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Russian Atomic Energy Chief Sees Spent Fuel Imports As Key to Nuclear Security

Posted on: Tuesday, 26 July 2005, 09:01 CDT

The re-import of spent nuclear fuel is a key element in keeping nuclear technology out of the hands of terrorists, the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, Aleksandr Rumyantsev, has said in an interview with Radio Russia on his 60th birthday. He gave details of measures to deal with nuclear waste in Russia and said he did not see any real alternative to nuclear power as a long-term solution to mankind's energy needs. The following is an excerpt from the interview broadcast on Radio Russia's "Persona Grata" programme on 26 July; subheadings inserted editorially:

[Presenter] Welcome to Radio Russia. My name is Vitaliy Ushkanov and this is "Persona Grata". [Passage omitted]

The head of Russia's Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, Academician Aleskandr Rumyantsev, is our guest today [on his 60th birthday]. [Passage omitted]

The situation regarding spent nuclear fuel is very well known and has inflamed passions. A law was passed in the end [about the import of spent nuclear fuel]. The press said this was done thanks to lobbying by the Atomic Energy Ministry [since transformed into a federal agency].

So we have the law, and there is no getting away from that. So you can do something that you could not do before.

Recently in Moscow there was a conference on prospects for the nuclear fuel cycle, where the trade in spent nuclear fuel was discussed. It is no secret that your department supports the creation of a centre for reprocessing and storing this kind of fuel near Krasnoyarsk. This again is arousing fears and has given rise to protests by environmentalists, who say that you want to make Russia virtually a pioneer in this dangerous business. Is this so?

Economic reasons behind need to import spent nuclear fuel

[Rumyantsev] Let's look at the issue in a slightly broader context. This law was passed exactly four years ago. If you recall what I said in the newspapers, TV and radio at that time, you will find that I was saying then what I will say now, four years later. This law is necessary for us as a legislative means to import into Russia spent nuclear fuel, so that we can improve our integration in the international community by getting into the market for supplying fresh fuel, enrichment services and undertaking construction of nuclear power plants outside Russia.

Our opponents around the world were always saying that since you do not have this legislation, you have no place on the market for creating these atomic energy capacities.

[Presenter] So they tried to keep you out of this market?

[Rumyantsev] We were criticized. And those countries which understood that if they construct something according to a Russian plan, and purchase Russian fuel, that we cannot return this fuel in the full volume, since we have no law governing this in detail, they would perhaps look at other countries supplying this heavy equipment which is uniquely complicated and involves high technology.

So over these four years, not a gram of spent fuel from nuclear reactors of foreign manufacture has been brought into Russia. At the same time, our export potential has risen by 150 per cent.

[Presenter] Just because of this law.

[Rumyantsev] That's right. A silence descended on the world market when they realized that this argument was no longer valid. There was even a fear that we could use dumping prices to take part of the spent nuclear fuel market from countries who do very well out of this. But we did not do this either.

You asked about transparency. I talk about this all the time, but no-one listens to me. At the same time, those who say that Russia has been turned into a dumping ground and has been taking waste from all over the world, their slogan has been heard just about every month in various parts of the media for the past four years.

[Presenter] So you haven't taken any. But you want to, don't you?

If exports grew, then maybe that would be sufficient and we would not need any burial sites.

Fighting the terrorist threat

[Rumyantsev] The topic of this conference was completely different. At the moment we are facing a vital question. How to counter terrorism and not to allow fissile material and nuclear technology to fall into the hands of terrorists. This is referred to in UN Resolution 1540, which was passed recently.

The whole world has united, and his still uniting, in the fight against these threats. It was to this that the conference was dedicated. It was not only dedicated to the tail-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, which the Greens immediately started making a fuss about, but it was also dedicated to the start of the fuel cycle.

That is, it is being proposed to countries that they get guaranteed use only of the benefits of atomic energy and that the countries that possess nuclear technologies will build nuclear power plants for them and put the supply of nuclear fuel under state guarantees, and take the spent fuel so that there is no problem with the development of a national fuel cycle, which is very sensitive, given the fact that terrorists could get hold of individual elements as weapons, not just a weapon of mass destruction, but as a weapon with the ability to cause mass disquiet. [Passage omitted]

[Presenter] You haven't answered. So is Russia the first country importing spent nuclear fuel?

[Rumyantsev] Russia is not spoken about. It is a question of a group of countries who could offer all those elements of the fuel cycle to those countries who have given up the idea of their own national cycle.

Russia has a legislative amendment for the import of the fuel. That's why Russia held this conference. We possess at each stage all the elements of the nuclear fuel cycle and we know how to deal with these things very well. That is why this conference under the patronage of the International Atomic Energy Agency gathered together here virtually all leading member states, which presented their reports.

In my own report I said that there are number of countries here. Some supply fresh fuel and others can close the cycles. I always cite France as an example here. France operates very well on the spent fuel market. [Passage omitted]

Waste disposal programme

[Presenter] France is against us getting involved in this, isn't it?

[Rumyantsev] They understand that we do not have the same level of technology as they have. I should say this honestly. They discharge wastewater which is fit for drinking and they do not emit anything into the atmosphere. I am envious of this, in a good way. The point is that France came to nuclear technologies significantly later than, for example, the USA and Russia, and it created its atomic capacity on the basis of different foundations in terms of human development. Both we and the USA have the same problems. [Passage omitted]

But there is no global danger from what we have built up. You see that there is a clamour, but there is no instance of someone suffering radiation poisoning as a consequence of something left behind by nuclear weapons production. All these storage facilities have been properly evacuated. All of this is under control. Still, there are problems. I won't deny or dress things up.

We have administration reforms in which the approach to planning is being changed. We are looking at a three-year cycle. We are looking at results-geared funding. This is the next stage of the administrative reform. We are carrying out our departmental programme and we are looking at huge amounts of money by today's standards, hundreds of millions of roubles, for dealing with all the negative consequences which have accompanied the process of the creation of national nuclear weaponry. That is mission 522. I know by heart all the systems and measures of the Techenskiy cascade [facility in Chelyabinsk Region in which radioactive waste is discharged]. Last month I made a special visit to all these dams, all the lakes and storage facilities, and we will be making serious progress on this.

You say that you live near the Kurchatov Institute. Well, we conducted the first pilot project in this institute. Over the last few years we have taken out all the low-level waste which was kept there from the late 1940s and early 1950s when the Kurchatov Institute was leading work on solving our weapons problem. [Passage omitted]

I can say that this first pilot was carried through in close alliance with [Moscow mayor] Yuriy Mikhaylovich Luzhkov, with the Moscow government, and with some financial help from a federal programme, but with most of the money coming from the federal agency. That is how we will proceed with regard to all the facilities in our industry, where there is this kind of legacy. [Passage omitted]

No alternative to nuclear energy in long term

[Presenter] Am I right in saying that you cannot envisage the future without atomic energy?

[Rumyantsev] When a forecast goes beyond 20 years, as a scientist I am very sceptical about its validity.

But we can look at what is actually going on. There is no doubt that natural resources - oil, gas, coal - are being exhausted. The resources that have been discovered are sufficient for humanity not to experience a shortage for 100 years or a little longer. [Passage omitted]

It is true that you can make different things from gas and oil, and get energy in a different form. You can also say that uranium deposits are also running out and are sufficient only for 100 years or so.

But the thing is that you don't only have thermal neutron reactors, which are used now, you also have fast neutron reactors, which use not Uranium-235 in the fuel cycles, of which there is only 0.7 per cent in natural deposits, but the main Uranium-238, of which there are hundreds of thousands of tonnes. We don't know what to do with this depleted uranium, whether to dispose of it or not. But it can be used in this nuclear fuel cycle.

In this case, the fuel can last for 1,000 or 1,500 years if closed fuel cycles are established on the basis of either thorium, of which we have a lot, or Uranium-238.

[Presenter] What about solar power or wind power?

[Rumyantsev] They are just drops in the ocean, fractions of a per cent. [Passage omitted] Atomic energy gives us 17 per cent.

[Present] So we cannot get by without the civil atomic energy?

[Rumyantsev] More than likely. [Passage omitted]

Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

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