The Uranium Tails Case. Russia and nuclear waste
The ubiquitous ecologists
We must pay tribute to modern ecologists: they really learned how to manage almost the whole world. Draconian environmental standards from the EURO series have led to the fact that in a modern car the exhaust gas purification system has become more complicated than the internal combustion engine itself.
In the United States, things are not much better. Remember the scandal with rigging the exhaust parameters of diesel engines of the Volkswagen concern, which caused the multibillion-dollar losses of the German company. This led to the fact that the Germans generally decided in the near future to abandon hydrocarbon engines, gradually converting the entire model range to electricity. At the same time, many people forget, including environmentalists, that the production of electricity will require new and new thermal power plants, as well as energy-intensive lithium mining. Windmills alone, which have already become a symbol of "clean" Europe, are not enough, even if they set all the fields and coasts. In Russia, the situation is still more adequate, but even here environmental tantrums regularly arise. One of them has become news on the import into Russia of uranium hexafluoride or, as it is also called, “uranium tails” for processing at domestic facilities. The main culprit was called the company Urenco Deutschland GmbH, engaged in the enrichment of fuel for nuclear power plants. It is generally worth the outrage here - in Germany there are technologies and a production base for uranium enrichment.
Let centrifuges be designed exclusively for peaceful use and enterprises regularly visit various control commissions designed to prevent illegal activities. But how many months will it take German specialists to rebuild the enrichment cycle for military needs in a "fire" case? However, we were a little distracted from the main topic. So, dump uranium hexafluoride is the final product of the nuclear fuel cycle, which somehow needs to be disposed of. But it contains residual amounts of uranium-235 (up to 0,7%) - it can be isolated, obtained oxide and sent back to nuclear reactors. Or enrich the “uranium tails” to the content of uranium-235 of the order of 5%, which will allow the waste to be used as fuel at nuclear power plants. Actually, this is what they are going to do in Russia by European order. Why exactly with us? Of course, it is cheaper, and also avoids the attacks of local exalted ecologists like Greenpeace. In addition, the centrifugation technology of uranium-containing substances in Russia is still the most advanced in the world. In total, before 2022, the Germans are going to introduce about 12 thousand tons of tailings into the country, which will be processed mainly at the Ural Electrochemical Plant.
Ural Electrochemical Plant
In addition, the operation will involve FSUE Sibirsky Chemical Combine (Tomsk), FSUE Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Combine (Angarsk) or FSUE PO Electrochemical Plant (Zelenogorsk). It is important to know that after that in the Urals and Siberia They will deal with uranium hexafluoride and its impurities, the enriched fuel will be returned in containers back to Germany for use at nuclear power plants (if they were to remain in Europe at that time). »Waste They are planning to do everything in accordance with the law “On Environmental Protection”, which explicitly prohibits the indefinite burial of nuclear waste in Russia. Is everything so good and safe? Of course, there are risks, but not of a radioactive nature.
Uranium hexafluoride is an extremely unpleasant thing. This is a strong poison, which in case of fire cannot even be extinguished with water - it is with H20 is reacting. Therefore, there is still a danger, but it is purely technical in nature, since it does not even suggest a hint of large-scale radioactive contamination in the event of an accident. Moreover, Rosatom knows how to handle "uranium tails" - we have accumulated a lot of them (they say, more than 1 million tons) since the Soviet era, and the "reserve" is constantly replenished. For now, we simply store them, simultaneously developing technologies for using low-enriched form as fuel in fast neutron reactors. There are even technologies for the complete conversion into less hazardous uranium tetrafluoride and uranium oxide, but their performance is poor. By the way, Rosatom and the German Urenco are not the first to collaborate on this issue - they were engaged in similar joint projects in Russia in the 90's and the beginning of the 2000's.
According to the assurances of the Greenpeace organization, since May of this year at least six trains with “uranium tails” have arrived in the Urals from the German Gronau. Environmentalists are silent about the fact that trains with even more dangerous chemicals run daily along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Of course, you can’t find a radioactive hype here.
What to do with waste?
Nevertheless, the case of “uranium tails” raised a serious problem of the disposal of spent fuel from nuclear power plants. And in Russia, a nuclear power, this still overlaps with the question of the fuel used for nuclear submarine reactors. In our country, by the way, the situation with this is even more or less: we not only just “bury” the radioactive waste, but also recycle it into fuel. For example, at the Mayak plant in the Chelyabinsk Region, they learned how to extract 97% of uranium isotopes from highly active waste, which later goes back to the reactors. Rosatom also knows how to handle low-enriched waste, from which it is either impossible or economically unprofitable to extract uranium. Such substances are burned, fumes are filtered, soot and unburned residue are pressed in barrels, poured with cement and disposed of in landfills.
Reactor compartments of domestic submarines for long-term storage in Sayda Guba in the Murmansk region
Wastes capable of radiating heat during decay were previously stored virtually in the water column. Such is the center for conditioning and storage of radioactive waste in Andreeva Bay on the shores of the Barents Sea. Approximate according to this scheme, the disposal and storage of reactor compartments of domestic nuclear submarines is organized. Now they have accumulated more than 180. Most of them can be found on Sayda Guba in the Kola Bay, the coast of which is lined with mothballed parts of submarines. However, the most dangerous high-level waste requires much more serious measures of isolation from humans and wildlife. Ideally, such substances should be allowed to flow several hundred meters into the granite strata of a mountain range. But the problem of heat transfer arises: the lack of water cooling will lead to overheating and destruction of the sarcophagus, designed for thousands of years of storage. At the mining and chemical plant near Krasnoyarsk in the nuclear waste storage facility, this problem was partially solved by passive air cooling, but still far from ideal.
Examples of nuclear waste storage in Russia and Kazakhstan
It should not be considered that the storage of spent nuclear fuel is the prerogative of Russia exclusively. We are not turning into a global nuclear dump, as some experts like to say. I recall that this is generally prohibited by law. At the same time, many countries with vast sparsely populated territories are ready to make money on the unhindered storage of even highly active nuclear waste. So, in Finland, in the town of Onkala, since 2015 of the year, a capacious storage facility has been built in granite rock, designed to isolate radioactive substances for 100 thousand years. Later, Swedes and even Americans plan to follow the example of neighbors if they agree with the public about the Yucca Mountain atomic repository in the Nevada desert. However, such a long-term storage of waste may not follow at all - the leading nuclear powers are working hard on new technologies for the complete processing of nuclear waste.
- Evgeny Fedorov
- svoboda.org, greenpeace.ru, popmech.ru
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