Russia's last plutonium production reactor, ADE-2 at Zheleznogorsk, was shut down at midnight on May 31, 2009 (at 24:00 MSK according to one report, which was 04:00, June 1st in Zheleznogorsk). The shutdown is not permanent yet - officially, the reactor has been stopped for maintenance and could be restarted in September if the replacement power station is not ready by that time. According to the U.S.-Russian agreement, the reactor should be shut down completely no later than 2010.
May 2009 Archives
Pavel Podvig, Consolidating Fissile Materials in Russia's Nuclear Complex, IPFM Research Report #7, May 2009
Tenex director Alexei Grigoryev was quoted as saying that Russia is in negotiations about a possibility of building a centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in the United States. According to Grigoryev, this project would most likely be a joint venture with some other company.
Russian company Tenex (a subsidiary of Rosatom) signed a contract with a U.S. company Fuelco (founded by Pacific Gas and Electric Co, Luminant, and United Electric Co) to supply it with low-enriched uranium for nuclear reactor fuel in 2014-2020. The head of Rosatom, Sergei Kirienko, was quoted as saying that the contract is worth $1 billion.
The direct supplies of enriched uranium to U.S. utilities after 2013, when the HEU-LEU deal expires, were made possible by an agreement signed by Rosatom and Department of Treasury in February 2008.
Kiev Institute of Nuclear Research (Ukraine) received LEU fuel (19.75%) for its VVR-M research reactor. Previously, the reactor used 36% HEU fuel. The reactor was shutdown for refueling in 2008. The conversion has been financed by the United States. The cost of the 33 fuel assemblies is estimated to be $900,000. The reactor is expected to begin operations in the third quarter of 2009 and then to operate until at least 2014.
GTRI announced clean-out of US-origin spent HEU fuel from Australia (14.5kg). Thus, all eligible U.S.-origin materials were declared to have been removed from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and Thailand. (This annex of DOE's 1996 report Striking the Balance provides a useful snapshot of all countries that have imported U.S.-origin HEU.)
NNSA reported today that it helped remove 73.7 kg of spent HEU fuel from Kazakhstan's Institute of Nuclear Physics to "a secure facility in Russia". The fuel was removed in four rail shipments that took place from December 2008 to May 2009.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) decided not to resume operations of its NRU research reactor at the Chalk River Laboratories. The reactor was shut down on May 14, 2009 during a power outage in the area. Following the shutdown, on May 15, 2009, the operators discovered a leak of heavy water in the reactor, which prompted a decision to suspend the operations. As similar leak was detected earlier, in December 2008.
NRU reactor is one of the leading producer of Mo-99 isotope for medical purposes.
Rosatom will close the Plant-20 metallurgical plan at Mayak and move all metal processing of metal weapon-grade materials to Seversk. The plan is to complete the transfer by 2014.
Plant-20 has been involved in production of metal plutonium and HEU and in manufacturing of metal components of nuclear weapons. It has also been taking part in HEU-LEU program (conversion of HEU metal to uranium dioxide).
The date for the shutdown of the last Russian Pu production reactor, ADE-2 in Zheleznogorsk, is set to May 31, 2009. It is not clear, however, if the power plant that is supposed to replace ADE-2 in providing heat for Zheleznogorsk, will be ready in time for the winter season (a delay was, in fact, expected). According to the April 29, 2009 order signed by Sergei Kiriyenko the reactor will go into a standby mode, ready to resume operations if necessary. According to the U.S.-Russian agreement, the reactor was to shutdown in 2010.
Atomenergoprom made a first shipment of centrifuges to China as part of the contract signed in 2008 to build the fourth enrichment facility there (adding 0.5 million SWU/year to the 1.5 million previously built).
