More European nuclear waste heading to Murmansk
Highly radioactive waste from Germany can secretly be shipped around the coast of Norway to Murmansk three times this winter.
Germany and Russia are now negotiating the final parts of a deal to bring back to Russia old Soviet designed uranium fuel from a research reactor in Rossendorf in the former DDR.
The German Federal Office for Radiation Protection has already given the approval for transport 951 spent uranium fuel elements by truck from the nuclear reactor in Rossendorf and then export by boat. The approval is published on in the overview of transport permissions given by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection.
Arctic winter
The transport permission is valid from September 23rd this year until April 16th next year, meaning the export can take place anytime this winter.
If following the same route as other spent nuclear fuel from former USSR-designed reactors in Europe, the highly radioactive nuclear waste will sail around the coast of Northern Norway towards Russia’s Arctic harbor Murmansk. Upon arrival at the Atomflot harbor in Murmansk, the nuclear waste will be reloaded to railway wagons and sent all way through European Russia to Mayak in the South Urals.
Mayak is Russia’s central storage and reprocessing facility for spent nuclear fuel.
Three shipments
The German newspaper Sûddeutsche Zeitung writes that there will be three shipments of spent nuclear fuel from Rossendorf to Russia. According to the overview BarentsObserver can read from the German radiation protection authorities issued in July this year, the maximum containers per transport is 18.
The total number of fuel elements from the German research reactor is 951 and if the load is divided into three shipments, there will be some 300 fuel elements in each shipment.
Environmental protests
Earlier in November ten-of-thousands of demonstrators were trying to block a train with of radioactive waste from France to Germany’s storage site in Gorleben.
Green groups are also protesting the coming shipment of uranium fuel from Germany to Russia. Environmentalists from all over the world signed an appeal letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev earlier this week.
From the Murmansk region, both Kola Environmental centre and Bellona-Murmansk have signed the appeal.
The environmentalists say uranium fuel sent to Russia’s Mayak facility creates more radioactive waste when reprocessed and isotopes can end up in the Arctic through the Siberian River systems from Mayak near Chelyabinsk via Ob to the Arctic Oceans.
It will however be impossible for German and Russian environmentalists to block the shipments of nuclear waste around the Arctic coast of the Barents Region.
Not the shortest route
The shortest export route from a port on the German Baltic Sea coast to Mayak is by boat to St. Petersburg, but recent history shows that Russia does not want such uranium fuel to be shipped to St. Petersburg.
As BarentsObserver has reported several times over the last year, Russia uses its special designed harbor at the icebreaker base Atomflot in Murmansk for import of nuclear waste from central Europe.
At Atomflot, the containers with spent nuclear fuel can be reloaded to railway wagons with the help of the same crane that reload spent nuclear fuel from the icebreaker fleets transport and storage vessel Imandra. Few meters from the crane is also a foreign designed storage room for spent nuclear fuel. Norway is one of several countries that have assisted Atomflot with new facilities for nuclear waste handling.
Secret sailing scedules
In October, BarentsObserver revealed that yet another shipment of spent nuclear fuel was secretly shipped from Poland around the northern coast of Norway to Murmansk. Polish and Norwegian authorities did not wanted the public to be aware of the sailing schedule for the vessel loaded with the weapon-grade uranium fuel.
Yngvar Bratved with the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authorities told BarentsObserver in October that for security reasons they are reserved with specific information (about such nuclear cargo) before and during the voyages.
Read also: Norway not told about nuclear cargo
There are likely two reasons why such nuclear cargo are shipped the longer route around Norway to Murmansk, instead of sailing the much shorter route through the Baltic Sea and St. Petersburg on its way to Mayak. First of all it is important to keep the vulnerable cargo as far away from possible terrorists as possible, and secondly because Murmansk has an excellent harbor facility for receiving such nuclear waste.
The harsh seas off the coast of northern Norway and Russia’s Kola Peninsula are not an easy attack point for al-Quaida or other non-state terrorist groups that might want to blow up or get access and steal weapon-grade uranium or other radioactive substances such as the cargo from Poland and Germany.
