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Bellona nuclear digest. May 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
News
Publish date: August 27, 2003
News
The Tomsk plant’s estimated price is $1 billion. It will be constructed within the framework of Russian-American program on weapon-grade plutonium disposition. The Tomsk-based facility will be built using money promised at the 2002 meeting of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, or G-8. So far the work has been funded from the US Defence Department budget. The US concern Duke Cogema Stone & Webster was specially established for this purpose in the United States. The Russian nuclear fuel giant TVEL represents Russia in the program. The delegation from the Siberian Chemical Combine, headed by First Deputy Director General Valery Mesheryakov, visited Charlotte, North Carolina, to agree on practical issues of adaptation of the MOX-Fuel Fabrication Facility construction project. Geological research of the construction site are due to start in September or October. The site occupies 35 hectares and is situated 7.5 km from Seversk, formerly Tomsk-7. The foundation ditch will be ready by 2005. MOX-fuel can be used in fast neutron reactors like the BN-600 at the Beloyarsk NPP and in specially retrofitted VVER-1000 reactors. A VVER-1000 at the Balakovo NPP is scheduled to be the fist to be retrofitted for MOX use. The MOX fuel program is highly criticised by the environmental organisations for its high threat to the environment. And, because of the plutonium involved, it is panned as a proliferation risk as well.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
But it’s unlikely to impact emissions from shipping along the Northern Sea Route.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
The following op-ed, written by Bellona’s Charles Digges, originally appeared in The Moscow Times. In recent months, the Russian nuclear in...