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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.
Throughout the past year, our mission at the Bellona Environmental Transparency Center has focused on two key, but intertwined issues—nuclear and radiation safety as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, and the worldwide influence of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, which itself is actively involved in the war and has participated in the occupation of a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
At the beginning of the year, reports in the German and Russian press suggested an approximate 70% increase in uranium imports from Russia to Germany in 2024. But does this reflect broader European trends? It does not. Overall, imports of uranium and nuclear fuel from Russia to Western countries actually dropped sharply in 2024. Unlike the situation in Germany, this is already an established trend.
A Lingen, Germany plant could begin producing nuclear fuel in cooperation with a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, which is directly involved in the war in Ukraine and occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
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.