In order to understand what this initiative costs one needs to
apply the experience of two months ago, when Rosatom announced its
new plans, to refuse taking in foreign spent fuel, which was
allowed since a law in 2001.
Unfortunately, this initiative went almost unnoticed at the G8
Summit in St. Petersburg. In this regard we recommend
the article about the situation around the new nuclear
initiative, which is published at the publishing house Platts
and used with friendly permission in our comment below.
"Russia does not wish to be the dump of radioactive waste"
This was commented in August by the special adviser of the State
Deparment James Timbie on the rejection in taking in foreign spent
fule into Russia. Adding, especially spent fuel from America.
A similar reaction of American politicians and industrialists
was the answers to the statement of Rosatom about the change of the
initiative in taking in foreign spent fuel into Russia.
Among the reasons which Rosatom stated as arguments for the
rejection in taking in foreign spent fuel: the uncertainty of the
time factor of the storage of the taken in spent fuel and the high
risk "of having an enormous financial commitment".
The first case the talk was about amendments in nuclear
legislation provoked a strong protest from civil society five years
ago. The result of the protests was that the amendments restricted
the permission of storage of foreign spent fuel to a certain time
and not to allow the taking in of foreign spent fuel forever. This
became possible in many respects due to the negative reaction of
the civil society to the plans of making Russia the international
nuclear waste dump.
The temporary storage does not secure potential foreign clients
either (in the first phase, nuclear power plants from South Corea
and Taiwan overloaded with its spent fuel having US origin).
The second reason, why Rosatom rejects the taking in of foreing
spent fuel is an economic reason. In the opinion of the heads of
the Russian nuclear industry, "we can take it for 60 or 70 years
but what will happen in 100 years? Nobody is able to calculate
these expenditures." (
From article of Agency Platt).
Greenpeace and other organisations from the civil society spoke
about this problem already five years ago. Five years for the
evident fact that the dealing with radioactive material is not such
a cheap thing - this is a normal result for the leaders of the
nuclear industry.
It is hard to tell how many years it will take to understand an
other evident fact that the reprocessing of spent fuel does not
cost less and is not less unprofitable as storage the spent fuel.
In any case, as longer as it takes for this understanding, the
worse the limited conditions of the opportunity, when Russia
urgently in a short time needs to renew all of the electricity
sector, the passion for such unprofitable and non-effective
projects, as the reprocessing of spent fuel is deeply wasteful.
The most important thing which comes from the new initiative of
Rosatom is connected with the question "What is the real reason of
denial to take in foreign spent fuel?"
Taking into account that the projects of taking in foreign fuel
are economically originally unfounded, Rosatom proposed to use the
idea of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as an explanation for
taking in foreign spent fuel.
New initiatives are aiming at the creation of an international
centre (it is not named international nuclear waste dump), which
hosts the whole cycle of nuclear material management - from the
enrichment of uranium to the reprocessing of spent fuel. The centre
will be created under control of the IAEA or under the control of
the Global Energy Partnership, as proposed by Washington.
Under the new scheme Rosatom will not take "foreign" spent fuel.
It will take its own, which does not "smell" and which is proposed
under the condition of leasing. So far, on the Russian territory
will be the enrichment of uranium and the making fuel assemblies.
After that the fresh fuel rods will be delivered to, for example,
nuclear power plants in the USA. After five years, when the fresh
nuclear rods are turned into to high-level radioactive waste after
irradiation, it will be returned to Russia for the forever lasting
storage or reprocessing. Something similar takes place already,
when Rosatom builds nuclear power plants in other countries,
Rosatom proposes the supply of those reactors with fresh nuclear
rods and ensures taking back the spent fuel to Russia. This scheme
works already since 1980th, when Russia built many reactors in
Eastern Europe, in Balkans and in Finland. Nowadays, this scheme of
taking back the spent fuel to Russia is only used from Bulgaria and
in plans from Hungary.
Rosatom proposes to extend this scheme for all contracts about
delivering fresh fuel rods to all reactors that work with Russian
fuel rods. For comparision, 30% of the American nuclear capacity
works with uranium that comes from Russia. This means that
thousands of tons of spent fuel will be returned to Russia in the
future.
Such a scheme has certainly political protection. A classical
example is Iran. It is clear that one should not leave spent fuel
in Iran, because spent fuel contains plutonium and this brings the
risk of the end of non-proliferation in Middle East. It is hard to
oppose this, however in this case the question comes up, if it is
so dangerous, do we need to develop nuclear energy, which
undermines the stability of the World?
Moreover, the energy efficiency potential in the gas sector in
Iran extends a few times all the energy which Iran gets from its
nuclear power plant. Why is there the need for nuclear energy at
all, if the country has a higher potential in energy efficiency and
renewable energies?
In order to provide a safe alternative, which guarantees energy
security, non-proliferation and so on, Rosatom together with the
IAEA and the USA propose political action, which, as the experience
with North Corea shows, cannot prevent proliferation of nuclear
weapons (North Corea got out without any problems from the Treaty
of Non-proliferation).
The main danger in such initiatives is that they fulfil the role
of the "troyan horse" and give legitimation to originally dangerous
projects of the development of nuclear energy in countries that
have instable political regimes.
Among the other the effects of such initiatives is the creation
of wastes dumps with nuclear waste from other countries. However it
might be called - "international centre", "return on the condition
of renting" and so on - in every case waste that created in foreign
countries, gets Russian origin.
It is necessary to say that not a single country has so far
announced at the level of natial legislation the permission to take
in foreign spent fuel for storage. The first of all it refers to
the United Stated under which jurisdiction is regarding different
calculations 60-80% of all worldwide spent fuel and who banned
foreign spent fuel return.
The plans of the USA are not to take back spent fuel from South
Corea and Taiwan. Moreover, US industry still hopes that this spent
fuel will end up in Russia. If it is so important and necessary,
why do the US not organize an international centre for spent fuel
utilization on there territory?
Maybe, they also do not want to be the waste dump for nuclear
waste?