Interfax Russian News, December 22, 2000
Russia To Upgrade Nuclear Processing Plant for More Deals
Yekaterinburg. Russia's only nuclear plant Mayak (Ozersk, Chelyabinsk region) should be considerably upgraded if it is to negotiate more deals.
Director of Mayak's center for public relations Yevgeny Ryzhkov has told Interfax that the plant's management has "enthusiastically" responded to the passage by the State Duma in the first reading of a package of bills, allowing the introduction into Russia of spent nuclear fuel for its subsequent reprocessing.
Until the early 90s, Mayak had reprocessed nuclear fuel for the former socialist countries. At present, the enterprise is only cooperating with Ukraine in the field. Negotiations are also in progress with the Czech Republic and Bulgaria; the two countries from which Mayak would accept used nuclear fuel at any time.
However, Ryzhkov said, broader contacts are a long-term project, whose "implementation will require a significant technical upgrading of Mayak's industrial sector." He explained this in the fact that the rest of the world uses reactors of a different type so that the nuclear fuel they supply should obviously be processed through different means.
Apart from Mayak, the lower house's endorsed bill could concern nuclear fuel storage at Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk region). The Mayak management believes that in order to stockpile fuel from other countries, the storage should also be considerably upgraded.
Back to the Publications page
Back to the first page on Abolishing of Russian Environmental Agencies
Back to the If Everything OK With Forests In Russia page
| 
