Russia

DecomAtom’s Russian website was hacked today, apparently by some supporters of nuclear energy.

A Committee, established by the Norwegian Government, recommends that Norwegian nuclear waste is sent to the Mayak plant in Russia. This creates an image of the Urals and Siberia, as an international nuclear garbage dump.

29th of September 1957 a tank with radioactive waste at the Mayak plant in Russia exploded. On the day 52 years after the accident representatives of the Decomatom-project participated in a memorial in the village of Muslyumovo.

In 2008, Rosatom Federal Atomic Energy Agency promulgated the bill On Radioactive Waste Management. This is one of the first attempts on the part of the agency of state administration to organize a broad discussion of an important law in the field of nuclear energy use. In this article we present some basic approaches to the new law.

Comments about the legislative status of Rostekhnadzor

One of the main regulatory agencies in the field of nuclear and radiation safety in Russia is the Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service of the Russian Federation (Rostekhnadzor of the Russian Federation).

Comments about the status of Rosatom

In the context of the ongoing administrative reform of governmental authorities in the Russian Federation the powers of atomic agency increase. In 2008, Rosatom State Corporation was established, which incorporated all companies, operating in the nuclear industry both in military and civilian sectors. Moreover, this corporation performs state functions of regulating the whole Russian nuclear complex.

The major of the city Sosnovy Bor, where Leningrad nuclear power plant is situated, is member of the organizing committee for the international hearing on decommissioning in the end of October. This week, the major met with NGOs from the DecomAtom network, which gathered in Sosnovy Bor to prepare the hearing.

The hull of what is supposed to be the world’s first floating nuclear power plant will be moved from a shipyard in the Arkhangelsk region on the White Sea in North-West Russia to another shipyard near St.Petersburg on the Baltic Sea.

An important step has been taken towards a decommission plan for Russian nuclear reactors. Rosatom, the regulatory body of the Russian nuclear complex, has drafted a concept for decommissioning. This is a great victory for the DecomAtom cooperation project.

Our dear Russian colleague, Lydia Popova, has passed away. Lydia has been our colleague for more than 10 years, doing invaluable work on a number of subjects connected with nuclear safety issues and other energy related issues. Our latest cooperative effort was a report about a NGO concept of a Russian decommissioning plan for the oldest nuclear power reactors. Lydia contributed very valuable knowledge to this report, chiefly regarding how to make a legislative framework for the handling of the nuclear waste generated by breaking up old nuclear reactors.