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: April 22, 1998
Written by: Igor Kudrik
News
Yevgeny Adamov, the acting minister for atomic energy of Russian Federation, stated that Russia could earn some 5-6 billion USD by taking spent nuclear fuel from other countries for reprocessing. The statement was made by Adamov at Ministry’s workshop outside Moscow on April 21.
According to Adamov, Russia is one of the few countries with a closed nuclear cycle; thus the market for such services are quite big. Adamov believes that the earned funds can be forwarded to completion of RT-2 reprocessing plant in Krasnoyarsk-26, as well as for construction of new nuclear power plants.
Currently Russia operates one reprocessing plant in Chelyabinsk county, Mayak, and 9 nuclear power plants (for a total of 29 reactor units).
Construction of the new reprocessing plant in Krasnoyarsk-26 was authorised in 1977, although actual construction works were not started until 1985. The RT-2 plant will reprocess spent nuclear fuel from light water reactors such as the VVER-1000. In 1989 the construction works, then 30-40 % complete, were halted, due both to a lack of funding and strong opposition against the facility on the local level.
The plans for new nuclear power plants presume commissioning of 6-7 reactor units by the year 2005. Today, the funding shortfalls hamper the scheduled construction works.
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.