News
Publish date: December 9, 1997
Written by: Igor Kudrik
News
According to Nuclear Engineering International, Ministry for Atomic Energy of Russia (Minatom)
plans to build facility on Novaya Zemlya to store spent fuel from RBMK-type reactors. This fuel is now
stored in on-site facilities at Russia’s three RBMK nuclear power plants – Kursk, Leningrad and
Smolensk. Stores are almost full, as this type of fuel is not subject for reprocessing in Russia.
— There is no ready project as yet for storage facility or repository on Novaya Zemlya, said in the
interview to Bellona WEB Vladimir Mankin, senior researcher in All-Russia Research and Design
Institute of Production Engineering (VNIPIpromtechnologii). The Institute has developed a feasibility
study for construction of a test industrial object for underground radioactive waste isolation in
permafrost of Novaya Zemlya and completed a part of engineering research field work this year.
Mankin said that the funding of the project remained scarce during 1997. The planned completion of
engineering and geological research on Novaya Zemlya by the end of 1998 is likely to be beyond the
schedule.
— The studies we are conducting today are related to the prospects of creating a repository for low-
and medium-level radwaste. No detailed research has been done to define the possibilities for disposing
spent nuclear fuel on Novaya Zemlya, added Mankin.
According to Mankin, given stable funding, the first shipments of low- and medium-level radwaste for
disposal on Novaya Zemlya are possible in 5 years.
The Novaya Zemlya study was launched in 1991. The repository was to be located by settlement
Bashmachnyi on the southern island of Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Due to the lack of funding, the
engineering research field work has been hardly completed so far.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.