April, 2000
Moscow, Russia
While people in the United States have been wrangling over how to dispose of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors, Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy has proposed a plan to import waste from other countries. By importing 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from European and Asian countries, which are even more hard-pressed than the United States to find storage space, the Ministry says Russia could earn $21 billion in revenue over the next decade. The imported used fuel rods would be recycled into material for new fuel rods at a facility in the Ural Mountains.
Importing spent fuel would not be an easy task. Before reprocessing, the plutonium in the fuel rods is suitable for making nuclear weapons, and is therefore highly susceptible to theft and hijacking during transport. In addition, there is always the danger of accidents during shipment. Because of the dangers and the political sensitivity of marketing spent fuel, Russian laws have been in place since 1992 forbidding the import of nuclear materials. The new proposal would require that these laws be removed from the books.
On the other hand, processing the spent fuel reduces the amount of weapons-grade material in circulation, slightly lowering the risk of terrorism and illegal sales of plutonium. In related news, President Clinton and Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin, agreed in early June to increase plutonium processing in order to reduce nuclear warfare threats. The plan is to process 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, over the next 20 years.
Disposing of nuclear waste is a growing problem worldwide. Currently, temporary sites store about 200,000 tons of nuclear waste, with few options for permanent safe storage available.
To learn more, see these related websites:
Detailed discussion of plutonium risks by experts at Lawrence Livermore Labs
Problems of plutonium disposal in the United States, with maps
The Nuclear Control Institute: warnings about trade in plutonium
To read more, see:
Environmental Science, A Global Concern, Cunningham and Saigo, 6th ed.
Nuclear power, pp. 485-87
Breeder reactors and plutonium, pp. 490-91
Disposal of radioactive waste, pp. 491-92
Environmental Science, A Study of Interrelationships, Enger and Smith, 7th ed.
Nuclear fuel and weapons production, pp. 170-72
Radioactive waste disposal, pp. 177-80
Nuclear legacy of the Soviet Union, p. 178
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