Today the State Duma will finally decide whether to import spent nuclear fuel into Russia

Today in the Duma there is a final reading of the bill on the import of spent nuclear fuel into Russia. The idea of ​​making money by placing hazardous production waste in Russia has a high chance of being realized. In any case, for the West, such Russian plans to develop its territories have long been no secret.

Members of the Yabloko and SPS factions voted against this bill in the second reading. Some other associations, in particular the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, voted freely. It is expected that today, in the third reading, the voting will be approximately the same and the laws will be adopted.

Supporters of the bills argue that foreign orders will bring our country $20 billion in the coming years, part of which will go to environmental projects.

If the State Duma passes the bill, special trains with a radiation hazard badge will move along Russian railways from all directions.

The Ministry of Atomic Energy still prefers not to talk about from which countries spent nuclear fuel will be delivered to Russia, where it will be processed and stored, and how it will be delivered to the storage site. “First we need to convince the deputies tomorrow, and then there will be a struggle on the world market for a place in the sun,” says the head of the ministry Rumyantsev.

In fact, this is not entirely true. In a document prepared by the US Department of Energy, which concerns US assistance in organizing the disposal of fuel from four Taiwanese nuclear power plants in Russia, the fourth priority item is the final disposal of waste in Russia.

The Americans themselves, despite Minatom’s assurances that this business is profitable, for some reason are in no hurry to process and store fuel at home.

Several other states have high hopes for Russia. Minatom has also decided on the location where processing and subsequent disposal will take place. Actually, there is little choice here.

As Greenpeace coordinator in Russia Ivan Blokov said, the first place where waste can be transported is the Krasnoyarsk Territory, where the only free storage facility is located. “You can bring 3,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and store it there. The next points where waste can be transported are, of course, the Tomsk and Chelyabinsk regions,” says Blokov.

Over the past few years, Minatom has been negotiating its intentions in this area with several countries. Switzerland would like to give Russia its spent fuel. After mass protests in Germany, when tens of thousands of police were deployed to disperse environmental activists who tried to block the path of a train transporting spent fuel to France and back, in this country they believe that it would be cheaper to change the route, choosing Russia.

This is what, according to the same report from the American Department of Energy, the expected routes for radioactive waste from Europe look like. Delivered by sea to St. Petersburg, containers reach Krasnoyarsk via the Trans-Siberian Railway. At the same time, if Minatom manages to conclude contracts for fuel reprocessing with nuclear power plants in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the dangerous cargo will be delivered through the seaports of Vladivostok or Vanino. From here he must also proceed to Krasnoyarsk by rail. It is this circumstance that causes particular concern among environmentalists.

As Ivan Blokov said in an interview with NTV, “if recycling is a harmful thing, and the harmfulness manifests itself later, then transporting waste is an extremely dangerous procedure. If the entire project is fully implemented, then at least one train will be constantly on the Russian railways filled with radioactive waste. This will happen every day, every week, all the time, taking into account the fact that literally 200 thousand kilometers of Russian railways are in a semi-unsafe state, of course, this is terribly dangerous.”

Quite recently, a scandal broke out in St. Petersburg. As it turned out, cars with spent nuclear fuel, which had traditionally been traveling from Germany to the town of Elektrostal near Moscow for enrichment, were driven into a dead end because the new head of the railways believed that all precautions were not taken when transporting such cargo. It was there that the fuel dosimeter was off the charts and local journalists discovered it.

However, it is not only environmentalists who oppose Minatom’s plans. The head of Gosatomnadzor, Yuri Vishnevsky, made a very sharp statement today: “The great, truly great agency that created the nuclear shield - and this shield still supports the authority of Russia today - cannot and should not, even for a lot of money, be a guard against foreign crap. After all, it must Let's face it: we're importing crap."

However, first Minatom must pass a decision convenient for it through the State Duma. Despite the fact that the outcome of the vote is almost a foregone conclusion, a very heated discussion is expected today.