August 2008 Archives

In April 2008, Spetsstroy, the company that was building the spent fuel storage facility in Zheleznogorsk, suspended the construction citing financial dispute with Rosatom. Rosatom responded by launching a tender for the completion of the project. This week, the contract was awarded to the "Gruppa E4" (Group E4) company.

Group E4 will build dry storage for spent fuel of RBMK-1000 and VVER reactors at the cost of 9.5 billion rubles (about $390 million). It will also upgrade the existing pool storage facility that contains VVER-1000 reactor fuel. The cost of this project is 420.5 million rubles (about $17 million).

Platts reports that all three Europe's isotope production reactors are down. The BR2 reactor at Mol in Belgium and France's Osiris are down for scheduled maintenance and inspection, the High Flux Reactor at Petten in the Netherlands is down because of a safety issue. The production facility operated by Institut des Radioelements, or IRE, is also down because of a safety issue.

The 123 agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation between the United States and Russia was in trouble from the very beginning - the Bush administration got the timing wrong (here is an CRS report with a detailed analysis of the statutory requirements). Now the administration is saying that it is considering scrapping the agreement altogether. Which may be a good thing, in fact - this way Congress would not get a chance to pass a resolution of disapproval, which would complicate any future attempts to reintroduce the agreement.

As it turns out, Russia has no plans to offer the enrichment facility in Angarsk to IAEA safeguards. According to a presentation of Alexey Grigoryev, the Director of the International Uranium Enrichment Center, the Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Combine will remain under exclusive control of Rosatom (through it's daughter company Atomenrgoprom). The International Center that Russia is creating in Angarsk would simply outsource the enrichment work to the Combine. So, the promise to place the Center under safeguards is still there, but the only facility that IAEA would get to safeguard is a storage of UF6 containers.

UPDATE 03/04/09: This post is wrong - apparently the offer to place centrifuges under safeguards is still on the table. At the same time, placing the Combine proper under the safeguards would require substantial effort  and it is not clear if Rosatom will devote enough resources to this task.

One of Rosatom's subsidiaries, Atomflot, formally took control over nuclear icebreaker fleet (and auxiliary ships) from the Murmansk Shipping Company. This is probably a positive development - refueling of icebreaker reactors require regular shipments of fresh HEU fuel (see discussion of the icebreaker fleet in Oleg Bukharin's paper). Now that the entire operation is under Rosatom control, it could (in theory at least) make it safer.

Ukraine continues to diversify its nuclear fuel supply sources. This time it is considering building a fuel fabrication facility, which would be part of a concern "Nuclear Fuel of Ukraine".

As reported by TotalWonkerr. UAE's $10 million adds to previous contributions from Norway ($5 million) and the United States ($50 million). It is $35 million to go to meet the goal of $100 million, which is a condition of releasing the $50 million pledged by Warren Buffet in September 2006.

The plan to burn 34 MT of excess weapon-grade plutonium in civilian power reactors may be delayed. The MOX fuel manufacturer, Areva, terminated the test of its fuel assemblies that was underway at the Catawba power plant. According to an account of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Areva would have to begin the tests anew, causing significant delays and cost overruns. Areva, naturally, disputes the need to repeat the tests.

DoE announced that it donates $50 million to the IAEA fuel bank project supported by NTI. This contribution would go toward the $100 million that is necessary to release the $50 million pledged to the fuel bank by Warren Buffet. Previously, Norway committed $5 million to the bank.