Vladimir Shlyomin

P

rime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has approved a list of Russian ports that will be allowed to receive ships with spent fuel on board (SF). Special rights are given to the Seaport of Saint Petersburg JSC, which, in the words of its commercial director Andrei Bezsalov, has already have all necessary technical means It is joined by two more ports, Vysotsk and Ust-Luga, that are located near Saint Petersburg. They have no special facilities and terminals, which are yet to be built.
This news has again provoked stormy protests from opponents of bringing spent fuel to Russia’s territory. As is always the case, their main argument is the society’s fear of radioactive materials.
However, technologies of transporting SF have been available since Russia’s first nuclear power plants (NPP) were built. They were constructed in densely populated regions with high power consumption and, because of it, these NPPs were far away from radiochemical plants that reprocessed spent fuel. When transporting SF, it was necessary to ensure the radiation safety of personnel and local residents as well as to rule out the fuel overheating and prevent its theft. These tasks were fully accomplished: in 50 years not a single accident happened that would have had any radiation aftereffects, although fission materials are transported about 1,800 times a year. And safety guarantees are still becoming more rigid. In the last two years an automated system to provide a constant transportation control with the use of satellites have been tested
"It should be taken for granted that reprocessing SF from NPPs is an inevitable future for all nations, which are developing nuclear power engineering", believes academician Evgeny Velikhov, the president of the Russian Research Center at the Kurchatov Institute.
Such a completion of the nuclear fuel cycle is economically expedient due to a number of reasons.
First of all, the need in natural uranium is significantly reduced as a result of the return of U-235, which remained unburned in reactor, and formation of plutonium, another nuclear fuel. As a source of heat energy, one gram of plutonium is equal to about one ton of oil. Reprocessed spent fuel can be used to produce fuel elements, including those based on the mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides (the so-called MOX fuel).
Besides economic advantages, the completion of the nuclear fuel cycle also gives another advantage that is no less important: it reduces the danger of spreading nuclear weapons since the formed plutonium is "burnt down" and does not remain in storages as in the open cycle.
There are about 240,000 tons of SF accumulated in the world while only 85,000 tons have been reprocessed. Of 30 countries that are developing nuclear power engineering only the Great Britain, France and Russia have built and have been operating radiochemical plants to reprocess SF from NPPs. To a large extent it is explained by economic reasons: such an enterprise is profitable only, if its annual production volume reaches 1,500 tons of SF. So as to get this amount of spent fuel there should be around 50 large nuclear power plants in operation. And it is no accident that Japan, for one, has also started building a radiochemical plant since it already has 54 NPPs.
The U.S. has chosen a strategy of delayed (for 50 to 70 years) utilization of SF from 107 American nuclear power plants and started constructing a deep federal storage of spent fuel considered a state strategic reserve. However, a lot of specialists in the U.S. have doubts about the advisability of this decision.
Efforts to improve reprocessing SF are actively going on. A special attention is being paid to ways of reducing the total activity of nuclear waste. The method of burning off hazardous components by additional irradiation and turning (transmuting) long-lived radionuclides into the short-lived ones is considered quite promising. Russia has been conducting such a scientific research under the special federal program.
No less attention is being paid to ways of hardening liquid waste with a high specific activity. Like some other countries, Russia makes an effective glazing of waste and this sharply reduces the danger of long-lived radionuclides’ migration from temporary depositories. The Kurchatov Institute together with Moscow’s Radon, the research-and-production association, developed a method of plasma reprocessing of radioactive waste that drastically reduces their volume (but not their activity!) and makes their further storing significantly cheaper.
At the same time it should be especially noted that reprocessing is applied to the Russian-produced fuel only. Despite arguments of opponents and activists of the ecological movement, not a single irradiated fuel assembly made by a foreign company has been brought to Russia’s territory so far. All Russian activity of transporting SF is connected with getting back its own fuel assemblies, which were used at foreign nuclear power plants. Returning them is done on legal grounds in accordance with existing foreign economic contracts. For example, several trips to return SF from Bulgaria have been made under contracts concluded long before adopting new laws. The more recent example is a draft protocol to the agreement between governments of Russia and Iran on constructing a nuclear power plant in Bushehr that provides for returning spent fuel for storing and reprocessing in Russia. The draft was adopted by the Russian government only after it was thoroughly coordinated and examined by the State from the ecological point of view. The protocol is in full compliance with international agreements on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
In 2003 the government of the Russian Federation adopted a provision on returning irradiated fuel assemblies of nuclear reactors as well as normative documents on rules of approving expenses for these purposes and financing special ecological programs.
Both financial and technological aspects of returning spent fuel to Russia will be strictly regulated and the procedure itself will be permitted only, if it is proven that as a result of implementing ecological programs financed through funds obtained from the given project, Russia’s ecological situation will get better.
In mid-October the first session of the special commission took place. This commission was established to deal with questions of bringing foreign-made irradiated fuel assemblies to the territory of the Russian Federation.
"The existing normative-legal base with respect to SF provides for a reliable mechanism of state and public control over the use of funds received from bringing spent fuel, including their use for financing special ecological programs", said Alexander Rumyantsev, the Russian minister of atomic energy. He particularly stressed that the adopted package of federal laws is aimed at developing Russia’s international cooperation and solving ecological problems connected, mainly, with the past activity in the area of using nuclear energy for military purposes.
At the same time, it should clearly understood that the country with a strong scientific and technical potential in the nuclear power industry is engaged in operations with SF not because of some desperate problems. Russia accounts for 20% of the world market of nuclear power plant construction, for 50% of uranium enrichment capacities and 25% of the world market of equipment of heat transport main circuit of nuclear power plants. The nuclear power industry is a growing sector of the Russian economy.
Russia’s annual earnings by exporting nuclear fuel and constructing nuclear power plants in Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland amount to $2.7 billion, of which the country gets $500 million for supplies of thermonuclear reactors that use enriched uranium as its fuel.
According to international standards, if a State purchases nuclear fuel from another country, it also takes upon itself a responsibility for storing this fuel as well. The safe handling of SF is a very expensive undertaking and it might be said that it is a real headache for importers. That is why Russia’s agreement to receive SF back and for good cannot but to make Russian fuel potential buyers happy. Besides, such a proposal would be even more attractive to customers because there is no need to send their spent fuel for reprocessing to the Great Britain or France as some countries have to do.
These two countries are trying to do business on providing such services with no much success. First, making deals like these is very costly for a client and, second, they have to take back the radioactive waste that results from reprocessing SF. As for Russia, it offers similar services but at the same time promises to take care of storing waste received from reprocessing spent fuel by client countries.
International commitments and care about future are main prerequisites of Russia’s strategy today in dealing with spent fuel.
There are two kinds of spent fuel (SF). The first kind is a natural mixture of isotopes, which was irradiated for a long time in an industrial reactor for accumulating weapons plutonium. The second one is fuel assemblies of power reactors containing fuel elements of enriched uranium, burning-off of which reached the technological limit due to accumulation of fission product.
For the first 3 to 5 years rods with spent fuel are kept at nuclear power plant. During this period rods’ activity decreases so much that they can be safely transported for long distances. When short-lived radioactive elements are decayed, much heat is produced and in order to remove it and to provide protection from penetrating radiation the so-called "wet depositories" are used. These technologies are not particularly dangerous for the environment. As the experience of the "wet depositary" operation at the Krasnoyarsk integrated mining-and-chemical mill shows, releases contain just Cs-137 with concentration being 250 times lower than the one accepted by international recommendations.
When brought to a reprocessing enterprise a fuel assembly is cut and sent to radiochemical reprocessing, which results in obtaining valuable components, such as uranium, plutonium, some fission products for making isotopic substances and important materials.
After being regenerated and re-fabricated most of materials are returned to the nuclear fuel cycle and practical use: for producing fresh nuclear fuel (uranium, plutonium) as well as for meeting needs of other industries. Only a small portion of radioactive waste is not subject to further use.
The final stage of handling waste assumes its rejection and packing (through glazing, bituminizing or other ways) into high-strength matrixes that are buried in reliable geological structures.