Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, October 2024
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.
News
Publish date: September 28, 2006
News
According to Kirienko, extracting uranium from Russian mines was not a profitable endeavor because the average market price for a kilogram of uranium was approximately $40.
But now world market prices have skyrocketed to $100 per kilogram, said Kirienko, making Russian mining of the substance justifiable as a profit-turning business. The sharp upturn in uranium prices can be chalked up to analysts assertions over the past few years that world uranium supplies were running short, and thus countries with nuclear energy programmes began buying it up as quickly as they could.
Kirienko added that the Russian joint venture with uranium rich Kazakhstan – called Zarechnoe – will begin mining in January or February of 2007.
“We will expand cooperation in the field of uranium mining with all countries where uranium mining occurs,” RIA Novosti quoted Kirienko of saying. “We are ready to develop active cooperation with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and already have an active dialogue with Mongolia.”
According to Kirienko, a significant quantity of uranium was mined for military purposes during soviet times, thus Russia “can mine nothing for a few dozen years.” But he added that, on the other hand, uranium mining is necessary for wide-scale development of nuclear power.
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.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.