M Jensen*
R Avila**
Swedish Radiation Protection
Institute
171 16 Stockholm
Sweden
*Phone: 46 87297100 direct
--239
Fax: 46 8 7297162
E-Mail: mikael.jensen@ssi.se
**Phone:
46 87297100 direct --173
Fax: 46 8 7297290
E-Mail: r.avila@ssi.se
ABSTRACT
Sweden and the other Nordic countries have taken an active part in the description of nuclear waste management in the Russian federation. A seminar 15 - 17 May, 1995, in Vienna, has been a starting point for a coordination effort in the form of a Expert Contact Group, collecting information about international cooperation in the field of Russian nuclear waste management. The Russian participants also presented a high-priority project list at the seminar, covering a large range of activities. The list contains legal and regulatory projects, but production-type or hardware projects dominate. A high concentration of projects is found in the north-western region.
The creation of waste is a living process and it is often difficult to judge the consequences of one particular project in nuclear waste management, as plans still are in the process of being formed. For this reason, it is valuable to cooperate with the regulating bodies such as Gosatomnadzor who, at least in principle, can require that such plans are presented as part of the licensing dialogue. For the same reason, it is valuable to include the regulatory body also in production program.
The Swedish Radiation Protection Institute and the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority have jointly started a cooperation project with Gosatomnadzor to establish, through seminars and courses, a common view of environmental impact assessment of nuclear installations.
INTRODUCTION
Following the Chernobyl accident, cooperation between the West and East accelerated in the nuclear field already during the Soviet Union era, with focus on reactor safety.
Soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, information leaked to the West was a matter of great concern about many nuclear waste facilities, especially in the bordering countries and countries around the Baltic Sea. In the North-West region in particular, the sunken submarines in the Kara Sea, east of Novya Zemlya were a concern.
The concern was expressed in many sectors of society, and particularly environmental protection groups were highlighting the problems of the East. In some cases, especially during the period before formal international cooperation started, these groups were the main source of information available to Western experts. Much information is still coming to the West through informal channels.
Another facet of the problem was the need for new national regulatory authorities in the newly established independent countries such as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In these countries, the radioactive waste had been stored by implementors no longer in power and therefore not formally responsible any longer.
For collaboration with Russia, an obvious need was a description of the state of affairs of Russian nuclear waste handling as a starting point for collaboration.
THE FIRST STEPS OF THE SWEDISH-RUSSIAN COOPERATION
In 1993, The Swedish radiation Protection Institute (SSI) started a project which described the overall situation for waste management in the Russian Federation. The result was reported in Ref. 1, S Sireport 94-04. In this project, preliminary information received in visits to MINATOM and other organizations was compiled and re-checked by a team from MINATOM in Moscow.
Following this project, SSI suggested a seminar to be held at the end of 1994. The suggestion was supported from IAEA and from the radiation protection and safety authorities in the Nordic countries. These organization decided together with IAEA to hold the seminar in Vienna May 1995 with the IAEA as host organization.
The nuclear waste situation in Russia was considered so complex in itself that the problems were worth an separate seminar. The seminar therefore did not cover all former Soviet regions. The Russian program was formally presented in an IAEA meeting 1995, sponsored by Norwegiean Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) and SSI..
INFORMATION ABOUT RUSSIA AT THE -95 MAY SEMINAR
The seminar attracted a large audience, from more that 8 Russian ministries and responsible bodies, and 11 Western countries.
Mr. Yegorov, deputy Minister for Atomic Energy, said in an overview that "the end of the cold war has lead to a considerable exchange of data regarding the status of this problem and has evoked well grounded concern over the provision for ecological safety in many regions of the Russian Federation and in a number of other states"(2). He also said that the situation is "under control and, in general, not disastrous - although in some places it is close to disastrous".
According to Mr. Yegorov, 90% of the waste was attributable to production of weapons grade material. The total volume was given as 2*108 m3 and the activity as 2*109 Ci (7*1019 Bq).
An important part of the picture given by Russian participants of the conference was that the Atomic Fleet had problems in the North-Eastern Region at Murmansk and Severodvinsk, and that similar problems existed for the Pacific Fleet.
The transport of fuel from decommissioned nuclear ships from Murmansk to the reprocessing plant in Mayak was described as an "incredibly complicated situation (Yegorov)".
THE RUSSIAN HIGH-PRIORITY LIST
A list of high priority projects or areas was proposed by Mr. Kokeev from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in Mr. Kokeev's words):
The list was discussed and modified at the conference. It has been updated since, last in a follow-up meeting in Vienna in September 1996, but several features has not changed in the Russian high-priority list:
THE WESTERN COUNTRIES AND THEIR COOPERATION PROGRAMS
There is no world-wide cooperation program for nuclear waste in Russia, as for nuclear reactor safety. The European countries' cooperation is dominated by the European Union programs often within the program for Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS). At the seminar, most European Union countries reported that they participated in this program, which has a budget of about 100 Million ECU/year (approx. 130 MUSD).
There is no doubt that the seminar itself was an important contribution from the Nordic countries. The Nordic countries have additional programs. Norway have allocated the largest budget, of about 100 million Nkr (about 17 MUSD) to cooperation programs with Russia. The Finnish-Russian cooperation programs are mostly in reactor safety, but some work is done also for nuclear waste management. The cooperation with former Soviet Union in Sweden have been centered on programs for the new Baltic states.
INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION FOR WASTE COOPERATION PROJECTS
A follow up meeting in Stockholm suggested that a Contact Expert Group was formed with support from the IAEA. The task of this group was to coordinate, essentially by following up and reporting, the development on cooperation in the field of nuclear waste management in the Russian Federation.
This group is now established. Under the IAEA umbrella, a number of countries participates in a coordinating body for information exchange about Nuclear waste cooperation projects. The group has a full-time secretary, Mr. Semenov, former deputy head of the IAEA.
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM
From a large number of sources, a general knowledge is now available, which was lacking completely 15 years ago. There has been a transition in the sources of this information. Up to the late eighties, the western environmental groups, cooperating with eastern colleges were a major and dominant source. Now, formal cooperation programs is competing with this information source.
An example illustrates this:
There was a reports from Greenpeace that potential visitors on some Estonian islands were unprotected from radioactive strontium sources in light-houses. Later, the Sr-90 generators in the light-houses were removed, and some lighthouses monitored as part of a formal Swedish-Estonian project. In the process, Swedish authorities obtained a good understanding of the situation.
The problem in judging the value of this program, is that there was never any information provided from the Russian side about the generators' future destiny. In theory, they could have been moved and used in the Arctic Sea regions. In this way, projects are often difficult to place within the overall nuclear waste situation.
It is pointed out in ICRP 46 (3) that optimization of protection is a broad concept in waste management and it can apply at four levels:
A program for assisting in these areas must take into account the Russian government's plans for the described waste streams to some extent. On the whole, the nuclear waste problems in the former USSR, is often discussed - both informally and formally - in an unfortunate simplified way as a number of singular problems, which all need to be "solved". The discussion often ignores the fact that nuclear waste in all countries occurs as waste streams, in which problems are solved and simultaneously created.
It does not follow from this, however, that the commotion can easily be overcome. In many cases, the detailed plans are not known even to the Russians. The plans and responsibilities for implementation and regulation is in the process of being formulated. Also, in some cases, a single projects could be of undisputed value, even if all consequences cannot be projected. What does follow from the description above, is that it is worth while to discuss in depth what the consequences of a cooperation project could be.
STRATEGIES
In addition to what has been mentioned above, it follows already from the budgets now available for cooperation projects with Russia about nuclear waste, that a large number of proposals is being circulated, and there is a corresponding need for a strict priority analysis. Obviously, the analysis will differ from one organization to another, from commercial enterprises and authorities and state representatives. Here, the view of the state bodies are discussed.
Below are some important element that are important for an authority which must take into account both limited resources and national policy:
Political Decisions
Political realities must be taken into account. For example, in negotiations between Russia and Estonia, there was an agreement that the Swedish government might be approached to assist and comment on the development of the decommissioning of the nuclear submarine training facility in Paldiski in Estonia. This Russian naval base was recently handed over to Estonia. The projects has lead to a large amount of activities, among others the creation of the Paldiski International Expert Reference Group, PIERG, and organizing and chairing many of its meetings.
Cooperation in On-Going Activities.
An obvious choice for an authority with limited resources is to include Russian participation in various projects that would be carried out anyway for reasons of internal priority. Some projects like the BIOMOVS (International Biosphere Model Validation Study) involve Russian expert.
The Russian Authority, Gosatomnadzor
The Swedish authority SSI support and cooperate with the Russian authority, based on a strategy that in the final analysis, only the regulator can have the overview of the situation. Only the regulator can effectively require future overall plans to be presented as part of licensing process.
Outside contributors should always be concerned that all aspects of their projects are beneficial to the receiving partners. There is a danger, however, that in their aim to assure a correct use of the project's funds, the organization make requirements and arrangements for safety in such a way that it substitutes itself for the national authority.
This is a good reason for supporting a common view of safety analysis and licensing procedures. The SSI is now implementing a program in this area together with their Norwegian sister authority, and a first course was held in September 1996 in Moscow.
Waste management cost money, and given the current uncertainty in foreseeing economic development in Russia, western cooperation partners cannot realistically expect to receive binding promises about decisions and plans. Still, it is obvious that future cooperation activities will benefit from a more detailed description of waste streams, existing facilities and plans for their operation.
REFERENCES