Tag Archives: Russia nuclear waste

The Nuclear Reactors Buried in the Deep Sea

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The Soviet Union used the waters east of Novaya Zemlya to dump reactors, spent nuclear fuel and solid radioactive waste from both the navy and the fleet of nuclear-powered civilian icebreakers. About 17,000 objects were dumped in the period from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. Most of the objects are metal containers with low- and medium level radioactive waste. The challenge today, though, are the reactors with high-level waste and spent uranium fuel, objects that will pose a serious threat to the marine environment for tens of thousands of years if nothing is done to secure them.

The reactors from the submarines K-11, K-19 and K-140, plus the entire submarine K-27 (in the Kara Sea) and spent uranium fuel from one of the old reactors of the Lenin-icebreaker have to be lifted and secured. Also, the submarine K-159 (in the Barents Sea) that sank north of Murmansk while being towed for decommissioning in 2003 have to be lifted from the seafloor, the experts conclude. A study report made for Rosatom and the European Commission has evaluated the costs of lifting all six objects, bringing them safely to a yard for decommissioning and securing the reactors for long-term storage. The estimated price-tag for all six will €278 millions, of which the K-159 is the most expensive with a cost of €57.5 millions. Unlike the submarines and reactors that are dumped in relatively shallow waters in the Kara Sea, the K-159 is at about 200 meters depth, and thus will be more difficult to lift.

Excerpts from Thomas Nilsen, Lifting Russia’s accident reactors from the Arctic seafloor will cost nearly €300 million, Mar. 8, 2020

The 2017 Nuclear Cloud: Unreported Nuclear Accidents

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The probable culprit behind a mysterious cloud of radioactive particles detected floating above much of Europe in 2017 appears to have been identified. The radiation spike – in the form of an extremely high airborne concentration of the radioactive isotope ruthenium–106 – was detected by scientists in October 2017, but the source of the dramatic radiation surge (almost 1,000 times normal levels) was never definitively confirmed.  At the time, many speculated that nuclear facilities in Russia were responsiblefor what was perceived as an accidental ruthenium–106 release – despite denials at the time by Russian authorities.

Now new research looks to back up the Russian origin hypothesis, according to an international team of almost 70 scientists led by radionuclides researcher Olivier Masson from the Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire (IRSN) in France.  “Based on airborne concentration spreading and chemical considerations, it is possible to assume that the release occurred in the Southern Urals region (Russian Federation),” the researchers explain in their new paper.

In what they claim is the most comprehensive assessment of the incident to date, Masson and his team analysed over 1,300 readings taken of the radioactive cloud, recorded by 176 measuring stations in almost 30 countries.  While the airborne radioactive matter released was not harmful to human health, it nonetheless constituted the most serious release of radioactive material since the Fukushima accident in 2011 – with maximum values of 176 millibecquerels of the isotope per cubic metre of air.

Shortly after the release, Russian officials suggested the radiation surge might have been due to a crashing satellite, with the isotope being released from the battery of a spacecraft re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.  “The measurements indicate the largest singular release of radioactivity from a civilian reprocessing plant,” says one of the researchers, radioecologist Georg Steinhauser from the University of Hanover.  Specifically, the new evidence – based on modelling of air mass movements around the time of the accident – indicates Russia’s Mayak nuclear complex in the southern Urals “should be considered as a likely candidate for the release”, the researchers conclude…

If the researchers’ modelling is correct, the accident occurred sometime in late September 2017, on either the 25th or 26th of the month – almost exactly 60 years to the day after one of the worst nuclear accidents in history at the same site: the Kyshtym disaster, ranked as the third most serious nuclear accident ever on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

Excerpts frorm  PETER DOCKRILL,  Mysterious Radioactive Cloud That Blanketed Europe Traced to Russian Nuclear Facility, Science Alert, July 30, 2019

The Nuclear Waste Dumps in the Arctic

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Source: Nuclear Waste In the Arctic, RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, July 12, 2109

Nuclear Industry in Siberia

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Professor Leonid Rikhvanov says he has a number of questions about the potential damage to the community from reactors that have been used since the Soviet Era .His plea comes as the Siberian Chemical Combine  (SCC) in Seversk, a secretive city located 15 miles north of Tomsk, prepares for the construction of a new experimental fast reactor  known as BREST-300…

‘I would also like to raise the question of conducting a complex study on how the SCC’s reactors have affected the environment over the past 50 years. Before making a decision on new projects, it’d be worth estimating the outcomes of the old ones’…Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk, a secretive city located 15 miles north of Tomsk, prepares for the construction of a new experimental fast reactor.

‘And lastly I would ask about warheads [housed at SCC as recently as the 1990s]. Have they been replaced or not? If not, in what conditions are they kept?’He added: ‘I’m not radical and I support the idea of nuclear energy. But the approach to its use, and to estimating risks, should be totally different. Russian nuclear enterprises as they are now are so dangerous that it’d definitely be better if they didn’t exist at all.’

On April 6 2015 it was reported in Seversk that construction was already under way of a pilot plant for the production of fuel for the experimental BREST-300 reactor.The new reactor will work on special ‘pills’ made from the spent nuclear fuel and taken from the old reactors, with officials saying it will allow waste-free production of energy.  It is thought the pilot plant will begin operating in 2017, with the full new BREST-300 reactor up and running from 2020.

Prof Rikhvanov stressed that he is not anti-nuclear but insisted that it has to be used correctly with the proper safety and environmental considerations in place. An accident at a new plant at the Siberian Chemical Combine in February 2015 resulted in an employee receiving burns to his hands.And, of course, a massive explosion at the site in April 1993 resulted in the release of a radioactive gas cloud in an incident listed as one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents.Prof Rikhvanov was one of the experts flown into Seversk following the incident, allowing him a rare glimpse inside the secretive city to analyse the state of the plant.

‘First of all, we got to see what is there,’ he recalled. ‘I visited all the production facilities, I saw the reactors, the well where the waste is put to, and the warehouses where the nuclear warheads were stored with my own eyes.’I saw about 23,000 decommissioned warheads stored there. And I doubt they have been moved elsewhere since then. By the way, at the time, they were stored in terrible conditions and I don’t know what it is like now.’ The professor also found out that a facility for storing liquid radioactive waste in aquifers was located near to where the water supply was sourced on the Tom River.  As far as he is aware, the situation remains the same. He said: ‘We pump water from aquifers on the left side of the river, and store some of the most hazardous elements humanity has ever created in aquifers on the other side of the river…

Another concern he has is that the city is ‘still not prepared’ for a mass evacuation in the event of a major incident.’The road to Maryinsk is terrible, the second branch of the railway hasn’t spring out yet,’ he said. ‘There is also no separate railway to ship the radioactive materials to SCC without going through Tomsk. Such freights are now going through city railway station which creates additional risks.’

Excerpts from Olga Gertcyk & Derek Lambie, Expert raises serious questions over state of the nuclear industry in Siberia,  Siberian Times, May 2, 2015