Posing a threat to the safety of Russia, the international nuclear lobby is going to solve one of the most difficult problems of the nuclear energy industry – disposal of radioactive waste. According to the IAEA report “Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle” from February 22, 2005, Russia is a site for international nuclear repository. In all the Agency plans to establish 8 such repositories worldwide: 2 – in North America, 1– in South America, 2 – in Western and Central Europe, and three more in Russia, Southeast Asia and China. However, neither the US, nor Australia, nor Canada, nor any other large states want to pursue a whim of the IAEA. The exception is the position of the Russian government, which seems to ignore the opinion of citizens – according to the opinion poll by ROMIR Monitoring, 92% of the Russians are against the international repository.

The IAEA states that disposal of nuclear waste in Russia will contribute to nuclear non-proliferation. However the Agency connives at some Russian nuclear energy projects that promote to expanding the list of the countries owning nuclear weapons and increase nuclear terrorism risks. Among reckless schemes of Rosatom there are construction of a nuclear power plan in Iran and sale of floating NPPs to Southeast Asian countries.

Rosatiom and the IAEA think that bringing SNF containing plutonium back to Russia will enable countries with unstable political regimes to use atomic energy for peaceful purposes only. Nevertheless, the experience of North Korea and India shows that any peace program will finally transom into the military one. There is a risk that Iran, where the Russian NPP is being constructed, or Indonesia, which is going to buy a floating NPP, will decide to hold radioactive materials in their countries or will produce them on their own

In Russia additional disposal grounds will increase a risk of nuclear terrorism because there is no proper security system at such sites. It’s noteworthy that in 2002 Greenpeace activists and the deputy of the State Duma Serguey Mitrokhin met not obstacles to climb the roof of the spent nuclear fuel disposal facility in the Krasnoyarsk Krai and then get out of there. Several months later the same operation was carried out there by officers from intelligence services.

“In Russia there are already tens of thousands of tons ofdomestic nuclear waste. The storage grounds are virtually leaking and they have poor control and physical security system”, says Vladimir Chouprov, Greenpeace Russia Energy Unit Head. “Greenpeace demands to reject the plans to create nuclear repositories in Russin and to look for alternative ways to solve the problem of radioactive waste. As the first step, we propose to stop constructing new reactors and producing more waste.

Contacts: Vladimir Chouprov, Evgeny Usov – 257 41 16/18/22

Additional information

On February 22, 2005, the work group of the IAEA issued the report “Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear-Fuel Cycle”. According to this document, Russia is a site for an international nuclear repository.

Starting from mid-90s Rosatom (Minatom) has been actively lobbying import of foreign SNF for storage, reprocessing and disposal.

On June 16, 1997, the Russian government on the initiative of Minatom issued a closed regulation to import a limited amount of spent nuclear fuel from the Hungarian NPP Paksh: “To show our good will and to meet the request of the Hungarian government we resolve to accept, as an exception, SPF from the Paksh NPP on condition of the previous practice, i.e. without further returning solidified radioactive waste and reprocessing products to the Hungarian Republic”. The regulation of the Russian government, which conveys this decision, was revoked by the resolution of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation from February 26, 2002.

In September 1998 a secret protocol on intentions was signed between Minatom, the Swiss company Electrizitatagesellschaft and the German company Internexco, in accordance to which the Swiss party expressed their desire to transport 2000 tons of Swiss SNF to Russia “for reprocessing without further return”.

Radioactive waste, which would occur as a result of SNF reprocessing, was proposed to leave in Russia. The Russian party in the person of Minatom emphasized that such methods of managing spent nuclear waste could be performed “on condition of introducing appropriate amendments in the Russian legislation”.