The 123 Agreement with the U.S. has its pluses and minuses.
Tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste produced in America may end up in the Russian Federation. That was Greenpeace-Russia’s reaction to the news about the ratification by the U.S. Congress of the 123 Agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation. The Russian Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the agreement will come into effect by the end of the year. Experts think that, from the commercial point of view, the agreement is beneficial for Russia. However, questions remain concerning ecological consequences of cooperation with the U.S.
The spokesman of Rosatom, Sergei Novikov, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that Russia and the U.S. are going to exchange diplomatic notes this month and after that, the 123 Agreement will come into effect. The official text of the document — the Russian-U.S. Intergovernmental Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation signed in Moscow on May 6, 2008 — has not yet been published on the Rosatom website.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the ratification of the agreement by the U.S. Congress, stating that “the agreement creates the conditions for fruitful work on large-scale, practically significant research in handling spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, working together to provide nuclear fuel cycle services, adopting innovative technologies and ensuring nuclear and radiation safety.” Meanwhile, ecologists are raising the alarm.
Greenpeace-Russia states on its website that “the new agreement permits the importation of U.S. obligated spent fuel to Russia for storage.” The organization warns that if the U.S. Congress ratifies this agreement, tons of American spent nuclear fuel located in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Switzerland and other countries could be transported to Russia, ostensibly to be temporarily stored and reprocessed, but really to simply be buried.
In 2010, a project to create a national repository for spent nuclear fuel failed in the U.S., and no one knows what to do with the nuclear waste in the U.S. or in the nuclear power plants using American nuclear fuel in other countries. The amount of nuclear waste grows from year to year. “Isn’t that why the American nuclear industry is so eager to create a repository for its nuclear waste in Russia?”* asks Greenpeace-Russia. The head of the Energy Unit of Greenpeace’s Moscow office, Vladimir Chuprov, did not respond to calls from Nezavisimaya Gazeta yesterday.
The director of the Center for Energy and Security Studies, Anton Khlopkov, thinks that Rosatom needs to clarify whether importing U.S.-controlled spent nuclear fuel is planned or not. “During the end of the 1990s, importing those materials was considered justified because it was necessary to fund building a repository for our own nuclear waste. Now the question of financing isn’t as pressing,”* the expert told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
According to him, the enactment of the 123 Agreement will create a legislative basis for importing American nuclear waste into Russia. “It is a different question whether Russia is going to actually do that or not. The head of Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, had stated several years ago that there were no plans to import foreign spent nuclear fuel. Now would be a good time to confirm that position,”* says Khlopkov, while noting that Russian legislation doesn’t prohibit importing foreign nuclear waste.
At the same time, the specialist is of the opinion that the lack of a legal basis for American–Russian peaceful nuclear cooperation looked absurd, considering that Russia is the leading nuclear state in both military and civil aspects, and the U.S. has the largest number of nuclear power plants in the world. “The agreement will make it easier for us to work with the prospective market. The lack of the document often caused political discrepancies in projects development. Russia is predominantly interested in providing services in uranium enrichment. We own 40–45 percent of the world’s capacities. The Russian Federation is still competitive on that market,”* Khlopkov says.
Another expert for Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the chief executive of AtomPromResursy Group, Andrei Cherkasenko, doesn’t want to dramatize the situation. According to him, the infrastructure in Russia is not developed enough to process large amounts of foreign nuclear waste. “We are considerably behind our European competitors in developing this business. One example is France, where fuel from other European countries and Japan is processed.”* Cherkasenko emphasized that spent nuclear fuel may be imported to Russia only for reprocessing. The usable products of the reprocessing and any radioactive byproducts are to be eventually returned. Besides, any such projects are supposed to be coordinated in the course of public hearings, including participation by Greenpeace and local governments.
Sergei Novikov from Rosatom assuages: The rumors about transporting foreign nuclear waste to be buried in Russia are “nothing but a work of a morbid imagination.”* “There is no word in the 123 Agreement about sending spent nuclear fuel from the United States to Russia. We are not going to import any spent fuel of foreign origin to Russia neither for reprocessing nor for storage,”* he told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
*Editor’s Note: These quotes, though accurately translated, could not be verified.
First, stop the misinformation. Reprocessing REDUCES the amount of waste to be stored by by a factor of hundreds. Second, I seem to remember a large area of already blighted radioactive ground around Chernobyl. Maybe that would be suitable for the final products of properly and efficiently processed fuel. Third, nuclear electricity and heat vastly reduces carbon dioxide, which cannot be ignored, since renewables will require much energy for building the windmills, dams, and solar thermal and photovoltaic sources. That energy can come from nuclear plants, which can THEN be retired after serving their purpose.
Constant scare tactics from Greenpeace, et al, actually reduce the implementation of green energy. Nuclear IS green energy. The waste products of nuclear fission are TINY in comparison to the poisons (sulfuric acid, vanadium, chromium, etc) emitted by coal burning plants. There is nothing better for the world than to replace an old coal plant with nuclear.
I look at the numbers, not the scare tactics. Perhaps the degree in molecular physics helps a little…