Environmentalists were due to protest in Moscow yesterday against a change in the law which would allow the import of nuclear waste. The protest comes as a leaked document outlines US-backed plans for shipping spent nuclear fuel from eight Taiwanese reactors to Russia for disposal.
Protesters are rallying against the second reading of a law before the duma, the lower house of parliament, which ends Russia's long-term ban on the import of nuclear waste.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Minatom, the state-owned nuclear industry sponsoring the bill, believes Russia can earn US$20 billion over the next 10 years by taking waste from overseas.
The advanced nature of the plans became apparent at the weekend with the leaking of a document from the US department of energy to Ecodefence, the Moscow based anti-nuclear organization.
The report entitled Foreign Spent Fuel Storage and Geologic Disposal in Russia, produced by the US energy department and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, outlines the plan for shipping Taiwanese nuclear waste to Russia for disposal.
The involvement of the US in the scheme stems from the control exercised by Washington over nuclear proliferation. Spent fuel can be reprocessed and used for nuclear weapons. And so, from the building of the first reactors in Taiwan, the US has insisted on controlling the disposal route for the nuclear waste if any material originates in the US, which much of it does.
However, this is proving an embarrassment to Washington since until now no country has been willing to take another's spent nuclear fuel, least of all the US. The Russians, however, have long seen a business opportunity in the vast empty spaces of its eastern provinces.
In December 1998, the Russian nuclear minister, Yevgeny Adamov, sent a letter to the then US energy secretary, Bill Richardson, asking if the US would be interested in sending some of its high-level waste to Russia for storage or reprocessing. At the time,Richardson replied that the US was not interested.
Information was also leaked to the press that Minatom was holding talks with Germany and Switzerland about shipments of radioactive waste to Russia, but nothing appeared to come of this. To drum up support inside Russia, Minatom said that provinces prepared to accept waste would get a share of the money.
The US energy department report concerns the transportation of 7,500 tonnes of spent fuel from eight Taiwanese reactors. The fuel will be transported by ship to the ocean ports of Russia in the Far East -- Vanino and Vladivostok, then by rail to Krasnoyarsk. In 2007, spent fuel must leave Taiwan for Russia where it will be stored until 2020, when a repository built near the Mayak nuclear reprocessing will start to operate, according to the energy department.
The report outlines the role for the US as main negotiator. "At a minimum, the US would have to enter into agreements with Taiwan and Russia that provide for successful implementation of the program.
"This will involve many complex issues and interested government agencies as well as non-governmental organizations. Due to the unique aspects of the relationship between Taiwan and the US, the coordination of technical activities in this program requires careful management."
This provoked a strong reaction from Vladimir Slivyak, co- chairman of Ecodefence, which released the document.
"The US energy department and the US nuclear industry are looking to set up an international radioactive toilet in Russia," he said.
"In polls, 93.5 percent of Russians are strongly opposed to the nuclear waste import proposed by the Russian nuclear industry. It's not just a fight against nuclear waste import, but a fight for establishing democracy and strong civil society in Russia."
Environmental activists and the liberal party, Yabloko, were organizing yesterday's protest outside parliament.
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