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Officials have confirmed plans for a U.S.-backed
nuclear fuel waste shipment from Taiwan to
Russia three days before a bill that would
overturn a ban on such imports to Russia is due
to be debated in the Duma.
The plan, which was leaked Sunday to the
Moscow-based environmental group Ecodefense
- who in turn released it to local and
international media - sparked protests in front
of the Duma, headed by the liberal Yabloko
political faction, and drew dozens of demonstrators from at least 10 regions in
Russia, Interfax reported.
The controversial waste-import bill - which has its second reading Thursday - would
allow for the import of spent nuclear fuel from foreign countries, and has been a
pet project of Nuclear Minister Yevgeny Adamov, who says the country stands to
net $21 billion dollars for storage and reprocessing fees over the next 10 years.
Adamov has said the money would be used to improve Russia's nuclear facilities
and boost output.
The first reading of the bill passed without a hitch with 318 votes for and 32
against, and is expected to fair just as well this Thursday. Environmental activists
said that a third and final reading may happen the same day.
Against this background, the Nuclear Safety Working Group of the Group of Seven
leading industrialized nations has sent a letter to presidential adviser Andrei
Illarionov, voicing concerns over the increasing marginalization of Russia's nuclear
safety regulatory body, Gosatomnadzor, or GAN, the Kyodo news agency
reported Monday.
At issue in the letter is a bill pending in the Duma next month that would hand
over all of GAN's licensing and safety controls to the Nuclear Power Ministry, or
Minatom - the structure responsible for building Russia's civilian nuclear
installations.
"The NSWG holds the strong view that an effective independent nuclear regulator
is essential to nuclear safety," Kyodo quoted the letter as saying.
The import plan and the decreasing role of GAN, among other things, have led
many international and Russian experts to speculate that money garnered from
imports would be put to use in developing a plutonium-based nuclear economy in
Russia.
Indeed, two days before news of the Taiwanese plans broke, Sverdlovsk Oblast
Gov. Eduard Rossel and Minatom announced they would resume construction of a
$1.2 billion reactor, known as a breeder - a special type of reactor that produces
nuclear fuel at the same time as consuming it.
Russia has one other breeder reactor.
The Taiwanese import plan - and its U.S. blessing - was confirmed by both U.S. and
Minatom officials. Entitled "Foreign Spent Fuel Storage and Geological Disposal in
Russia," the report outlines plans for shipping 7,500 metric tons of spent nuclear
fuel from eight Taiwanese reactors to Russia for disposal.
It was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and produced by
the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.
"[Taiwan] is a potential client, and certainly it would be conducting studies on
shipments" of spent nuclear fuel, said Minatom spokesperson Yury Bespalko in a
telephone interview Monday.
America's involvement stems from the control Washington has over nuclear
proliferation, said a DOE official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some spent fuel, the official said, can be reprocessed and used for nuclear
weapons. Therefore, since the building of the eight Taiwanese reactors in
question, the U.S. has insisted on controlling the disposal route of any of the
nuclear material originated in America, which most of Taiwan's has.
This has proved embarrassing for Washington, said the official, since few
countries, including America, are willing to store foreign nuclear waste - with the
exception of Russia, which sees vast business opportunities in the waste.
According to the DOE official, the report details the transportation of the
Taiwanese fuel by sea to the Far Eastern ports of Vanino and Vladivostok, and
then by rail to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.
The report further stipulates, the official confirmed, that the fuel must leave
Taiwan in 2007, and will be stored until 2020 when a repository built near the
Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant will begin operation.
But Adamov's plans are unpopular throughout Russia, which can barely deal with
its own waste. According to Ecodefence co-chair Vladimir Slivyak, 94 percent of
Russians are opposed to the plan.
And a nationwide Greenpeace petition drive last fall to get the question put to a
referendum produced 2.6 million signatures - 600,000 more than required. The
Central Election Commission, however, disqualified 800,000 of the signatures.
"It wouldn't have mattered had 5 million signatures been submitted," said
Alexander Yablokov, former environmental adviser to Boris Yeltsin, of the
signature drive. "The [CEC] would have just thrown them out anyway. The whole
process has flown in the face of the law from the beginning and Minatom is
confident it will win."
Indeed, in the days before the import bill even had its first reading, Minatom
struck a deal with a Bulgarian plant to accept several tons of its waste.
"It is not even legal for the Taiwanese plans to be in the works," said Yablokov.
"No laws have been passed yet."
Svyatoslav Zabelin, who co-chairs the Moscow-based environmental group Social
Ecological Union, agreed. "Both governments - Russia and America
- seem intent on turning Russia into the world's radioactive toilet."
See also:
Nuclear
waste bill section of the web-site
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