"VIENNA, Austria -- Russia has decided to extend the life of a controversial generation of nuclear reactors like the one that catastrophically exploded at Chernobyl in 1986, the head of Russia's state-owned nuclear monopoly said."

"Sergei Kirienko, chief executive of Rosatom, said in an interview that Russia has taken action to extend the operational life of all of its Soviet-era reactors to 45 years. Among those reactors are 11 units like the one at Chernobyl, which Soviet nuclear engineers thought should be decommissioned after 30 years."

David Crawford and Rebecca Smith report for the Wall St. Journal September 22, 2011. [2]