As work started on LAES-2, a complex of six power station units with VVER-1200 reactors that is due to complement the existing four 4 RBMK-1000 units of Leningrad Nuclear Power Station (LAES), environmentalists began a protest campaign against what they call an illegitimate and potentially hazardous construction.
The project’s estimated cost is $10 billion.
Up to 10,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride are expected to travel through St. Petersburg in the next six months, according to the local branch of the international environmental pressure group Bellona. The next cargo is expected to arrive in town in early October.
Arriving by sea, the radioactive material will then be sent by rail to the town of Novouralsk in Siberia for reprocessing and storage. Most of the cargo arrives in Russia from the Netherlands and Germany but Russia has signed contracts with India, Pakistan and China — states that are rapidly bolstering their nuclear programs — and looks set to receive even more spent nuclear fuel and uranium hexafluoride for reprocessing.
The wreckage of the old Russian cruiser “Murmansk” has been stranded outside to coast of Finnmark in northern Norway for 15 years. Recent investigation has revealed that there is radioactive substances inside the ship.
Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten printed the story about radioactive “Murmansk” last Friday, and it has led to a massive national media attention in Norway on the environmental hazard it seems to represent.
Panic gripped many in the city Wednesday after rumors spread that a serious accident had happened at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Station (LAES) in Sosnovy Bor, a town 70 kilometers west of St. Petersburg.
The power station operates four Chernobyl-type reactors and has a history of minor accidents.
HANOVER, Germany, May 6 (UPI) -- Expanding nuclear power to meet growing energy demand worldwide may be hindered by the lack of repositories for spent nuclear fuel, but planned national underground repositories in some countries and interim storage options could sustain nuclear energy's rapid growth in the short term.
08:50 - 03 December 2007
Norwegian environmental group Bellona fears that Gazprom will use nuclear power to provide electricity to the huge Shtokman gas-field project.
The NGO has sought action by Norway's foreign ministry to prevent Gazprom taking the nuclear route.
