Bellona Report 4:2004

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Bellona Report “The Russian Nuclear Industry—The Need for Reform” (The Red Report) is available at our web-site as PDF document.

Contents

Preface

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

A Brief History of the Russian Nuclear Industry (0.8 MB)

1.1. The Push for the Soviet Bomb

1.1.1. The Science and the Scientists

1.1.2. The Vast and Unknown

1.1.3. The Slowdown of the Soviet Nuclear Industry

1.2. The ZATO Structure

1.3. The Twilight of Minatom?

1.4. Nuclear Regulators

1.4.1. March 2004 Government Shake-Up and its Effects on Nuclear Oversight

Chapter 2

Nuclear fuel cycle (Part One) (0.9 MB)

2.1. Uranium Mining

2.1.1. Uranium Deposit Development

2.1.2. Russia’s Uranium Ore Resources

2.1.3. Uranium Ore Utilization and Reproduction

2.2. Uranium Enrichment

2.2.1. Separation Industry Development in the Former USSR and Russia

2.2.2. The Separation Industry Today

2.2.3. Separation Industry Outlook

2.3. Nuclear Fuel Production

2.4. Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage

2.4.1. SNF Quantity

2.5. Radioactive Waste Storage at Nuclear Fuel Cycle Plants

2.5.1. Liquid Radioactive Waste (LRW)

2.5.2. Solid Radioactive Waste (SRW)

2.5.3. Nuclear industry’s contaminated territories

2.6. Transportation

2.7. The Mayak Chemical Combine

2.7.1. Production Reactors

2.7.2. MCC Technological Schema for Production of Weapons-Grade Material

2.7.3. Reprocessing, Facility RT-1, for Non-Weapons-Grade Material

2.7.4. Other installations in the MCC Infrastructure

2.7.5. Nuclear Materials Handling at MCC

Chapter 2

Nuclear fuel cycle (Part Two) (0.9 MB)

2.7.6. Radioactive Waste Handling

2.7.7. Radiation Incidents and Accidents Registered at the MCC

2.7.8. Radiation Exposure of the Population in the MCC’s Activity Zone and in the East Urals Radioactive Trace

2.8. Seversk. History and Location.

2.8.1. Main Structural Subdivisions

2.8.2. Planning MOX fuel plant construction

2.8.3. Non-proliferation and Physical Protection Issues

2.8.4. Handling Nuclear Materials and Radioactive Waste

2.8.5. Accidents and incidents

2.8.6. Radioactive Contamination of SCC Adjacent Territory

2.9. Zheleznogorsk. History and Location

2.9.1. The MCC’s Main Subdivisions

2.9.2. Non-Proliferation and Physical Protection

2.9.3. Radioactive waste storage

2.9.4. Accidents and incidents

2.10. Other Nuclear-Fuel Cycle Enterprises

2.10.1. Electrochemical Plant

2.10.2. Urals Electrochemical Integrated Plant (Sverdlovsk-44) (UEIP), Novouralsk

2.10.3. Chepetsk Mechanical Plant Production Union (CMPPU, City of Glazov)

2.10.4. Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Combine (AECC)

Chapter 3

International and Russian programmes (0.6 MB)

3.1. Cooperative Threat Reduction and Other U.S. Efforts

3.1.1. Ballistic Submarine Dismantlement

3.1.2. Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility

3.1.3. Materials Protection, Control and Accounting Programmes

3.1.4. Russian-U.S. Bilateral Plutonium Disposition

3.1.5. Shutting Down Russia’s Plutonium Reactors

3.2. The HEU-LEU agreement

3.3. NDEP and MNEPR

3.4. The G-8 Global Partnership

3.4.1. The Global Partnership Funding Questions

3.5. Russian Programmes

3.5.1. Nuclear FTPs Financed in 2004

Chapter 4

The Economy of Russia’s Nuclear Energy (0.9 MB)

4.1. Assessing the Balance of Income and Expenditure: Minatom’s Official and Real Budgets

4.1.1. Systematising Economic Activities

4.1.2. Minatom’s Budget

4.2. Minatom’s Income from International Activities

4.2.1. The HEU-LEU Programme and Other Examples of Minatom’s Sales of Russian ‘Weapons-Grade’ Nuclear Material

4.2.2. Minatom’s Nuclear-Fuel Cycle: Exports of Fresh Nuclear Fuel and Other ‘Nuclear’ Products; SNF Imports

4.2.3. Construction of NPPs Abroad

4.2.4. Grants and Unpaid Aid as a Form of Minatom’s Receiving Funding from Foreign Organisations

4.3. The Economy of Nuclear Electrical Power

4.3.1. Tariffs Instead of Cost Price

4.3.2. Minatom and Rosenergoatom’s Peculiar Accounting

4.3.3. State Subsidies and International Aid

4.3.4. Production of ‘Fresh’ Fuel

4.3.5. Storage and Processing of SNF:Waste Management.

4.3.6. Decommissioning and Dismantling of NPP Reactor Blocs

4.3.7. Social Benefits in the Areas around NPPs

4.3.8. Full-Value Insurance of Nuclear Risks — The Existence Condition of NPPs

4.3.9. New Reactors at the Population’s Expense

4.3.10. The Nuclear Industry’s Search for Investors

4.4. Economic Implications of Operating Nuclear Industry Establishments. The Cost of Reclaiming Polluted Territory.

4.4.1. Systematising the Nuclear Industry’s Legacy and its Decommisssioning, Reclamation and Repository Needs

4.4.2. Possible Sources of Funding

Chapter 5

Conclusion (0.7 MB)

Appendix A

Uranium mining and nuclear power plants in the former USSR and the Eastern Europe

A.1. Uranium mining

A.2. Nuclear power plants and quantity of SNF

A.2.1. Details on reactors in formerly Soviet bloc states or republics

Appendix B

European reprocessing facilities

B.1. Sellafield

B.1.1. Reprocessing Plant THORP

B.1.2. Radioactive Discharges

B.1.3. The MOX Trade

B.1.4. Decommissioning Work

B.2. Dounreay

B.3. La Hague

B.3.1. Radioactive Discharges

B.3.2. The Reprocessing Business

B.3.3. MOX Business

Appendix C

Data on the Financing of Russian Federal Target Programmes Realised in 2003

Appendix D

Northern Fleet and Pacific Fleet Nuclear Submarine Dismantlement and Waste Management Problems

D.1. Northern Fleet

D.1.1. Submarine Dismantlement

D.1.2. Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Radioactive Waste

D.1.3. Northern Fleet Radiological Support Vessels

D.2. The Pacific Fleet

D.2.1. Submarine Dismantlement

D.2.2. Location of the Retired Submarines

D.2.3. Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Radioactive Waste

D.2.4. Pacific Fleet Radiological Support Vessels

Appendix E

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators

E.1. What RTGs Are

E.2. RTG Safety

E.3. Use, Ownership and Licensing

E.4. Types of RTGs

E.5. Accounting for RTGs

E.5.1. Where They are and What Condition They are in

E.6. Incidents Involving RTGs

E.7. RTGs and International Efforts

References