Russian Duma votes for nuclear import

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

Dear Radsafers,
I do apologise for copying the full article, but many will be currently on
holidays and it will go into 'payable' archive on Tuesday.
Kind regards
Nick Tsurikov
Eneabba, Western Australia
http://eneabba.net/ <http://eneabba.net/>  
>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Saint-Petersburg Times, 22 December 2000:
Duma Votes for Nuclear Imports 
http://www.sptimes.ru/current/top/t_1366.htm
<http://www.sptimes.ru/current/top/t_1366.htm>  
By Galina Stolyarova 
STAFF WRITER 
The State Duma voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to support amendments to
environmental law that would allow for the import of irradiated nuclear fuel
for reprocessing and long-term storage, despite concerns of
environmentalists who say this will turn Russia into the world's dump for
nuclear waste.
With 318 deputies for and only 32 against, the first reading had a
satisfactory conclusion for Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov, who has
lobbied long and hard for the legislative change.
And Vladimir Klimov, deputy head of the Duma's power, transport and
communications committee, was also happy with the result. "The 1992
environmental law was a victory of the emotions over common sense. It has to
be changed," he said in an telephone interview.
Support for the amendment came mostly from the Communist and Unity factions.
Over 90 percent of Unity deputies supported the change, as did over
three-quarters of the Communist Party's lawmakers.
If the amendment passes all readings in the Duma, it will mean that Russia
can import up to 20,000 tons of irradiated fuel from other countries over
the next decade. Adamov has repeatedly claimed that this could earn the
country as much as $20 billion.
Supporters of the project say that this money would be used to develop
Russia's nuclear industry, as well as improve its safety record and help
clean up contaminated areas.
The amendment says that up to 35 percent of revenues will go to ecological
projects.
At the moment, the world has around 200,000 tons of irradiated nuclear fuel
awaiting reprocessing, with 14,000 tons produced by Russia.
One dissenting Communist voice came from Alexander Shvetsov, who announced
his intention to vote against the motion before the vote. 
"The ecological danger is obvious," Shvetsov said in a telephone interview
Wednesday. "But even in terms of the economics, the plan won't work."
Yelena Drapeko, a member of the Agro-Industrial faction, said in a telephone
interview Tuesday that she, too, would vote against the plan. "Our storage
facilities aren't safe, and the money we would earn won't suffice to solve
our environmental problems," she said.
The only faction to vote against the amendment en masse was Yabloko. "The
amendment ... only proves that the Nuclear Power Ministry is blatantly
lobbying its interests," said Yabloko Deputy Sergei Mitrokhin during the
debate.
Thomas Nilsen of the environmental group Bellona agreed. "The [Nuclear Power
Ministry] will keep as much of the money [it earns] as possible for itself,"
Nilsen said by telephone on Thursday evening. "I doubt that money will be
used to improve nuclear safety, and in any case, $20 billion is not enough."
And Alexander Nikitin, who co-wrote a report on the Northern Fleet's
mishandling of its nuclear waste with Bellona, said that the real motive for
the amendment was for the Nuclear Ministry to make money. "The ministry has
degraded from being a scientific and technological center to a commercial
enterprise," Nikitin said.
In June 1999, the Nuclear Power Ministry and a U.S.-based company, the
Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT), signed a letter of intent, according to which
Russia would accept at least 10,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from
Switzerland, South Korea, and Taiwan for reprocessing and storage for at
least 40 years. For its services, Russia would charge between $1,000 and
$2,000 per kilogram of spent fuel - much cheaper than other countries which
store and reprocess foreign fuel.
Earlier this year, First Deputy Nuclear Minister Valentin Ivanov also
revealed that Russia plans to convince Eastern European countries to rely on
Russian storage facilities, rather than build their own. "It would be safer
than having countries that do not possess the advanced technology in this
field constructing their own storage sites," he told deputies.
In late October, a Bulgarian power plant announced a deal to store nuclear
waste in Russia, and said that the waste would remain in this country.
Environmentalists have often pointed to Russia's record on storing nuclear
waste, highlighting a number of radiation leaks at existing facilities, and
maintain that the country's reactors are dangerous and out-of-date.
Greenpeace-Russia distributed letters to deputies written by those who say
they have suffered from radiation poisoning.
Nilsen, who said that Russia was more likely to use existing storage sites
in the Chelyabinsk and Krasnoyarsk regions, added that the Nuclear Power
Ministry had mislead deputies.
"It diverted attention away from the nuclear waste issue by using the phrase
'energy resources,'" he said. "It focused on how [the plan] would be
economically profitable, and ignored the fact that this is pretty dangerous
material."
One way in which Russian environmentalists tried to fight the amendment was
by forcing a referendum on the subject. The initiative, begun this autumn,
failed when the Central Electoral Commission rejected over 600,000 of the
nearly 2 1/2 million signatures gathered, thus invalidating the petition.
Greenpeace spokeswoman Polina Malysheva said that the petition's organizers
intended to challenge the CEC's decision in court.
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