News
Publish date: February 23, 2010
News
The countries involved in the discussions are the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Bulgaria. They are due to reconvene in May to continue negotiations regarding transportation and storage of waste.
In Slovenia, a repository for low-level waste is under construction at Vrbina in the east of the country. Last summer, the World Nuclear Association confirmed that the local community agreed to accept its construction in exchange for €5 million per year in compensation.
Most EU countries, such as the Netherlands, lack storage facilities.
Many keep their material in interim storage facilities, such as Britain’s Sellafield plant, where about 5,000 half-tonne canisters of vitrified atomic waste are stored in concrete and steel chutes. Some of this waste will remain highly radioactive for up to 100,000 years.
“Radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel is a national responsibility, and it would be unethical for any country to export any radioactive waste to another country for disposal. Especially so if the hosting country is a poor country with lower safety standards than the exporting country”, says Nils Bøhmer from Bellona.
Read more in an article by The Times.
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.