD-170, the most powerful rocket engine in the world, surpassing the F-1 of the Saturn 5. Although after the dismissal of Khrushchev, Vladimir Chelomey’s star began to decline, he was still at work, developing projects for military orbital stations of the Almaz series, which were launched into orbit under the names Salyut-2, Salyut-3 and Salyut-3. 5". In December 1984, Vladimir Chelomei died from arterial thrombosis, which developed after his Mercedes, having released the brake, broke the owner’s leg when he was closing the gate at the dacha. Valentin Glushko died in January 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev attended his funeral. As in the case of his rival Korolev, general public I learned about Glushko’s deeds and achievements only after his death. The Soviet space program, which accounted for more than one enormous leap forward and one of the most daring achievements in human history, was supported by an economy much smaller than its powerful rival, the United States. The talent of these chief designers, as well as the thousands of scientists and engineers who worked with them, made Soviet Russia the shore of the Universe, and rockets designed on the basis of the R-7 and UR-500 are still rushing to the stars today. I want to thank all of our patrons for their continued support, and don't forget to check out some of our other videos. 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Story
The historical roots of the Special and Special Design Bureaus go back to 1928-1930, to the era of the first campaign of mass terror against the technical intelligentsia, called the “fight against sabotage”. The first and most famous political process for “sabotage” was organized in 1928 - the Shakhty case.
The OGPU bodies actively fabricated cases of “sabotage” organizations in all industries, enterprises, etc. - “ Indictment in the case of sabotage organization in the military industry" (1929), " Indictment on a counter-revolutionary sabotage organization in the NKPS and on the railways of the USSR" (1929), " The case of a counter-revolutionary sabotage and espionage organization in the gold mining industry of the DCK"(1930), " The case of a counter-revolutionary sabotage organization in the system of agricultural credit and machine supply in the Far East (1931)" and so on.
On February 25, 1930, a resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was issued on shortcomings in the work of the military industry, which identified the culprits for failures in economic activity - “pests”.
A broad campaign against “sabotage” that began in 1930, led by Economic Administration The ECU of the OGPU led to the appearance in prison of a mass of highly qualified specialists, suppressed by terror and resigned to false accusations.
Therefore, on May 15, 1930, “ Circular of the Supreme Council of the National Economy and the United State Political Administration" about " use in production of specialists convicted of sabotage", signed by V.V. Kuibyshev and G.G. Yagoda. In particular, this document stated:
The use of pests should be organized in such a way that their work takes place on the premises of the OGPU.
This is how the first system of scientific and technical prisons appeared - “sharashkas” for the use of “pests” in the interests of military production.
In 1930, for this purpose, within the framework of the Economic Directorate of the EKU OGPU, a Technical Department was organized, which supervised the work of special design bureaus that used the labor of imprisoned specialists. Head of the EKU OGPU (1930-1936) - L. G. Mironov (Kagan) - Commissar of State Security, 2nd rank. In 1931-1936, for the purpose of secrecy, the Technical Department was successively assigned the numbers of the 5th, 8th, 11th and 7th departments of the EKU OGPU of the USSR (chief Goryanov-Gorny A. G. (Penknovich) 1930−1934. ).
In September 1938, by order of Yezhov, the Department of Special Design Bureaus of the NKVD of the USSR was organized (NKVD order No. 00641 of September 29, 1938).
On October 21, 1938, in accordance with NKVD order No. 00698, this unit received the name “4th Special Department.”
On January 10, 1939, by order of the NKVD No. 0021, it was transformed into a Special Technical Bureau (OTB) under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR for the use of prisoners with special technical knowledge.
The 4th special department of the NKVD-MVD of the USSR was organized in July 1941 on the basis of the Special Technical Bureau (OTB) of the NKVD of the USSR and the 4th department of the former NKGB of the USSR. Head of the department - V. A. Kravchenko.
The main tasks of the Department (from " A brief report on the work of the 4th special department of the NKVD of the USSR from 1939 to 1944»..)
The main tasks of the 4th Special Department are: the use of imprisoned specialists to carry out research and design work on the creation of new types of military aircraft, aircraft engines and engines of naval vessels, samples of artillery weapons and ammunition, chemical attack and defense means... providing radio communications and operational technology...
Since 1945, the special department also used German prisoners of war specialists.
The institution of sharashkas received its greatest development after 1949, when the 4th special department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was entrusted with the organization of “ Special technical, design and design bureaus for carrying out research, experimental, experimental and design work on the subject of the Main Directorates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR"(Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR No. 001020 of November 9, 1949) At a number of enterprises under the auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, special bureaus were organized where prisoners worked.
After Stalin's death in 1953, the liquidation of the sharashkas began.
On March 30, 1953, the 4th Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was disbanded, but some sharashkas continued to function for several more years.
List of closed prison-type research institutes and design bureaus
- TsKB-39 The first prison design bureau in the history of aviation was organized in December 1929. Initially it was located in Butyrskaya prison.
- TsKB-29, or “Tupolev sharaga”, or special prison No. 156 Moscow - the largest aviation design bureau in the USSR in the 1940s. From 1941 to 1944 it was located in Omsk.
- OKB-16 is a special prison in Kazan at Aviation Plant No. 16 for the development of liquid-propellant rocket engines, or “rocket engine charaga.” Since November 1942, S.P. Korolev, transferred from the Omsk “sharashka” of A.N. Tupolev, worked here. The development of the RD-1 rocket engine was carried out by V. P. Glushko and D. D. Sevruk.
- OTB-82 or “Tushinskaya Sharaga” - prison design bureau for aircraft engines, 1938-1940. - Tushino, plant No. 82. Chief designer of the OKB A.D. Charomsky. Worked: professors B. S. Stechkin, K. I. Strakhovich, A. M. Dobrotvorsky, I. I. Sidorin. With the beginning of the war, the Tushino Sharashka, together with plant No. 82, was relocated to Kazan. In 1946, the OKB was transferred to Rybinsk (then the city of Shcherbakov), to engine plant No. 36. From September 27, 1946 to February 21, 1947, A. I. Solzhenitsyn worked in the Rybinsk sharashka
- Suzdal Pokrovsky Monastery is a center of microbiological weapons. Organized at the suggestion of the head of VOKHIMU Y. M. Fishman on the territory of the former Intercession Monastery. In 1932-1936 it was called the Bureau of Special Purpose (BON) of the Special Department of the OGPU, later it became (BIHI). The boss was M. M. Faibich, his subordinates were repressed microbiologists.
- Research Institute of Communications, or “Marfinskaya sharaga” - special prison No. 16 of the MGB of the USSR, 1948 (currently JSC "Concern" Avtomatika")
- Radio technical sharashka (wiretapping, operational communications, etc.) in Kuchino near Moscow, in the 1940s and 50s.
- NIIOKhT is the first “military chemical charade”, at plant No. 1 (Olginsky plant) now GosNIIOKhT Institute organic chemistry and technology created in 1924 in Moscow, research on the creation of chemical weapons in the 1930s. Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, s/k E. I. Shpitalsky, founder of the production of toxic substances - phosgene and mustard gas in the USSR, worked here. Experiments were also carried out on prisoners here to evaluate the effect of chemical agents on humans.
- Special military chemical bureau of the OGPU at the VKhNII (Military Chemical Institute), 1931.
- Special Technical Bureau (OTB) of the NKVD, later NII-6 NKVD. It was located on the territory of modern TsNIIHM - a red brick building. New types of ammunition and new technologies for military chemical production were created here. At OTB, the former head of the Military Chemical Directorate of the Spacecraft (VOKHIMU), Doctor of Chemical Sciences, now s/k Ya. M. Fishman, worked on the creation of a new type of gas mask.
- A special technical bureau, OTB-40, was created at the Kazan Powder Plant No. 40. The contingent of OTB-40 are engineering and technical workers of the powder industry and former employees plant No. 40, accused of sabotage and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Carried out the development and development of gunpowders, including those for Katyusha rocket launchers. The group was headed by N.P. Putimtsev (formerly the chief engineer of the All-Union Powder Trust), the leading specialists were V.V. Shnegas, a nobleman, former colonel tsarist army(formerly technical director of plant No. 40) and scientists: Shvindelman Mikhail Abramovich, Shtukater Grigory Lvovich, Vorobyov David Evseevich, Belder Mikhail Abramovich, Fridlender Rostislav Georgievich - former chief technologist of the plant.
- Automotive and tractor design bureau of the Izhora plant, Podolsk branch. In 1931-1934. was under the jurisdiction of the Technical Department of the EKU OGPU, located at the Podolsk plant named after. Ordzhonikidze. Prisoners - specialists convicted in the case of the "Industrial Party" - developed light amphibious tanks T-27 and T-37, etc. under the leadership of civilian N.A. Astrov, the future famous designer of armored vehicles. Here, the creators of domestic aviation armor, S. T. Kishkin and N. M. Sklyarov, gained experience in managing work collectives.
- Design Bureau of the Automatic Tank-Diesel Department of the Economic Directorate of the OGPU (in the late 1920s, worked on a 75-ton breakthrough tank).
- Special Geological Bureau (Murmansk “sharaga”). Organized in 1930 in Murmansk, where prisoners M. N. Dzhakson, S. V. Konstantov, V. K. Kotulsky, S. F. Malyavkin, A. Yu. Serk, P. N. Chirvinsky worked. At the end of the 40s, other “sharashkas” of geological profile functioned - Dalstroevskaya (Northern Complex Thematic Expedition No. 8) and Krasnoyarsk (OTB-1 “Yeniseistroya”). IN different years Prisoner geologists also worked (not in their specialty) in scientific and technical “sharashkas” - special technical bureaus of the OGPU and its “successors” (M. M. Ermolaev, D. I. Musatov, S. M. Sheinmann).
- Atomic charaga in Sukhumi (1940s and 1950s), where specialists brought from Germany (Prof. Ardenne, Prof. Hertz (nephew of Heinrich Hertz), etc.) worked on the separation of uranium isotopes.
- Special Technical Bureau (OTB-1) - as part of Glaveniseystroy. Krasnoyarsk. Created in 1949. Currently vr. "SibtsvetmetNIIproekt"
- LLC PKF "Infanko" (Smolensk "sharaga").
- OTB-569 (from April 1945 - NII-862) at the Zvyozdochka enterprise (later NIIPH in Zagorsk, where Solzhenitsyn was transferred on March 6, 1947 and where he was until his transfer to Marfino on July 9, 1947).
- Laboratory “B” of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs was created in May 1946 by order of the USSR government (No. 1996-р-с) on the basis of the Sungul sanatorium in the Urals in the Chelyabinsk region, in 1948 it was renamed Object 0215 (address: Kasli, Chelyabinsk region, PO Box 33/6). The laboratory was closed in March 1955, after which an institute was built in its place, now (since 1992) called RFNC-VNIITF. The city of Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk-70) arose around the institute. Director of the Object, Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexander Konstantinovich Uralets (until December 1952), deputy. according to the regime, Major M. N. Vereshchagin. After Uralets, the Director of the Object, Ph.D. Gleb Arkadyevich Sereda. Scientific guidance was entrusted to the German scientist N. Riehl. The radiochemical department was headed by the chemist Sergei Aleksandrovich Voznesensky (1892-1958) from 1941, the biophysical department was headed by geneticist N.V. Timofeev-Ressovsky (1900-1981).
- OKB-172 at the Leningrad prison "Kresty" (before the evacuation, in 1942, to Molotov it was called the OTB UNKVD for the Leningrad Region) was officially created in April 1938 (actually earlier). Several dozen samples were developed on the basis of this design bureau. military equipment, well-proven during the Second World War, for example, self-propelled guns SU-152 and ISU-152, two-gun 130 mm naval artillery mount of the main caliber B-2-LM, 45 mm anti-tank gun model 1942 (M-42, “magpie” ) and others. The first employees of the OTB were the arrested engineers of the Bolshevik prison. From the beginning of his work, the leading designer of the OTB was S.I. Lodkin. Later, the work collective of the “sharashka” was replenished with arrested mathematicians, mechanics, engineers, among whom there were many prominent specialists, such as designers: V. L. Brodsky (builder of the cruiser “Kirov”), E. E. Papmel, A. S. Tochinsky, A. L. Konstantinov, M. Yu. Tsirulnikov; mathematicians professors A. M. Zhuravsky and N. S. Koshlyakov, arrested in the famous blockade case No. 555, and others. Disbanded in 1953.
Famous prisoners of prison research institutes and design bureaus
- R. L. Bartini, aircraft designer;
- N. I. Bazenkov, aircraft designer;
- Belder Mikhail Abramovich, scientist chemist;
- Vorobyov David Evseevich, scientist chemist;
- V. P. Glushko
- D. P. Grigorovich, aircraft designer;
- S. M. Ivashev-Musatov, artist;
- L. Z. Kopelev, writer, literary critic;
- N. S. Koshlyakov, mathematician, corresponding member. USSR Academy of Sciences;
- S. P. Korolev, designer of rocket and space technology;
- L. L. Kerber, long-distance radio communications specialist;
- Yu. V. Kondratyuk, designer of wind power plants, author of works on astronautics (Novosibirsk, OPKB-14, 1930-32);
- N. E. Lanceray, architect-artist;
- S.I.Lodkin, designer in the field of shipbuilding and military artillery;
- B. S. Malakhovsky, designer of steam locomotives;
- D. S. Markov, aircraft designer;
- B. S. Maslenikov, pioneer of Russian aviation, engineer, organizer (Novosibirsk, head of OPKB-14 at the OGPU PP of the West Siberian Territory, 1930-1932, civilian);
- V. M. Myasishchev, aircraft designer;
- I. G. Neman, aircraft designer;
- N.V. Nikitin, engineer, future creator of the Ostankino TV tower (Novosibirsk, OPKB-14, 1930-32, worked part-time);
As a representative of the now endangered species of Homo sapiens - a Soviet engineer - I was interested in the topic of “sharashkas” - creative engineering teams that produced a huge number of high-quality design and technological developments for the military-industrial complex. These developments first helped us win the Great Patriotic War, then they saved the Soviet Union and all of humanity from nuclear war, and the apogee of their activity was our breakthrough into space.
This topic came up for me in connection with conversations among the technical intelligentsia (not only there, of course, but I’m talking about myself) about the urgent need for Russian industry to make a sharp technological breakthrough in order to get out of the current swamp into which the slowly dying Soviet industry has turned with rare islands of modern (I emphasize again - technologically modern) production. Moreover, all these islands mainly belong to the military-industrial complex + Roscosmos + Rosatom. But even there, solid ground in most cases consists of carefully preserved (and developed, of course) developments of the Soviet period.
In these conversations, my interlocutors recalled how their senior comrades, who taught them their professions, told them about the remarkably effective system of organizing labor and production in research and production teams that grew out of the “Stalinist sharashki”, which made it possible to quickly and efficiently develop and implement into production new technology. But later, for some reason, this system was “buried.”
All these conversations were from the category of “legends”, and I myself did not have to meet any living witnesses or participants in this activity in my life. In our quiet, provincial and even before the war, not a regional city, there were no “sharashkas”. Since there was practically no industry. This is after the war, Vladimir, having become by that time regional center, sharply increased the number of large enterprises, mainly just mailboxes. After graduating from college, I came to work at one of these mailboxes. My status as an engineer, the name and status of the organization changed over time, but not my place of work.
I need this “lyrical” introduction to substantiate my keen interest in this topic, which, it seems to me, is not very conclusively disclosed in the literature and is similarly discussed in the media, including the Internet.
There is a common expression: “Winners are not judged.” But, alas, it is completely inappropriate when assessing the activities of Stalin and his other associates, especially Beria, in organizing and implementing the powerful industrial rise of Soviet industry, especially the military-industrial complex, before, during the Great Patriotic War and immediately after it. If it were not for this colossal leap in the industrialization of the country, we would never have defeated this terrible, armed to the teeth industry of all of Europe (and America too) Hitler's army. Stalin and his comrades are the undisputed organizers of the Victory. But they were tried and convicted. Almost immediately after Stalin's death. Not everyone accepted the decision of this “court”. Front-line soldiers are a minority. I judge from my own childhood memories. The debate about the Stalin era in the life of the country does not end to this day. I will try to consider only a small (in volume, but not in importance) piece of this era - “Stalin’s (otherwise Beria’s) sharashkas.”
Let's start, as is usual these days, with Wikipedia:
Sharashka
(or sharazhka
, from “sharaga”) -
slang
Name
research institute
And
KB
prison type, subordinates
NKVD
/
Ministry of Internal Affairs
USSR
where they worked
prisoners
scientists, engineers and technicians. In the NKVD system they were called “special technical bureaus” (OTB), “special design bureaus” (OKB) and similar abbreviations with numbers.
Many outstanding Soviet scientists and designers passed through the sharashkas. The main direction of OTB was the development of military and special (used by intelligence services) equipment. Many new models of military equipment and weapons in the USSR were created by sharashka prisoners.
Self relevantchapter Wikipedia is quite extensive and contains lists of existing sharashkas, the most famous prisoners who worked there, and the most important products developed in these organizations (samples of military equipment developed in the sharashkas and entered service with the Red Army are presented in the photo at the beginning of the article). At the same time, a significant number of references are given both to archival documents and to memoirs and other literature.
But!.. But there we will not find the answer to the main question, which our contemporaries, discussing this topic in articles, books, films, videos and discussion platforms on the Internet, are trying and cannot solve (with evidence, and not with emotional statements-mantras). And this question is posed like this: were these sharashkas a hard labor prison, where the criminal Stalinist regime exploited the slave labor of prisoners (one position supported by our liberal democratic human rights activists), or was it a way to mobilize for the implementation of vital state tasks “ unconscious" part of the scientific and technical intelligentsia, which, due to this "ignorance", again unconsciously, acted or acted to the detriment of the directive plans of the Soviet government and which should have been reined in, organized and mobilized to implement these plans (the second position, behind which our "Stalinists")
VS 
And so I wanted to find out, “who is behind the truth?” Is the truth in the middle between these polar opinions or is it something else altogether? More multidimensional, not fitting into a linear scheme: white - gray - black? I don’t know if I will be able to come to a definite answer, but “an attempt is not torture.” But demand is not a problem. Therefore, I will be glad to anyone information on this topic.
To be continued…
Continuation Discussion about the role of “sharashkas”
Continued 2 Analysis of the arguments of anti-Stalinists in the discussion about the role of “sharashkas”
Continued 3 Stalin’s mobilization industrialization and the readiness of the scientific and technical intelligentsia for it
Continuation of 4 “Sharashka” 1930 - 1936. TsBB-39 OGPU im. Menzhinsky
Continuation of 5 “Sharashka” 1930 - 1936. BON OO OGPU
Continued 6 The repressions of the 30s, according to anti-Stalinists, were thrown back Russian science and technology far ago, the number of specialists in all sectors of the national economy was sharply reduced, which reduced the scientific and technical potential and reduced the defense capability of the Soviet state
Continuation of 7 “Sharashka” 1930 - 1936. Development and production of chemical weapons in the pre-war USSR.
Three met. To the question “Where do you work?” the answer was:
In sharashka, at the Research Institute of Light Industry.
- In the sharashka, an acquaintance and a friend opened it. We sell, buy, exchange.
- In sharashka, for five years in a camp in the Far East, I came up with a new engine for a tank.
Everyone has their own sharashka, and all three took place in our lives.
When did the expression “sharashkin's office” appear?
There are three versions. The first will take us to the beginning of the 20th century.
New Economic Policy– The NEP gave the citizens of the Soviet Union the opportunity to engage in private business. Baths, cafes, hairdressers, fashion studios, and shoemakers opened in large numbers. Simultaneously with very the right people Enterprises, like mushrooms after rain, began to multiply various offices. Remember this one in the immortal novel by Ilf and Petrov? Nobody knew what “Horns and Hooves” did, but the money flowed like a river.
Who organized such sharashkin offices?
The police had a clear answer to this question: swindlers of all stripes. In polite society they were called “sharash”, and ordinary people, without ceremony, used the word “trash”. Everyone agreed that these offices were opened by all sorts of crooks who had neither honor nor conscience at heart. Not only do they open, but the same dishonest people work there. This means that doing business with this kind of office is a big risk. They will cheat you, ruin you and let you go around the world naked.
Long gone are the days of the NEP, and the experience of opening sharashka offices was not in vain. From time to time they reopen, constantly improving the techniques and methods of collecting easy money from gullible citizens. Either they sell dietary supplements under the guise of a panacea, or they sell people miracle devices for water purification, or saline dressings All illnesses and even cancer are cured.
Stalin's sharashkas
The second version tells about them. The first wave of repressions slightly spared the design engineers and scientists, but the second washed away the entire flower of science into the camps. Those who did not commit suicide out of despair and did not die from exhaustion were decided to be “used for their intended purpose.” It was a sin to simply destroy such minds; let them be useful. And it’s convenient: you don’t need to pay, you don’t need to provide a car and an apartment either. Humiliated and discouraged, these people will work for a plate of “skinny” gruel and for the illusory hope of someday being released and rehabilitated.
The corresponding Decree was issued in February 1930, although the first sharashkas began operating in 1938. The authorities received a detailed circular on May 15. The main task is to use enemies of the people and pests with great efficiency for the military industry. Moreover, it had to be done only on the premises of the OGPU, that is, in places of serving punishment.
The OGPU immediately began organizing sharashkas behind barbed wire. Design bureaus and even large research institutes were opened, in which the brightest minds of the country worked with great benefit for the state. Three years before the war, the Department of Special Design Bureaus was created, which in the same year, 1938, was renamed the 4th Department of the Special Department.
Until Stalin's death in 1953, these sharashkas created engines for sea vessels, aircraft engines, new military aircraft and tanks, artillery shells and worked on the creation of chemical weapons. From the end of 1944, German prisoners of war - engineers and designers - appeared in these design bureaus.
Reference: in sharashkas behind barbed wire the following were created:
- in 1930 - I-5 fighter (TsKB-39, project manager - Polikarpov N.G.);
- in 1931 - a high-capacity steam locomotive "Felix Dzerzhinsky" (TB OGPU);
- in 1938 - the DVB-102 bomber, flying at high altitudes (TsKB-29, project manager - V.M. Myasishchev);
- in 1939 - Pe-2 dive bomber (TsKB-29, project manager - Petlyakov V.M.);
- in 1941 - front-line bomber Tu-2 (TsKB-29, project manager - Tupolev A.N.);
- in 1942-1943, auxiliary aviation liquid-propellant rocket engines RD-1, RD-2, RD-3 were delivered to the front from the special department of the NKVD, supervising the sharashka at the Kazan plant No. 16 (project manager - Glushko V.P.)
There was also a 152 mm artillery system and a 75 mm regimental cannon. Yes, the prisoners who worked in the sharashkas managed to produce a lot more for the army. No one would dare speak of them as idlers and scoundrels.
Is the research institute also a sharashka?
The third version will tell about all kinds of Scientific Research Institutes, that is, research institutes. There were a variety of people working there; there were many talented engineers. But there were also a lot of “idle people.” There is no talent, perseverance and desire to learn anything are also completely absent. Having received an assignment to a research institute after college, these young specialists spent many years wiping their pants there. It is because of them that many design institutes, either jokingly or seriously, were also called sharashkas. In this case, the analogy with the “Horns and Hooves” offices worked.
Which is correct - sharashka or sharazhka?
Linguists allow both spellings. If the word was formed from sharaga, then we write “sharazhka”, that is, there is an alternation of the consonants G and Zh in the root. If we meant certain swindlers Sharashkins - the pioneers of such offices, then we write “Sharashka”.
Thermal power plant (thermal power plant) is a power plant that generates electrical energy by converting the chemical energy of fuel into mechanical energy of rotation of the electric generator shaft.
Thermal power plants convert the thermal energy released during the combustion of organic fuels (coal, peat, shale, oil, gases) into mechanical energy and then into electrical energy. Here, the chemical energy contained in the fuel undergoes a complex transformation from one form to another to produce electrical energy.
The transformation of energy contained in fuel at a thermal power plant can be divided into the following main stages: the conversion of chemical energy into thermal energy, thermal energy into mechanical energy and mechanical energy into electrical energy.
The first thermal power plants (TPPs) appeared at the end of the 19th century. In 1882, a thermal power plant was built in New York, in 1883 in St. Petersburg, and in 1884 in Berlin.
Among thermal power plants most constitute thermal steam turbine power plants. On them, thermal energy is used in a boiler unit (steam generator).
Thermal power plant layout: 1 – electric generator; 2 – steam turbine; 3 – control panel; 4 – deaerator; 5 and 6 – bunkers; 7 – separator; 8 – cyclone; 9 – boiler; 10 – heating surface (heat exchanger); 11 – chimney; 12 – crushing room; 13 – reserve fuel warehouse; 14 – carriage; 15 – unloading device; 16 – conveyor; 17 – smoke exhauster; 18 – channel; 19 – ash catcher; 20 – fan; 21 – firebox; 22 – mill; 23 – pumping station; 24 – water source; 25 – circulation pump; 26 – regenerative heater high pressure; 27 – feed pump; 28 – capacitor; 29 – chemical water treatment plant; 30 – step-up transformer; 31 – regenerative heater low pressure; 32 – condensate pump
One of essential elements The boiler unit is the firebox. It contains the chemical energy of the fuel during chemical reaction Combustible fuel elements with oxygen in the air are converted into thermal energy. In this case, gaseous combustion products are formed, which absorb most of the heat released during fuel combustion.
During the heating of fuel in the furnace, coke and gaseous, volatile substances are formed. At temperatures of 600–750 °C, volatile substances ignite and begin to burn, which leads to an increase in the temperature in the firebox. At the same time, coke combustion begins. As a result, flue gases are formed, leaving the furnace at a temperature of 1000–1200 °C. These gases are used to heat water and produce steam.
IN early XIX V. To produce steam, simple units were used in which heating and evaporation of water were not differentiated. A typical representative of the simplest type of steam boiler was a cylindrical boiler.
The developing electric power industry required boilers that produced steam high temperature and high blood pressure, since it is in this condition that it gives greatest number energy. Such boilers were created and they were called water-tube boilers.
In water-tube boilers, flue gases flow around pipes through which water circulates; heat from the flue gases is transferred through the walls of the pipes to water, which turns into steam.
Composition of the main equipment of a thermal power plant and the interconnection of its systems: fuel economy; fuel preparation; boiler; intermediate superheater; high pressure part of a steam turbine (HPC or HPC); low pressure part of a steam turbine (LPT or LPC); electric generator; auxiliary transformer; communication transformer; main switchgear; capacitor; condensate pump; circulation pump; source of water supply (for example, river); low pressure heater (LPH); water treatment plant (WPU); thermal energy consumer; return condensate pump; deaerator; feed pump; high pressure heater (HPH); slag removal; ash dump; smoke exhauster (DS); chimney; blower fan (DV); ash catcher
A modern steam boiler works as follows.
The fuel burns in a firebox, which has vertical pipes along the walls. Under the influence of the heat released during the combustion of fuel, the water in these pipes boils. The resulting steam rises into the boiler drum. The boiler is a thick-walled horizontal steel cylinder, filled to half with water. Steam collects in the upper part of the drum and exits it into a group of coils - a superheater. In the superheater, the steam is additionally heated by the flue gases escaping from the furnace. It has a temperature higher than that at which water boils at a given pressure. Such steam is called superheated. After leaving the superheater, the steam goes to the consumer. In the boiler flues located after the superheater, flue gases pass through another group of coils - a water economizer. In it, the water is heated by the heat of the flue gases before entering the boiler drum. Air heater pipes are usually located behind the economizer along the flue gases. The air in it is heated before being fed into the firebox. After the air heater, flue gases at a temperature of 120–160 °C exit into the chimney.
All working processes of the boiler unit are fully mechanized and automated. It is served by numerous auxiliary mechanisms driven by electric motors, the power of which can reach several thousand kilowatts.
Boiler units of powerful power plants produce high pressure steam – 140–250 atmospheres and high temperature – 550–580 °C. In the furnaces of these boilers, solid fuel, crushed to a powder state, fuel oil or natural gas is mainly burned.
The transformation of coal into a powdered state is carried out in dust preparation plants.
The operating principle of such an installation with a ball drum mill is as follows.
The fuel enters the boiler room via conveyor belts and is discharged into a bunker, from which, after automatic weighing, it is fed by a feeder into the coal grinding mill. Fuel grinding occurs inside a horizontal drum rotating at a speed of about 20 rpm. It contains steel balls. Hot air heated to a temperature of 300–400 °C is supplied to the mill through a pipeline. Giving part of its heat to dry the fuel, the air cools to a temperature of about 130 °C and, leaving the drum, carries the coal dust formed in the mill into the dust separator (separator). The dust-air mixture, freed from large particles, leaves the separator from above and is sent to the dust separator (cyclone). In the cyclone, coal dust is separated from the air, and through the valve it enters the coal dust bunker. In the separator, large dust particles fall out and are returned to the mill for further grinding. A mixture of coal dust and air is supplied to the boiler burners.
Pulverized coal burners are devices for supplying pulverized fuel and the air necessary for its combustion into the combustion chamber. They must ensure complete combustion of fuel by creating a homogeneous mixture of air and fuel.
The firebox of modern pulverized coal boilers is a high chamber, the walls of which are covered with pipes, the so-called steam-water screens. They protect the walls of the combustion chamber from sticking to them of slag formed during fuel combustion, and also protect the lining from rapid wear due to the chemical action of slag and the high temperature that develops during fuel combustion in the furnace.
Screens absorb 10 times more heat per square meter surfaces than the rest of the tubular heating surfaces of the boiler, which perceive the heat of the flue gases mainly due to direct contact with them. In the combustion chamber, coal dust ignites and burns in the gas flow carrying it.
The furnaces of boilers in which gaseous or liquid fuels are burned are also chambers covered with screens. A mixture of fuel and air is supplied to them through gas burners or oil nozzles.
The design of a modern high-capacity drum boiler unit operating on coal dust is as follows.
Fuel in the form of dust is blown into the furnace through the burners along with part of the air necessary for combustion. The rest of the air is supplied to the firebox preheated to a temperature of 300–400 °C. In the firebox, coal particles burn on the fly, forming a torch with a temperature of 1500–1600 °C. Non-combustible impurities of coal are converted into ash, most of which (80–90%) is removed from the furnace by flue gases generated as a result of fuel combustion. The rest of the ash, consisting of sticky particles of slag that accumulated on the pipes of the combustion screens and then came off them, falls to the bottom of the furnace. After this, it is collected in a special shaft located under the firebox. Jet cold water the slag is cooled in it and then carried away with water outside the boiler unit by special devices of the hydraulic ash removal system.
The walls of the firebox are covered with a screen - pipes in which water circulates. Under the influence of the heat emitted by the burning torch, it partially turns into steam. These pipes are connected to the boiler drum, into which water heated in the economizer is also supplied.
As the flue gases move, part of their heat is radiated onto the screen tubes and the temperature of the gases gradually decreases. At the exit from the furnace it is 1000–1200 °C. With further movement, the flue gases at the exit from the furnace come into contact with the screen tubes, cooling to a temperature of 900–950 °C. The boiler flue contains coil tubes through which the steam formed in the screen pipes and separated from the water in the boiler drum passes. In coils, steam receives additional heat from the flue gases and is overheated, that is, its temperature becomes higher than the temperature of water boiling at the same pressure. This part of the boiler is called the superheater.
Having passed between the superheater pipes, flue gases with a temperature of 500–600 °C enter the part of the boiler in which the water heater or water economizer tubes are located. Feed water with a temperature of 210–240 °C is supplied to it by a pump. Such a high water temperature is achieved in special heaters that are part of the turbine installation. In a water economizer, water is heated to boiling point and enters the boiler drum. Flue gases passing between the pipes of the water economizer continue to cool and then pass inside the pipes of the air heater, in which the air is heated due to the heat given off by the gases, the temperature of which is reduced to 120–160 °C.
The air required for fuel combustion is supplied to the air heater by a blower fan and is heated there to 300–400 °C, after which it enters the furnace for fuel combustion. The smoke or exhaust gases leaving the air heater pass through a special device - an ash catcher - to remove ash. The purified flue gases are released into the atmosphere by a smoke exhauster through a chimney up to 200 m high.
The drum is essential in boilers of this type. Through numerous pipes, a steam-water mixture from the combustion screens is supplied to it. In the drum, steam is separated from this mixture and the remaining water is mixed with the feed water entering this drum from the economizer. From the drum, water passes through pipes located outside the firebox into collecting collectors, and from them into screen pipes located in the firebox. In this way, the circular path (circulation) of water in drum boilers is closed. The movement of water and steam-water mixture according to the drum - outer pipes - screen pipes - drum scheme occurs due to the fact that the total weight of the column of steam-water mixture filling the screen pipes is less than the weight of the water column in the outer pipes. This creates a pressure of natural circulation, ensuring circular movement of water.
Steam boilers are automatically controlled by numerous regulators, the operation of which is monitored by an operator.
The devices regulate the supply of fuel, water and air to the boiler, maintain constant the water level in the boiler drum, the temperature of the superheated steam, etc. The devices that control the operation of the boiler unit and all its auxiliary mechanisms are concentrated on a special control panel. It also contains devices that allow automated operations to be carried out remotely from this panel: opening and closing of all shut-off valves on pipelines, starting and stopping individual auxiliary mechanisms, as well as starting and stopping the entire boiler unit as a whole.
Water tube boilers of the type described have a very significant drawback: the presence of a bulky, heavy and expensive drum. To get rid of it, steam boilers without drums were created. They consist of a system of curved tubes, into one end of which feed water is supplied, and from the other, superheated steam of the required pressure and temperature comes out, i.e., water passes through all heating surfaces once without circulation before turning it into steam. Such steam boilers are called direct-flow boilers.
The operating diagram of such a boiler is as follows.
Feed water passes through the economizer, then enters the lower part of the coils located in a helical shape on the walls of the furnace. The steam-water mixture formed in these coils enters a coil located in the boiler flue, where the conversion of water into steam ends. This part of the once-through boiler is called the transition zone. The steam then enters the superheater. After leaving the superheater, the steam is directed to the consumer. The air required for combustion is heated in an air heater.
Once-through boilers make it possible to produce steam at a pressure of more than 200 atmospheres, which is impossible in drum boilers.
The resulting superheated steam, which has high pressure (100–140 atmospheres) and high temperature (500–580 °C), is capable of expanding and doing work. This steam is transmitted through main steam pipelines to engine room, in which steam turbines are installed.
In steam turbines, the potential energy of steam is converted into mechanical energy of rotation of the steam turbine rotor. In turn, the rotor is connected to the rotor of the electric generator.
The operating principle and structure of a steam turbine are discussed in the article “Electric Turbine”, so we will not dwell on them in detail.
The steam turbine will be the more economical, i.e., the less heat it will consume for each kilowatt-hour it generates, the lower the pressure of the steam leaving the turbine.
For this purpose, the steam leaving the turbine is directed not into the atmosphere, but into a special device called a condenser, in which a very low pressure is maintained, only 0.03–0.04 atmospheres. This is achieved by lowering the temperature of the steam by cooling it with water. The steam temperature at this pressure is 24–29 °C. In the condenser, the steam gives up its heat to the cooling water and at the same time it condenses, i.e. turns into water - condensate. The temperature of the steam in the condenser depends on the temperature of the cooling water and the amount of this water consumed per kilogram of condensed steam. The water used to condense the steam enters the condenser at a temperature of 10–15 °C and leaves it at a temperature of about 20–25 °C. The cooling water consumption reaches 50–100 kg per 1 kg of steam.
The condenser is a cylindrical drum with two covers at the ends. At both ends of the drum there are metal boards in which big number brass tubes. Cooling water passes through these tubes. Steam from the turbine passes between the tubes, flowing around them from top to bottom. The condensate formed during steam condensation is removed from below.
When steam condenses great importance has heat transfer from the steam to the wall of the tubes through which the cooling water passes. If there is even a small amount of air in the steam, then the heat transfer from the steam to the wall of the tube deteriorates sharply; The amount of pressure that will need to be maintained in the condenser will depend on this. Air that inevitably enters the condenser with steam and through leaks must be continuously removed. This is carried out by a special device - a steam jet ejector.
To cool the steam exhausted in the turbine in the condenser, water from a river, lake, pond or sea is used. The cooling water consumption at powerful power plants is very high and, for example, for a power plant with a capacity of 1 million kW, is about 40 m3/sec. If water for cooling steam in condensers is taken from the river, and then, heated in the condenser, is returned to the river, then such a water supply system is called direct-flow.
If there is not enough water in the river, then a dam is built and a pond is formed, from one end of which water is taken to cool the condenser, and heated water is discharged to the other end. Sometimes, to cool the water heated in the condenser, artificial coolers are used - cooling towers, which are towers about 50 m high.
Water heated in the turbine condensers is supplied to trays located in this tower at a height of 6–9 m. Flowing in streams through the openings of the trays and splashing in the form of drops or a thin film, the water flows down, partially evaporating and cooling. The cooled water is collected in a pool, from where it is pumped to the condensers. Such a water supply system is called closed.
We examined the main devices used to convert the chemical energy of fuel into electrical energy in a steam turbine thermal power plant.
The operation of a coal-burning power plant occurs as follows.
Coal is supplied by broad gauge trains to an unloading device, where, with the help of special unloading mechanisms - car dumpers - it is unloaded from the cars onto belt conveyors.
The fuel supply in the boiler room is created in special storage containers - bunkers. From the bunkers, the coal enters the mill, where it is dried and ground to a powdery state. A mixture of coal dust and air is fed into the boiler firebox. When coal dust burns, flue gases are formed. After cooling, the gases pass through the ash collector and, having been cleared of fly ash in it, are discharged into the chimney.
The slags and fly ash that fall out of the combustion chamber from the ash collectors are transported through channels by water and then pumped to the ash dump by pumps. Air for fuel combustion is supplied by a fan to the boiler air heater. The superheated high-pressure, high-temperature steam produced in the boiler is fed through steam lines to a steam turbine, where it expands to a very low pressure and goes into the condenser. The condensate formed in the condenser is taken by the condensate pump and supplied through the heater to the deaerator. The deaerator removes air and gases from the condensate. The deaerator also receives raw water that has passed through the water treatment device to replenish the loss of steam and condensate. From the deaerator feed tank, feed water is supplied by a pump to the water economizer of the steam boiler. Water for cooling the exhaust steam is taken from the river and sent to the turbine condenser by a circulation pump. Electrical energy generated by a generator connected to a turbine is removed through step-up electrical transformers along power lines high voltage to the consumer.
The power of modern thermal power plants can reach 6000 megawatts or more with an efficiency of up to 40%.
Thermal power plants can also use gas turbines running on natural gas or liquid fuel. Gas turbine power plants (GTPPs) are used to cover peaks of electrical load.
There are also combined cycle power plants, in which the power plant consists of a steam turbine and a gas turbine unit. Their efficiency reaches 43%.
The advantage of thermal power plants compared to hydroelectric power plants is that they can be built anywhere, bringing them closer to the consumer. They run on almost all types of fossil fuels, so they can be adapted to the type that is available in a given area.
In the mid-70s of the XX century. the share of electricity generated at thermal power plants was approximately 75% of total output. In the USSR and the USA it was even higher – 80%.
The main disadvantage of thermal power plants is high degree environmental pollution carbon dioxide, as well as the large area occupied by ash dumps.
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