News
Publish date: December 7, 2006
News
A Rosatom press release said Norway has pledged technical, technological and financial assistance in scrapping decommissioned submarines and other nuclear vessels of Russia’s Northern Fleet, as well as providing safe storage of reactor compartments and spent nuclear fuel.
Norway’s allocations for related projects will be made in amounts subject to approval by the country’s parliament.
Rosatom’s chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, said last week that Russia has dismantled 145 of its 197 decommissioned Soviet-era nuclear submarines, and that the remaining 50-odd vessels will be scrapped by 2010.
The United States, Canada, Britain, Italy, and Japan have also offered Russia their help in safely disposing of its decommissioned nuclear submarines.
All want to ensure that proliferation-sensitive components from the dismantled ships are not sold off to third countries, and that their spent fuel, which contains large amounts of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, is removed and stored without harming the environment or public health.
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.