Depleted UF6 needs to be reprocessed - transferred into the
other, stabler chemical form, and in the long term - buried.
According to URENCO company, the full defluorination and burial
of the received oxide uranium is 6,02 dollars/kg WUH, 1,26
dollars/kg of them is for defluorination. The other sum is
necessary for the burial.
Accordingly, conversion and burial price of 125 thousand tons of
the West European origin WUH, which have been saved up in Russia,
is 750 million dollars (160 million dollars for WUH
defluorination).
On the basis of the WUH recycling first cost the recycling of 1
million tons - all the domestic and foreign origin WUH volume,
which Russia will turn out and receive «for processing» by 2030,
will be 5,7 billion dollars for our country, including 0,7 billion
dollars, which will be spent for defluorination.
At this moment it is unknown, whether Rosatom at least develops
any mechanisms of financial maintenance of processing and recycling
of WUH and the uranium "tails" formed as a result of its
enrichment. Therefore it is possible to result only expert
estimations where «the uranium problem» can be financed from.
Theoretically it is possible to consider as the first possible
financing source the realisation of fluoric acid which is educed
during defluorination process. But according to economic indicators
fluoric acid doesn't compensate defluorination, without mentioning
storage and burial of the depleted uranium. Representatives of
sector confirm this, for example, the general director of Angarsk
electro-chemical industrial complex asserts that WUH conversion is
unprofitable.
It is possible to consider the cost services of uranium
enrichment assignments to the enriching uranium plants as the
second financing source. Formally cash resources for the WUH
processing are taken into account of the first cost of uranium
enrichment services. However, according to the WUH collected
volumes and absence of industrial defluorination practice these
cash resources are not used for the purpose. Besides, it is
possible to assume there is no practice of reservation of WUH
recycling cash resources in Rosatom, by analogy of cash resources
absence for nuclear stations deactivating. But even if such a
practice will be started, low cost of uranium enrichment,
established for the domestic atomic power stations, cannot
obviously provide reservation of sufficient cash resources for WUH
recycling.
The third possible and quite realistic financing source for WUH
conversion and recycling is the federal budget. There are all the
bases to believe that the Rosatom will provide conversion, storage
and burial of depleted uranium with the help of the next federal
target program with financing from the federal budget. It means
that WUH recycling will be provided by the expenses of the tax
bearer's resources as it occurs to financing of the building of the
new atomic power stations.
According to the international practice availability of
financial guarantees of WUH recycling is important component during
the process of licence receive for uranium enrichment plants
building*