nuclear-news

The two nuclear submarines together contain one million curies of radiation, or about a quarter of that released in the first month of the Fukushima disaster

The message, which comes before Russia’s turn to chair the Arctic Council next year, seems to be that the country is not only the preeminent commercial and military power in the warming Arctic, but also a steward of the environment. The K-159 lies just outside of Murmansk in the Barents Sea, the richest cod fishery in the world and also an important habitat of haddock, red king crab, walruses, whales, polar bears and many other animals.

At the same time, Russia is leading another “nuclearification” of the Arctic with new vessels and weapons, two of which have already suffered accidents.

Decaying legacy

During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union built more than 400 nuclear-powered submarines, a “silent service” that gave the adversaries a way to retaliate even if their missile silos and strategic bombers had been taken out in a sudden first strike. Just 60 miles (97km) from the border with Nato member Norway, the Arctic port of Murmansk and surrounding military bases became the centre of the USSR’s nuclear navy and icebreakers, as well as their highly radioactive spent fuel.

After the Iron Curtain fell, the consequences came to light. For instance, at Andreyeva Bay, where 600,000 tonnes of toxic water leaked into the Barents Sea from a nuclear storage pool in 1982, the spent fuel from more than 100 submarines was kept partly in rusty canisters under the open sky. Fearing contamination, Russia and Western countries including Britain embarked on a sweeping clean-up, spending nearly £1bn ($1.3bn) to decommission and dismantle 197 Soviet nuclear submarines, dispose of strontium batteries from 1,000 navigation beacons and began removing fuel and waste from Andreyeva Bay and three other dangerous coastal sites.

They contain large amount of spent nuclear fuel which in future for sure will leak into the environment – Ingar Amundsen

As in other countries, however, Soviet nuclear waste was also dumped at sea, and now the focus has shifted there. A 2019 feasibility study by a consortium including British nuclear safety firm Nuvia found 18,000 radioactive objects in the Arctic Ocean, among them 19 vessels and 14 reactors. While the radiation given off by most of these objects has neared background levels thanks to silt build-up, the study found 1,000 still have elevated levels of penetrating gamma radiation. Ninety percent of that is contained in six objects that Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom will raise in the next 12 years, Anatoly Grigoriev, Rosatom’s head of international technical assistance, told Future Planet: two nuclear submarines and reactor compartments from three nuclear submarines and the icebreaker Lenin.

“We consider even the extremely low probability of radioactive materials leaking from these objects as posing an unacceptable risk for the ecosystems of the Arctic,” Grigoriev said in a statement.

No such sweeping nuclear clean-up has ever been undertaken at sea. Recovering the reactor compartments will involve salvage jobs in frigid waters that are safe for such operations only three or four months out of the year. The two nuclear submarines, which together contain one million curies of radiation, or about a quarter of that released in the first month of the Fukushima disaster, will pose an even greater challenge.

One of them is the K-27, once known as the “golden fish” because of its high cost. The 360ft-long (118m) attack submarine (a submarine designed to hunt other submarines) was plagued with problems since its 1962 launch with its experimental liquid-metal-cooled reactors, one of which ruptured six years later and exposed nine sailors to fatal doses of radiation. In 1981 and 1982, the navy filled the reactor with asphalt and scuttled it east of Novaya Zemlya island in a mere 108ft (33m) of water. A tugboat had to ram the bow after a hole blown in the ballast tanks only sank the aft end.

The K-27 was sunk after some safety measures were installed that should keep the wreck safe until 2032. But another incident is more alarming. The K-159, a 350ft (107m) November-class attack submarine, was in service from 1963 to 1989. The K-159 sank with no warning, sending 800kg (1,760lb) of spent uranium fuel to the seafloor beneath busy fishing and shipping lanes just north of Murmansk. Thomas Nilsen, editor of The Barents Observer online newspaper, describes the submarines as a “Chernobyl in slow motion on the seabed”.

For all the relatives it would bring some relief if their fathers and husbands were buried, not just lying on the bottom in a steel hulk – Dmitry Gurov

Ingar Amundsen, head of international nuclear safety at the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, agrees that it is a question of when, not if, the sunken submarines will contaminate the waters if left as they are. “They contain large amount of spent nuclear fuel which in future for sure will leak into the environment, and we know from experience that only small amounts of contamination into the environment, or even rumours, would lead to problems and economic consequences for marine products and the fisheries.” ……….. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200901-the-radioactive-risk-of-sunken-nuclear-soviet-submarines