News
Publish date: July 22, 1998
Written by: Thomas Nilsen
News
For three years, India leased the Russian Charlie-I class submarine (K-43), the first and only such transaction between two countries. Today India is working with the development of the nuclear-powered attack submarine program, based on the Russian Charlie-I class design. According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, the PWR reactor will use 20% enriched uranium, the same as the 2. generation Russian submarines.
Russian and Indian navy technicians were working in close co-operation during the three years K-43 was based in India. Following the submarines return in 1991, India had planned to acquire four to six nuclear-powered submarines, but the disintegration of the Soviet Union put an end to those plans. Officially the co-operation is halted today, since it would violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty. India recently tested five nuclear bombs.
The first Indian nuclear powered submarine will be laid by 2001/2, two years after the completion of the land tests on its reactor. This will be followed by its launch around 2006/7 and commissioning a year later. This makes India the world’s sixth country to operate nuclear powered submarines, after United Kingdom, China, France, USA and Russia.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.