July 2008 Archives

While Russia has been working conversion of Soviet-built research reactors abroad to LEU fuel, no reactors in Russia have been converted so far. This may change soon - Russia agreed to begin feasibility studies of conversion of six of its research reactors

• IR-8, OR, and Argus at the Kurchatov Institute,
• IRT-2000 at MEPhI,
• MIR and SM-3 at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad (there are also critical facilities FM MIR and FM S-3 associated with these reactors, which would probably be converted as well), and
• IRT-T in Tomsk.

Conversion of SM-3 would be an important development - the fuel that is used in this reactor is essentially the same as the one that would be used in the new PIK reactor that Russia is building in Gatchina. The elements are a bit different - the length of the active zone is 500 mm in PIK elements and 350 mm in SM-3 and the density of U-235 is a bit higher in PIK (0.54 vs. 0.49 g/cm3), but other than that these are the same elements. Both have X-shaped cross-section and contain 90% uranium oxide in copper-beryllium matrix in stainless steel cladding. If SM-3 is successfully converted, Russia could consider using LEU in the PIK reactor as well.

Then, two other reactors at Dimitrovgrad - RBT-10/2 and RBT-6 - use fuel discharged from SM-3 as their fresh fuel (initial enrichment is 63%). As I understand, there are plans to begin work on converting this reactors in a few years.

NNSA announced that all HEU fuel has been removed from Bulgaria after a shipment of 6.3 kg of spent fuel of the IRT-2000 research reactor to Russia. The shipment used three VPVR/M specialized transportation casks.

The fuel was delivered to Mayak, where it will be reprocessed.

According to a reliable source, the three ADE plutonium production reactors that are being shut down, have produced 18 tonnes of weapon-grade plutonium since 1994, when Russia committed to not using this material in its weapons program and began storing it at facilities that are open to U.S. monitoring. Of this material, 10 tonnes are stored in Seversk and 8 tonnes - in Zheleznogorsk. Rosatom is planning to move the Seversk material to Zheleznogorsk.

According a NNSA representative, NNSA is planning to remove HEU fuel from the research reactor in Hungary in FY 2008. The reactor in question is apparently the VVR-SM in Budapest. It is likely that fresh fuel will be removed first, but it well may be that spent fuel would be removed as well - NNSA mentioned a "large shipment from Hungary".

According to the original plan, the last remaining Russian plutonium production reactor, ADE-2, was scheduled to shut down in 2010. However, NNSA believes that the reactor could be shut down earlier - in the fall of 2009.

Martin Forwood, The Legacy of Reprocessing in the United Kingdom, IPFM Research Report #5, July 2008

Director of the PO Mayak, Sergei Baranov, announced the plan to build new reprocessing facilities that would allow Mayak to reprocess VVER-1000 fuel as well as "any other Russian or foreign fuel" and "Soviet legacy fuel". Currently Mayak has two reprocessing lines at its RT-1 facility that can reprocess fuel of VVER-440 reactors and that of research and naval reactors.

Baranov said that it would take five to seven years to build the new facilities. He noted, however, that it is not clear if the project will be funded.