Gennady Voskresensky

    «Ecological passions» around the Russian nuclear power industry, which from time to time rise, fall and run high again with renewed energy, blot out the fact that it is this industry that is able to offer high-tech services aimed at recreation of the environment. Say, such as reprocessing of radioactive secondary materials – low-level metals. But let us first indicate the problem proper arisen as far back as the 70s, if my memory does not fail me.
In 2001 in the town of Sosnovy Bor near St.Petersburg, on the site of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, one of Russia’s oldest, for the first time in the history there was held a scientific practical conference named «Complex Approach to the Problem of Treatment of Radioactive Metal Waste in the Russian Federation». Virtually all nuclear nations took part in this conference – Germany, Slovakia, US, Finland, France, Czecia, Japan and others.
It is certain that the conference theme and the representative circle of participants were not accidental. All nuclear nations face the most sophisticated ecological problem, that is, «treatment of radioactive metal waste accumulated as a result of the production of nuclear weapons and appeared owing to major reduction of nuclear armaments, dismantling of worn-out reactor blocks and other units of nuclear power industry».
When opening the conference, Aleksei Nester, General Director of Ekomet-S JSC, pointed out that «in Russia and in a whole number of countries of the world community a well-grounded concern about ecological security is growing. It is caused by large quantities of nuclear power industry waste due to their potential radiation danger to human beings and the environment. Solid waste, above all, radioactive metals, is of especially serious concern. The necessity of substantial improvement of their reclamation and reprocessing is ripe».
Only in Russia, according to official data, over 600,000 metric tons of radioactive metal have been accumulated (according to unofficial sources, 2.5 to 3 times more). This volume exceeds all allowable norms. And what will happen when large-scale phasing-out of nuclear power stations of the first generation begins?
As you know, there are technological schemes of reclamation of radioactive waste in the nuclear power engineering. However, they involve so-named liquid waste, for the most part. As to solid waste, the same radioactive metals, «in none of the countries there have been efficient schemes of their reprocessing up to the present», according to Professor Viktor Shamov, Dr. of Sc.(Eng.), an acknowledged authority of world reputation. Up to now, radioactive metals are subject to burial in a state of radiation hazard.
«Now around 25,000 tons of such metal are at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant alone», Viktor Shamov testified. «It means about 70 hectares of radioactive contamination of the surface. It is several tens of curie of only alpha-radiation sources, a ten-fold number of beta-radiation sources, and all this is corroding, being washed away, entering the environment. It results in ecological contamination many orders of magnitude heavier than that due to liquid waste».
To continue the practice of burial of radioactive metals implies a deliberate invitation to unbearable financial burden. «One cubic meter of burial in ready-made containers costs at least $3,000. So, 25,000 tons of metal is $75,000,000. Where to find monies? Even if they could be found, containers would not be available. In fact, all existing containers are overfilled. Consequently, new ones shall be constructed. Thus, new hundreds of millions of dollars», Professor Shamov summarizes.
As a matter of fact, there is only one way-out, to organize reprocessing radioactive waste. First, «if we reprocess radioactive waste, remelt it, all radioactivity goes to slag, only 5 per cent of waste in mass. In so doing, the volume of radioactive waste is cut 150 times», Viktor Shamov clarifies. Second, «radioactive metals are valuable expensive steels, why to bury them? They must be treated as valuable raw materials, instilling a new life in them». Apropos, a second life of the radioactive metal will cost much less than the burial of the metal: a set-up of the production complex will cost $15 to 20 million.
Lately in Russia drastic measures on processing of low-level metals have been taken. A long-term Federal Program entitled «Treatment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Materials, Reclamation and Burial for 1996-2005» is valid. A target program on «Reprocessing and Reclamation of Radioactive Metal Waste» is being implemented; the customer of the works under this program is Minatom (the Ministry of Nuclear Power), the general contractor is Ekomet-S JSC (St.Petersburg).
The Leningrad Nuclear Power Station has at its disposal all prerequisites to fulfil this task: industrial production operations (a special plant) and an experimental base – a division of All-Russian Research & Design Institute of Power Engineering. Since 1994, Ekomet-S JSC has been putting into practice the project of a specialized full-scale leading complex for reprocessing of radioactive metal waste. Minatom and Gazprom, which have been united under the agreement on cooperation in ecological programs for over a decade, invested in the construction. At present the Sosnovy Bor Complex is in the stage of commissioning. It is the state-of-the-art high-tech production plant. Its design capacity is 8,000 tons of metal per year.
«In Russia our complex is the first. And I will not be excessively modest – the first in Europe and even in the world. It is a target-oriented unit for the reprocessing of exactly radioactive metal waste. Due to it, the purified metal is re-used, and waste decreases in quantity, consequently, burial costs are lower. Moreover, a set-up of the complex gave an opportunity to extract the valuable metal buried earlier and deliver it to reprocessing», Dy. General Director Vladimir Buntushkin (Ekomet-S JSC) explains.
«In Europe there are standby shops at conventional metallurgical plants», Professor Shamov clarifies. «For example, in Germany or Sweden. But it is by far not the prevailing orientation of these non-specialized enterprises. There the processed material is fit only for usage in nuclear power engineering proper. Meanwhile we are able to bring the low-level metal to the application in the national economy. The processes are the same – the difference is fundamental».
The Russian production operations are of the type that permits the reprocessed radioactive metal to be made fit for making of any product like automobiles, machine-tools, flat- and dishware, etc. «The pure metal is on the exit of the process», Chief Technologist Aleksandr Chernichenko emphasizes. Surely, it is not absolutely decontaminated: it cannot be, even in nature the living and the inanimate have a certain level of radioactivity. The point is the allowable norms, the applicability for the so-called «uncontrollable use». From this viewpoint, the metal on the exit from the smelting furnace of the specialized complex in Sosnovy Bor can be used in the economy just like any other ordinary material.
The specialists who work at the new production complex are convinced that the problem of low-level metal has been solved in principle. The secondary materials from any nuclear units can be reprocessed. «It does not matter where the metal is taken from. Should other levels of contamination be used, we are able to adjust our technologies to them. We have already reprocessed waste of many types. Among them, submarines, Chernobyl, nuclear plants, ore preparation enterprises. And all of them were reprocessed to a quite decontaminated state. In principle, we are ready to work with any range of contamination. All modes have been tested and proved their efficiency», Aleksandr Chernichenko says.
This is the efficiency from the viewpoint of ecological cleanness. A specially set-up radiological center monitors the processing of metals. «The center incorporates a department of radiation security, laboratories of chemical and radiation control», Aleksandr Troshev, Director, says. «The laboratories have been attested in the system of Gosstandart (State Standard) and Gosatomnadzor (State Nuclear Supervision), their personnel reliably controls production drainage and air emissions. The equipment affords a full guarantee of radiation security».
The specialized production operations pave the way to the solution of one of the urgent problems of nuclear power engineering and industry. «We have created a prototype that can be now taken and copied in various regions without spending millions of dollars on the development of everything – normative and methodic part, design solutions, etc. The technology has appeared and been put into practice», General Director of Ekomet-S JSC Aleksei Nester summarizes.
The technology was awarded with a prestigious «Gold Palm Branch» – an international premium for the input into the solution of ecological problems.
«Now if anything is still needed, it is only a decision of the Government regarding a set-up of similar complexes in different regions», Professor Viktor Shamov thinks. According to him, «in Russia, in order to solve the problem of the radioactive metal, as the saying goes, on the whole, it is necessary to construct 6 to 7 more specialized complexes similar to that in Sosnovy Bor».
It is also necessary to build such units in Russia for commercial purposes. In the «nuclear» world, on the background of the growing need of reprocessing of radioactive metals, a relevant market, ample enough, is being formed. Here the country, which possesses practically the most advanced technology at present, has the taps in its hands.