nuclear-news

Closure of Russia’s last plutonium nuclear reactor

Russia shuts down last plutonium reactor ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 16 April 2010, Russia has shut down its last weapons-grade plutonium reactor, in line with a pledge made at a nuclear security summit in Washington this week, officials said.“It was shut down today,” said Yelena Golovinkina, a spokeswoman for the Mining-Chemical Complex in the Siberian city of Zheleznogorsk, which houses the reactor.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had pledged to close the reactor earlier this week at the 47-nation summit hosted by US president Barack Obama dedicated to keeping nuclear arms away from extremists.

“The closure of the ADE-2 reactor has major international significance. It is the last active military plutonium producer in the world,” a statement on the Mining-Chemical Complex website said…….Plutonium produced at the plant since 1995 is in a storage centre in the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk, a spokesman for Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom said. Russia shuts down last plutonium reactor – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

April 16, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, technology | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear spin, nuclear technology, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, plutonium