Transport of spent fuel in Russia

["Tsurikov, Nick" <nick.tsurikov@iluka.com>]

Hello, Radsafers

For those interested (again from St. Petersburg Times, Friday 3 Nov) -
http://www.sptimes.ru/current/news/n_731.htm
<http://www.sptimes.ru/current/news/n_731.htm>  
(The article will stay there for the next 10-12 hours, so I'll copy it
below).

Kind regards
Nick Tsurikov
Eneabba, Western Australia
http://eneabba.net/ <http://eneabba.net/>  

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nuclear Officials Gather To Talk Transport Safety 
By Galina Stolyarova
STAFF WRITER
The thought of having radioactive materials passing through your city at
night may not put the mind at ease, but state nuclear power officials have
no doubts: Don't worry, it's safe.
But put that reassurance in context, say environmentalists, and it is merely
a prelude to shipping in nuclear waste from other countries for reprocessing
and long-term storage. The accidents, they say, start there.
Nuclear power officials and other experts who gathered in St. Petersburg
this week to discuss importing spent nuclear fuel from abroad were upbeat
about the idea's chances, apparently undaunted by the recent success of
environmentalists in collecting over 2.5 million signatures on a petition
calling for a referendum on the issue.
The conference - which was almost entirely free of environmentalists - was
mostly dedicated to the transportation of radioactive materials, and the
general consensus was that moving nuclear waste around Russia had a proven
track record.
The State Duma is set to discuss amendments to the law before the end of
this year.
According to statistics cited by Alexander Agapov, head of the safety
department of the Nuclear Power Ministry, there have been only four
accidents involving the transportation of irradiated nuclear fuel in the
country since 1992, none of which resulted in leaks.
"Our [nuclear fuel] containers meet the requirements of the International
Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]," Agapov said at the conference, "and
modifications are being developed."
"The transportation aspect should definitely be taken off the list of
problems when it comes to the issue of importing foreign radioactive
materials," said Vladimir Yershov, deputy head of the Moscow-based research
center Nuclide. "It is absolutely safe."
At present, Russia is allowed to take in spent fuel from abroad for
reprocessing - which yields plutonium, uranium, and huge quantities of
radioactive waste water - provided it ships that waste back to the country
of origin.
The Nuclear Power Ministry wants to keep the waste for storage, saying that
the business could earn Russia around $20 billion. Russia is looking at
importing 20,000 tons of spent fuel over a period of 10 to 15 years - about
a tenth of the world's current total awaiting reprocessing, according to
Valentin Ivanov, first deputy in the ministry.
The money would be plowed back into improving storage facilities and nuclear
safety, says the government, which says it cannot provide the necessary sum
to do this on its own.
Moscow has earmarked 6 billion rubles over the next six years for these
purposes within the Federal Program for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of
Russia, well short of the $50 billion to $70 billion the Nuclear Ministry is
looking for, Agapov said.
But environmentalists are appalled at Russia's nuclear safety record, and
believe taking on other people's waste is a disastrous idea.
"Changes to the law will result in a dramatic increase in the amount of
radioactive waste [on Russian territory]," said Igor Forofontov, coordinator
of the nuclear program of Greenpeace in Russia.
"[Although there would be] financial profit for [people trading in nuclear
materials], the consequences would be ordinary Russians getting sick [from
radiation leaks]."
Ivanov, however, said that it was safer for nuclear waste to be stored in
one country, than have it dotted around other countries in Eastern Europe
who would want to profit from the business. "The fewer the places, the
better," Ivanov said.
Ivanov also said that Russia has developed new technology for reprocessing
spent nuclear fuel which would not require isolation of plutonium and
uranium as the current practice does. The idea is to regenerate the fuel,
minimizing the amount of radioactive by-products.
If the Duma does change the law, the first shipment of foreign spent fuel
would go to a storage facility in Zheleznogorsk in the Krasnoyarsk Region.
The Nuclear Power Ministry is also looking at constructing a new dry-storage
facility in the same area.
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