Entire crew of nuclear submarine in coronavirus quarantine
“Orel” (K-266) is an Oscar-II class nuclear-powered submarine sailing for the Northern Fleet. Normally, the submarine has a crew of about 110 sailors.
The civilian that had met with a man infected with the coronavirus was on board “Orel” in a “business matter”, Murmansk-based news-online B-port reports.
Also, the crew of a nearby submarine and the personnel on a floating workshop are placed in quarantine.
The submarine is based in Zapadnaya Litsa, the westernmost bases of the Northern Fleet on the Kola Peninsula.
No reports have been published about any coronavirus cases in Zaozersk, the navy town where the crew and their families live.
By March 28th, Russia’s official number of coronavirus infections raised to 1,264.
The “Murmansk group” on social media channel Vkontakte says there are 12 people who have given pre-positive tests of coronavirus in the Murmansk region.
Belarus to swap gas dependence on Moscow for nuclear dependence on Moscow
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Belarus to swap gas dependence on Moscow for nuclear dependence on Moscow https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2020-03-belarus-to-swap-gas-dependence-on-moscow-for-nuclear-dependence-on-moscowA nuclear power plant built to lessen Belarus’s dependence on Moscow for natural gas – but constructed and lavishly financed by Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom – is due to begin operation later this year, officials in the Belarus capital of Minsk have said. March 24, 2020 by Charles Digges
A nuclear power plant built to lessen Belarus’s dependence on Moscow for natural gas – but constructed and lavishly financed by Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom – is due to begin operation later this year, officials in the Belarus capital of Minsk have said. The plant will feature two VVER-1200 reactors – the second of which will come online next year – that will together generate some 2.4 gigawatts of power in the cloistered post-Soviet dictatorship on Russia’s western border. The International Atomic Energy Agency found that the plant largely fulfilled general safety guidelines and issued a number of recommendations for improvement. Others have raised alarm over potential safety issues. GlobalData quoted energy and nuclear policy analyst Mycle Schneider as warning: “Neighboring countries have voiced concern over the lack of review of some serious safety concerns, and Lithuania has transmitted an official note to the European Council.” Since its inception in the early 2000s, the Belarus nuclear power plant, in Ostrovets near the border of Lithuania, has been fraught with difficulties. Environmentalists who oppose the plant are routinely harassed and stifled and in some cases kicked out of the country. Neighboring Lithuania, once seen as a promising potential market when construction began, is now so opposed to the plant that its parliament outlawed purchasing any electricity it produces and has sent envoys to other countries encouraging them to do the same. Poland and the Ukraine have also spoken out against the plant. Each of these groups have called attention to the mishaps that have plagued the plant during its construction, including an incident in 2016 when technicians inadvertently dropped a 330-ton reactor pressure vessel – which houses the core – from a crane. A replacement unit sent to the site was accidentally run into a column at a railway station when it arrived. But the plant also illustrates an energy conundrum facing many European countries. While a number of nations in the old Soviet orbit seek to diversify their energy supplies away from Russian natural gas, Rosatom is more than willing to step into the vacuum left by that shift. By offering huge loans to build and supply nuclear power plants, Rosatom can keep customers financially and technically beholden to Moscow for as long as 50 years. With other kinds of power infrastructure, a contractor builds a facility and leaves it to be operated by the country where it stands. Not so with nuclear power plants, where foreign government customers, like Belarus, remain dependent on Rosatom – and thus the Russian state – for fuel, know-how and eventual decommissioning works. That geopolitical strategy is not lost on Lithuania, whose prime minister recently told the New York Times that: “The [Ostrovets} nuclear plant is an example of Russia’s desire to keep states along its borders in its orbit at all costs – it helps them preserve more influence.” The policy is has broad implications. Rosatom has convinced dozens of countries to sign memorandums of understanding on all manner of nuclear services, from research and training facilities to nuclear power plant construction. As a result, Rosatom says that its portfolio of foreign projects has swelled to more than $200 billion. But that figure invites skepticism. Many of the counties Rosatom counts toward that figure – like Ethiopia, Algeria, Nigeria, Sudan and Rwanda – won’t be ready to support nuclear power on their grids for decades. Others where Rosatom builds are already underway – like India’ Kudankulam, Iran’s Bushehr and China’s Tianwan – are already familiar with Rosatom’s typical cost overruns and delays. Furthermore, a deep dig into Rosatom’s claimed income by the Russian environmental group Ecodefence revealed that business wasn’t going quite as indicated. A report by the group, published last year, detailed a number of cases where the corporation misstated the worth of its overseas reactor construction projects, and inflated their worth by several billion dollars. Still, the corporation is an ambitious and successful presence on the international market. According to one study, cited by the New York Times, Rosatom has sold more nuclear technology abroad since 1999 than the United States, France, China, South Korea and Japan combined. Rosatom’s approach to marketing its reactors is distinct from its western competitors because it offers to finance, build and operate the plants that it builds abroad. These generous terms come thanks to the enormous state subsidies Rosatom receives – and which it can then funnel into loans that boost its profits on paper. The Belarus plant, for instance, comes thanks to a $10 million line of credit from Rosatom. Hungary, a member of the EU, became another customer when it took an $11 billion loan to build its Paks II in 2016. Rosatom also won a $30 billion contract for four reactors in Egypt, and another big nuclear plant deal in Turkey. While it’s tempting to see a strategy afoot in Rosatom’s foreign projects, the Kremlin insists it’s just business. President Vladimir Putin has publicly distanced himself from mixing politics with foreign commerce. |
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Moscow preparing highway though nuclear waste site, despite protests
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Moscow starts work on highway through nuclear waste site https://www.dw.com/en/moscow-starts-work-on-highway-through-nuclear-waste-site/a-52864335Preparation for the construction of a controversial road in the Russian capital has kicked off. Activists say it could send radioactive dust into the air and river. But the authorities are pushing on with the project. Residents film on their mobile phones as an excavator broke ground to prepare the construction site. They film through the shoulders of a row of police officers, pointing out that no one is wearing protective clothing for work on a nuclear waste site. “These comrades are protecting us from the radiation,” says one woman sarcastically about the officers. “Just wonderful.”
Behind the police line is a factory that produces military equipment. The onetime Polymetals factory used to extract thorium and uranium from ore and dump radioactive waste here in the 1950s and 1960s, before this spot became part of the territory of the capital. The site stretches along the sloping banks of the Moskva River, with the popular Kolomenskoe park on one side and residential apartment blocks on the other. Since January, Sergey Vlasov has been one of around 50 local activists standing guard at the site around the clock to prevent construction. “My family has lived here for decades,” he says. “It’s my home and I don’t want to have to move to avoid the threat of nuclear radiation. I don’t want to have to worry about them thoughtlessly digging this all up and radioactive dust being released into the air.” Vlasov is an elected deputy in the municipal council of the Pechatniki district across the river, and he also worries about representing his voters. There have been several protests against the highway, which demonstrators have call the “Road to Death.” Another local resident, Anna, whose windows look out on the nuclear waste dump, says the project is “scary” and complains that the police officers here are essentially “acting as security guards for the bridge building company.” Killing two birds with one stone
According to city authorities, the planned highway and flyover will help with Moscow’s chronic traffic problems by connecting districts and helping free up the city’s main ring road. In an official blog post Moscow’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, wrote in January that although the highway is no “panacea,” there are “no logical alternatives” to it. He did, however, admit for the first time that the area is contaminated. Sobyanin insists that construction of the highway will “solve two problems at once” by “radically improving the transportation situation and eliminating a radioactive dump.” On the other hand, the city authorities have repeatedly insisted that the actual highway will not cut through the nuclear waste itself. On its website the city planning department explains that the current work is merely preparation for construction, and that they will only begin work on the flyover after “positive results” confirm that the area is clean. Beneath the surface But the cleanup is difficult. The government agency in charge of it, Radon, has been removing contaminated soil from the site for years to prevent slippages. In an agency publication from 2006, Radon’s chief engineer for Moscow, Alexander Barionov, said that the hilly location of the site would make a full cleanup tough. “One incautious step, and radioactive soil gets into the river.” Rashid Alimov from the Russian branch of Greenpeace thinks authorities should not be digging in the area without having carried out a full ecological evaluation of the site. “We don’t really even know to what extent the company, Radon, understands where exactly the nuclear waste is and how deep it really is in the ground.”
The authorities did check the area ahead of the decision to build. But Greenpeace insists they were too superficial, and the group is taking the city to court to get that evaluation declared invalid. “Our position is that this place should have officially been declared a nuclear waste dump,” Alimov says. Greenpeace carried out its own tests with an external company in October and found that radiation in several samples from the area is “above the permissible norm” and that building work should not be carried out there. Alimov also points out that the government is contradicting itself. He cites a 2017 report from the official Russian consumer watchdog Rospodtrebnadzor on the “sanitary and epidemic” conditions in Moscow, which stated that there were 60,000 tons of nuclear waste by the former Polymetals factory. “That’s a very inconvenient number for Moscow authorities now,” he says. Keeping up the fight But many local residents seem to feel that the work being done ahead of building shows the authorities will most likely go ahead with their plans no matter what. Still, even after the excavators arrived, they were as determined as ever to stand their ground, despite the high police presence at the construction site. Authorities have opened a criminal case against several activists for apparently damaging a radiation monitor on the site. And there were several standoffs between protesters and police last week. On Thursday, over 60 activists were briefly detained. Vlasov says that since the arrests the residents have been regrouping. They may have to call off their shift duty at the construction site, he says. But just like Greenpeace, they are hoping to take authorities to court over the highway plans. “Of course we will keep fighting,” he says. “We plan to take this case to court — even though no one really believes we can win.”
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Moscow: roadworks commence on top of radioactive waste dump: protestors enraged
Protests as Moscow moves to build road on radioactive dump, https://www.france24.com/en/20200318-protests-as-moscow-moves-to-build-road-on-radioactive-dump Moscow (AFP)Moscow authorities on Wednesday began work on building a highway over a Soviet-era dump of radioactive materials, despite months of public protests and warnings from environmental campaigners.
Greenpeace and other activists have long campaigned against the project to build an eight-lane motorway over the top of a tree-lined slope in southern Moscow that contains radioactive waste buried in the Soviet era.
The former top-secret facility produced the radioactive element thorium for nuclear reactors until the 1970s.
Greenpeace and other activists have long campaigned against the project to build an eight-lane motorway over the top of a tree-lined slope in southern Moscow that contains radioactive waste buried in the Soviet era.
The former top-secret facility produced the radioactive element thorium for nuclear reactors until the 1970s.
“We have registered 0.4 microsieverts,” while the permitted level in Moscow is 0.3,” Vlasov told AFP, adding that he expected those levels to increase in the future.
“When large-scale work begins, all this crap will be in the air,” he said.
Galina Rozvadovskaya, who lives near the site, said she came as soon as she learnt of the start of the construction work.
“Our task is to stop this lawlessness,” Rozvadovskaya told AFP. “What do we want? For them to conduct a proper survey of this burial site.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is keen to redevelop post-industrial wasteland and insists there are only “insignificant traces of contamination” on the road’s route.
Activists say, however, dangerous radioactive particles could be spread around and end up in people’s lungs. Citing a state report, Greenpeace says the site contains at least 60,000 tonnes of radioactive waste.
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Big European bank offers to help Russia retrieve 1000s of radioactive junk from the Arctic sea
CTY Pisces – Photos of a Japanese midget submarine that was sunk off Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack. There’s a hole at the base of the conning tower where an artillery shell penetrated the hull, sinking the sub and killing the crew. Photos courtesy of Terry Kerby, Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. August 2003.
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Major European bank could help Russia lift its sunken nuclear submarines https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2020-03-major-european-bank-could-help-russia-lift-its-sunken-nuclear-submarinesThe European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has signaled its readiness to help Russia raise Soviet-era radioactive debris, including two sunken nuclear submarines, from the bottom of Arctic seas. March 18, 2020 by Charles Digges charles@bellona.no While the deal is not yet final, it is thought that financial assistance would be allocated by the bank’s Northern Dimensions Environmental Partnership program – whose Nuclear Window fund has disbursed millions of dollars to help clean up radioactive hazards in Russia and Ukraine. Talks on funding the recovery of these Cold War artifacts have been underway since the end of last year, when the Russian government reinvigorated long-dormant discussions on retrieving the sunken radioactive cast offs. Alexander Nikitin, who heads Bellona’s St Petersburg offices, has been a part of these discussions. According to the Russian government’s official website on submarine decommissioning programs, the plan to raise the subs was presented at the EBRD’s assembly of donors in December, where the cost for the project was estimated at €300 million. It will now be up to Russia, the site reported, to furnish the bank with a comprehensive plan on raising the subs. While Moscow has considered various methods for raising the subs over the years, those who participated in the December discussions concluded a special ship might have to be built to get the job done. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Navy used the waters east of the Novaya Zemlya atomic weapons testing range as a sort of watery nuclear waste dump. While the Soviet Union was hardly the only nuclear nation that resorted to dumping radioactive waste at sea, it was one of the most prolific. According to catalogues released by Russia in 2012, the military dumped some 18,000 separate objects in the Arctic that could be classified as radioactive waste. These included some 17,000 containers of radioactive waste; 19 ships containing radioactive waste; 14 nuclear reactors, including five still loaded with spent nuclear fuel; and 735 other piece of radioactively contaminated heavy machinery. Scientists at the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, or IBRAE, say that time and corrosion have managed to decay thousands of these hazards and render them harmless. This leaves about 1,000 that continue to post a high risk of spreading radioactive contamination. Chief among these are two submarines, the K-159 and the K-27, both of which officials say pose the greatest threat to the environments in which they now lie. The K-159, which sank while it was being towed to decommissioning in 2003 and killed the nine sailors aboard, now lies in some of the most fertile fishing grounds of the Kara Sea. Raising this sub, say Russian experts, should be a priority. Its reactors hold some 800 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel, which they fear could contaminate the sea floor, leading to an economic crisis for the Russian and Norwegian fishing industries.
Like the K-159, the K-27 claimed its share of victims. Nine members of its crew of 144 died of radiation related illnesses shortly after returning to shore. Many more of the crew succumbed to similar illnesses in the years that followed. Too radioactive to be dismantled conventionally, the Soviet Navy towed the K-27 to the Arctic Novaya Zemlya nuclear testing range in 1982 and scuttled it in one of the archipelago’s fjords at a depth of about 30 meters. The sinking took some effort. The sub was weighed down by concrete and asphalt to secure its reactor and a hole was blown in its aft ballast tank to swamp it. But the fix won’t last forever. The asphalt was only meant to stave off contamination until 2032. Worse still is that the K-27’s reactors could be in danger of generating an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, prompting many experts to demand it be retrieved first. Raising these submarines from the depths will require technology Russia currently lacks. Even the lifting of the Kursk – perhaps the most famous sub recovery to date – required the assistance of the Dutch. But the K-159 lies at a depth much greater than the Kursk did, leading many experts to suggest building an new vessel for the purpose. From 1946 to 1993, more than 200,000 tons of waste, some of it highly radioactive, was dumped in the world’s oceans, mainly in metal drums, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The lion’s share of dumped nuclear waste came from Britain and the Soviet Union, figures from the IAEA show. By 1991, the US had dropped more than 90,000 barrels and at least 190,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste in the North Atlantic and Pacific. Other countries including Belgium, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands also disposed of tons of radioactive waste in the North Atlantic in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. |
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Nuclear reactors on the sea floor – Russia’s costly problem
Lifting Russia’s accident reactors from the Arctic seafloor will cost nearly €300 million, https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2020/03/lifting-russias-accident-reactors-arctic-seafloor-will-cost-nearly-eu300-millionExperts are discussing the framework for safe lifting of dumped reactors from four submarines and uranium fuel from one icebreaker reactor in the Kara Sea, in addition to one sunken nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea. By Thomas Nilsen 8 Mar, 20,
Russian and European experts agree that the dumped Soviet-era nuclear reactors in the Kara Sea can’t stay on the seafloor forever.
The Soviet Union used the waters east of Novaya Zemlya to dump accidental reactors, spent nuclear fuel and solid radioactive waste from both the navy and the fleet of nuclear-powered civilian icebreakers.
About 17,000 objects were dumped in the period from the late 1960s to the late 1980s.
Most of the objects are metal containers with low- and medium level radioactive waste. The challenge today, though, are the reactors with high-level waste and spent uranium fuel, objects that will pose a serious threat to the marine environment for tens of thousands of years if nothing is done to secure them.
According to the Institute for Safe Development of Nuclear Energy, part of Russia’s Academy of Science, the most urgent measures should be taken to secure six objects that contain more than 90% of all the radioactivity.
It is the information site for Russia’s submarine decommissioning program that informs about the plans.
The reactors from the submarines K-11, K-19 and K-140, plus the entire submarine K-27 and spent uranium fuel from one of the old reactors of the Lenin-icebreakers have to be lifted and secured.
Also, the submarine K-159 that sank north of Murmansk while being towed for decommissioning in 2003 have to be lifted from the seafloor, the experts conclude.
Special priority should be given to the two submarines K-27 in the Kara Sea and K-159 in the Barents Sea.
The study report made for Rosatom and the European Commission has evaluated the costs of lifting all six objects, bringing them safely to a yard for decommissioning and securing the reactors for long-term storage.
The estimated price-tag for all six will €278 millions, of which the K-159 is the most expensive with a cost of €57,5 millions. Unlike the submarines and reactors that are dumped in relatively shallow waters in the Kara Sea, the K-159 is at about 200 meters depth, and thus will be more difficult to lift.
Lifting the K-27, transporting to a shipyard for decommissioning and long-term storage in Saida Bay will come at a price of €47,7 millions the report reads.
The work can be done over an eight years period, according to the expert.
But, as the expert-group underlines, the €278 millions funding does not exist in any Russian Federal budgets today.
Egypt going into $25 billion debt to Russia, to buy nuclear reactors
Russia lends Egypt $25 billion for Dabaa nuclear power plant, AL-Monitor, 26 Feb 20, CAIRO — Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, or Rosatom, announced Feb. 17 that three Egyptian companies were awarded a tender offer for constructing the first phase of Egypt’s Dabaa nuclear power plant.
The three Egyptian companies, competing among 10 others, are Petrojet, Hassan Allam and the Arab Contractors.
The Egyptian government intends to start negotiations within the next few days with the Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority to obtain permission to start implementing the Dabaa nuclear plant project. The plant will be constructed in the Dabaa area of Marsa Matrouh governorate in the west of the country.
The Dabaa plant is the first nuclear plant for peaceful uses, with a total capacity of 4.8 gigawatts. The project is financially supported by Rosatom through a Russian loan amounting to $25 billion………….
Yemen al-Hamaki, a professor of economics at Ain Shams University said that under this agreement Egypt will use the loan to finance 85% of the total value of the building, construction, insurance and all other related works. Egypt would bear the remaining 15% in the form of installments. The loan is for 13 years at a 3% annual interest rate. If Egypt fails to repay any of the annual interest within 10 working days, it shall be subject to arrears of 150% of the interest rate calculated on a daily basis
Hamaki also warned that this massive Russian loan of $25 billion could blow up Egypt’s foreign debts. “This loan is a great risk to the future because it burdens the state and should be settled from the wealth and economic assets of the future generations,” she said, adding, “Egypt’s resorting to many loans foretells its inability to attract foreign investments, while tourism revenues continue to decline.” ….. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/power-plant-nuclear-egypt-russia-loan.html#ixzz6F5iQcolQ
Ultimate Doomsday Weapon: Missiles Powered By Nuclear Reactors
 Ultimate Doomsday Weapon: Missiles Powered By Nuclear Reactors, With disastrous results. National Interest
– 17 Feb 20 Key Point: Russia is resurrecting the demons of our shared Cold War past.
After days of speculation by Western analysts that a deadly accident on August 8 that briefly spiked radiation levels in northwestern Russia was tied to tests of an exotic nuclear-powered “Skyfall” nuclear-powered cruise missile, Russian sources confirmed to the New York Times the explosion of a “small nuclear reactor.”
While there’s a tactical rationale behind Russia’s development of a fast, surface-skimming cruise missile with an unlimited range as a means of bypassing American missile defenses, it strikes many analysts as an inordinately expensive, extremely technically challenging, and—evidently!—downright unsafe. That’s because the United States has tried it before sixty years earlier—and even with the fast-and-loose safety culture of the Cold War 1960s, the poison-spewing radioactive mega missile it began developing was considered too dangerous to even properly flight test. This project was most famously described in a 1990 article by Gregg Herken for Air & Space Magazine, which remains well worth the read. …..
The SLAM missile was expected to soar towards its Soviet targets at tree-top level, traveling at three times the speed of sound. The combination of low-altitude (reducing detection range) and Mach 3 speed was thought to make it too fast for interception by fighters or surface-to-air missile. The sonic shock wave produced by the huge missile was believed to be strong enough to kill anyone caught underneath it.
The huge missile, laden with up to twelve thermonuclear bombs, would proceed to race towards one Soviet city after another, visiting Hiroshima-level human tragedies upon each. And once the bombs were exhausted, the nuclear-powered missile would…simply keep on going and going like a murderous Energizer Bunny. Because installing adequate radioactive shielding on such a small reactor would have proven impossible, the SLAM would have spread in its wake trails of cancer-inducing gamma and neutron radiation and radioactive fission fragments expelled by its exhaust. Project Pluto scientists even considered weaponizing this property by programming the missile to circle overhead Soviet population centers, though how exposing even more people to slow deaths by radiation poisoning would be useful in an apocalyptic nuclear war that would likely leave both nations in ruin in a few days is hard to fathom. However, realizing the SLAM concept involved a succession of serious technical challenges. For example, a separate conventional rocket system would be necessary for the missile to reach the supersonic speeds at which its ramjet motor could function. That, in turn, meant the reactor had to be designed to withstand the heat and stress of those powerful booster rockets. In fact, it’s believed precisely that problem may have resulted in the deadly accident in Russia this August. As a result, the Livermore laboratory devised a 500-megawatt reactor so robust it was nicknamed the “flying crowbar.”……. Having established the workability of the nuclear ramjet, Merkle’s team then ran into a serious practical obstacle: where on Earth, literally, could a long-range weapon prone to trailing plumes of radioactive pollution behind it be tested? And what would happen if the supersonic weapon with theoretically nigh-unlimited range “got away”—ie., fell out of control, and potentially irradiated American communities? …….
Deploying the weapon operationally presented even worse dilemmas, as the missile would likely overfly U.S. allies on its approach to Russia. Even deploying an operational weapon to a remote Pacific island seemed to entail an inordinate amount of radiation poisoning for the surrounding environment. ……
Fortunately, the Pentagon was able to assess that the SLAM did nothing to alter the Mutually Assured Destruction dynamic of Moscow and Washington’s Cold War standoff, except perhaps by provoking an equally terrifying response. Furthermore, it presented undesirable budgetary burdens and intolerable safety and political risks.
Despite technical advances since the 1960s, those same fundamental considerations likely remain true for Russia’s Skyfall missile today.
As John Krzyzaniak succinctly put it in a piece for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “The problems with a nuclear-powered missile are so numerous and obvious that some have questioned whether Putin is being hoodwinked by his scientists, or whether he is bluffing to scare the United States back into arms control agreements. In any case, what was once a terrible new idea is now just a terrible old idea.”
Unfortunately, in a climate of escalating paranoia and nuclear arms competition, Moscow is not merely devising exotic new nuclear weapons, but resurrecting the demons of our shared Cold War past. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ultimate-doomsday-weapon-missiles-powered-nuclear-reactors-123231
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Excess radiation level recorded in Moscow
Belsat 12th Feb 2020, A sensor of the Russian state enterprise Radon, which specializes in handling radioactive waste, has recorded a 60-fold excess of the radiation background at the construction site of the South-East Chord (multi-lane expressway) in Moscow, the Russian service of Radio Liberty reports.radiation level of 0.3 microsieverts. Residents of the
Moskvorechye-Saburovo district report that this is the seventh time in
three days, but neither Radon nor the MES have taken any action, claiming
that the sensor works in test mode and there are no actual spikes in
radiation.
of radioactive waste on the South-Eastern Chord route. The mayor`s office
said that “in the case of the construction of the chord, the city faced a
unique and exceptional problem — radioactive waste, which the Moscow
Polymetal Plant stored in its backyard in the 1950s and 1960s”. At the
same time, the City Hall called the discovered traces of radioactive
contamination “insignificant”.
https://belsat.eu/en/news/excess-radiation-level-recorded-in-moscow/
Russian Orthodox Church rethinks its practice of blessing nuclear weapons
Russian priests shouldn’t bless nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction, Orthodox Church says, https://www.foxnews.com/world/russian-priests-shouldnt-bless-nuclear-weapons-other-weapons-of-mass-destruction-orthodox-church-says 5 Feb 20, The Russian Orthodox Church thinks its priests should discontinue the practice of blessing weapons of mass destruction that inflict death upon thousands of people, according to a proposal published Monday.
The church released a draft document outlining its stance on the blessing of Orthodox Christians “for the performance of military duty” and “defense of the Fatherland.”
Russian priests have longed sprinkled holy water on various weapon systems, including submarines, ballistic missiles and space rockets, among others.
“It is not reflected in the tradition of the Orthodox Church and does not correspond to the content of the Rite of blessing of military weapons, and therefore, the use of this order to “sanctify” any kind of weapon, the use of which could lead to the death of an undetermined number of people, including weapons, should be excluded from pastoral practice indiscriminate action and weapons of mass destruction,” the church wrote.
The proposal noted the blessing of military vehicles used on land, air and sea is not the “blessing of guns, rockets or bombing devices that the Lord is asking for, but the protection of soldiers.”
The proposals will be discussed on June 1 and the public is being asked to weigh in the debate, Reuters reported.
The request comes as the church and the Russian military continue to forge close ties. The armed forces are building a sprawling cathedral at a military park outside Moscow
The Russian Orthodox Church just might cease its blessing of nuclear weapons
THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH MAY STOP BLESSING NUCLEAR 
WEAPONS https://futurism.com/the-byte/russian-orthodox-blessing-nuclear-weapons JULY 10TH 19__DAN ROBITZSKI
A faction of clergy within the Russian Orthodox Church wants to end the eyebrow-raising practice of blessing the country’s nuclear missiles.
First of all, yes: Russian priests currently sprinkle holy water on nuclear missiles as part of an old tradition in which Orthodox priests bless soldiers and their weapons, reports Religion News Service. But that may change, as some priests feel that intercontinental ballistic missiles belong in a different category from individual firearms.
Faith Militant
The Russian military and the Russian Orthodox church have long worked hand in hand, according to RNS, framing many of the country’s military conflicts as holy wars. The nuclear arsenal even has its own patron saint — RNS reports that St. Seraphim’s remains were found in a Russian town that housed several nuclear facilities.
As such, the push to stop blessing nukes faces strong opposition among members of the clergy, such as the high-ranking priest Vsevolod Chaplin, who referred to the country’s nukes as “guardian angels.”
“Only nuclear weapons protect Russia from enslavement by the West,” Chaplin once said, per RNS.
Changing Hearts
One priest, Dmitry Tsorionov, parted from the more militant aspects of the Orthodox Church after seeing men willingly sign up to fight Russia’s wars “under the banner of Christ,” he told RNS. Now he wants to see less warmongering among the clergy.
“It was not uncommon to see how church functionaries openly flirted with these toxic ideas,” he told RNS. “It was only then that I finally realized what the blessing of military hardware leads to.”
Unsafety of Russia’s November-class submarines
Sailing These Russian Nuclear Submarines Was Basically A Suicide Mission, Safety was sacrificed for the sake of performance. National Interest, by Sebastien Roblin, 22 Jan 2020
Key Point: The November-class submarined expanded Soviet influence, but at a cost.
The United States launched the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, in 1954, revolutionizing undersea warfare. The Nautilus’s reactor allowed it operate underwater for months at a time, compared to the hours or days afforded conventional submarines. The following year, the Soviet Union began building its own nuclear submarine, the Project 627—known as the November class by NATO. The result was a boat with a few advantages compared to its American competition, but that also exhibited a disturbing tendency to catastrophic accidents that would prove characteristic of the burgeoning Soviet submarine fleet during the Cold War………
the power of the November class’s reactors was bought at the price of safety and reliability. A lack of radiation shielding resulted in frequent crew illness, and many of the boat suffered multiple reactor malfunctions over their lifetimes. This lack of reliability may explain why the Soviet Union dispatched conventional Foxtrot submarines instead of the November-class vessels during the Cuban Missile Crisis, despite the fact that the diesel boats needed to surface every few days, and for this reason were cornered and chased away by patrolling American ships.
In fact, the frequent, catastrophic disasters onboard the Project 627 boats seem almost like gruesome public service announcements for everything that could conceivably go wrong with nuclear submarines. Many of the accidents reflected not only technological flaws, but the weak safety culture of the Soviet Navy………..
This is just an accounting of major accidents on the November-class boats—more occurred on Echo- and Hotel-class submarines equipped with the same nuclear reactors. Submarine operations are, of course, inherently risky; the U.S. Navy also lost two submarines during the 1960s, though it hasn’t lost any since.
The November-class submarines may not have been particularly silent hunters, but they nonetheless marked a breakthrough in providing the Soviet submarine fleet global reach while operating submerged. They also provided painful lessons, paid in human lives lost or irreparably injured, in the risks inherent to exploiting nuclear power, and in the high price to be paid for technical errors and lax safety procedures. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/sailing-these-russian-nuclear-submarines-was-basically-suicide-mission-115661
Environmental and technical worries, as Russia extends the life of old Kola Nuclear Power Plant
One of Russia’s oldest nuclear reactors set to run until 2034 https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2020-01-one-of-russias-oldest-nuclear-reactors-set-to-run-until-2034
The second reactor unit at the Kola Nuclear Power plant near Murmansk has received the nod from Russian regulators to operate until 2034, making it one of the longest running commercial reactors in the world and raising a host of environmental and technical concerns. January 2, 2020 by Charles Digges
The second reactor unit at the Kola Nuclear Power plant near Murmansk has received the nod from Russian regulators to operate until 2034, making it one of the longest running commercial reactors in the world and raising a host of environmental and technical concerns.
Currently, the longest serving reactor ever is the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in the United States, which, after running for 49 years, was finally shut down in 2018. Should the Kola plant’s No 2 reactor run out the term of its new lifetime extension, it would be 59 by the time it is retired.
Kola’s No 2 reactor, which came online in 1975, is not alone. The plant’s other three units, which are all VVER-440 reactors, are likewise operating on sometimes numerous lifetime extensions that would bring them to ripe old age before their operations are stopped. The No 1 reactor at the Kola plant, which started generating power 1973, was granted a second runtime extension two years ago, and won’t retire until 2033. The No 3 and No 4 reactors – which came online in the early 1980s – will operate until 2027 and 2029, respectively.
The prolonged operations of these reactors has been cause for concern among some experts, who say that bringing the units into step with current industry safety demands is difficult, given their aging design.
n the shadow of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, which resulted in a triple reactor meltdown, worldwide nuclear building standards have tightened across the board in ways that some fear have left the Kola Nuclear Power Plant’s reactors behind.
Yet more and more often, extending runtime extensions is becoming a general practice throughout the nuclear industry – and not only in Russia. Throughout central and western Europe, there are some 90 nuclear reactors that are currently under review for lifespan extensions, including many in countries like France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland. Six of the 15 Soviet-built nuclear reactors in Ukraine are operating on extended lifespans, with the remaining expected to follow.
For its part, Germany has elected altogether to shutter its nuclear power plants – a goal it hopes to reach by 2022. But the move is proving politically and technically complex. The waste resulting from the closures – thought to eventually comprise some 2,000 containers – must be stored in safely the same spot for 1 million years, and experts are short on ideas about where, exactly, to do that. The costs, too, are astronomical, with the phase-out expected to reach nearly $73 billion.
t is expenses like these that are so deviling to Russia’s nuclear industry, which has failed to build up a robust savings account for decommissioning expenses. Like other countries, Russia collects decommissioning funding through electricity tariffs charged to customers. But unlike other countries, Russia has only been doing this since 1995, shortly after the fall of the Soviet regime and the introduction of a market-based economy. As a result, issuing lifetime extension to elderly reactors offers Moscow a cheap – and what many countries consider a safe – alternative to the more costly route of dismantlement.
Still, environmentalists are right to be nervous. Scientific research on how nuclear reactors age – and on the kinds of problems that emerge as they do – has come mostly from studies in research reactors. While these studies have offered some insight on how reactors weather over time, many experts say that the data on how commercial reactors behave in their twilight years are still too inconclusive to be trusted.
But Rosatom officials insist that the extended reactors at the Kola Nuclear Power Plant are safe, and offers figures to back up its claims. According to a report in the Barents Observer, the corporation spent some 4.5 billion rubles – or about $72 million – on upgrades to the No 2 reactor before regulatory officials granted the runtime extension. Plant officials likewise eliminated numerous safety violations and are in the process of eliminating them.
Russia, in fear of a USA first strike may now revive its “dead hand” nuclear weapon
‘s Nuclear “Dead Hand”
Russia won’t succumb to pressure near its territory. National Interest, by Michael Peck 30 Dec 19,
Key point: Russia is acting out of fear that a U.S. first-strike that would decapitate the Russian leadership before it could give the order to retaliate.
But the system, known as “Perimeter” or “Dead Hand,” may be back and deadlier than ever.
This comes after the Trump administration announced that the United States is withdrawing from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated the once-massive American and Russian stockpiles of short- and medium-range missiles.
Donald Trump alleges that Russia has violated the treaty by developing and deploying new, prohibited cruise missiles.This has left Moscow furious and fearful that America will once again, as it did during the Cold War, deploy nuclear missiles in Europe. Because of geographic fate, Russia needs ICBMs launched from Russian soil, or launched from submarines, to strike the continental United States. But shorter-range U.S. missiles based in, say, Germany or Poland could reach the Russian heartland.
Viktor Yesin, who commanded Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces in the 1990s, spoke of Perimeter/Dead Hand during an interview last month in the Russian newspaper Zvezda [Google English translation here]. Yesin said that if the United States starts deploying intermediate-range missiles in Europe, Russia will consider adopting a doctrine of a preemptive nuclear strike. But he also added this:
Yesin: “The Perimeter system is functioning, it has even been improved. But when it works, we will have little left – we can only launch those missiles that will survive after the first attack of the aggressor.” …….
What is unmistakable is that Perimeter is a fear-based solution. Fear of a U.S. first-strike that would decapitate the Russian leadership before it could give the order to retaliate. Fear that a Russian leader might lose his nerve and not give the order.
And if Russia is now discussing Perimeter publicly, that’s reason for the rest of us to worry.https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/america-driving-return-russias-nuclear-dead-hand-109206
Russia extends license for remote nuclear power plant
One of the reactors at Bilibino NPP has got permission for another five years despite the nearby new floating nuclear power plant now is in operation. By Thomas Nilsen– December 29, 2019
Just one week after “Akademik Lomonosov” started to produce electricity to the grid in Pevek, one of the three remaining reactors at Bilibino nuclear power plant (NPP) got a renewed five-years permission until December 31st, 2025.
Bilibino NPP is located in the far remote Bilibinsky District in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia’s northeastern corner. The power plant provides electricity to the same Pevek-Chaun-Bilibino grid currently under construction as the new floating nuclear power plant.
One of the four reactors at Bilibino is already shut-down, while the other three were to follow as soon as the grid and the “Akademik Lomonosov” came in place. That would likely not happen before earliest by the end of 2021.
The license was issued by Rosteknadzor, Russia’s Federal Agency for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision and is valid for reactor No. 2.
It is operator of the plant, state nuclear corporation Rosatom, that informs about the renewed license.
Bilibino nuclear power plant started operation in 1974 with reactors supposed to run for a 30-years period. In 2004, the plant’s operational lifetime was prolonged with 15 years, and now, another five years is added to one of the reactors.
Bilibino NPP, which is located some 240 kilometers from Pevek, would need a prolonged license even if shut down by 2022, since the spent nuclear fuel most likely will stay in the reactors for a much longer period before decommissioning work can start.
Russian nuclear news-site Seogan reports that work is underway aimed at prolonging the lifetime of reactor No. 3 and No. 4 as well.
The reactors are of the EGP-6 type, a scaled down version of the Chernobyl-type RBMK light-water cooled graphite reactors. The plant is both the world’s smallest and most remote located onshore nuclear power plant.
In August this year, Rostechnadzor made a scheduled audit at the plant and discovered 19 violations of norms and rules for operating a nuclear power plant. 3 of the violations were fixed on spot, while the 16 others resulted in administrative protocols and sanctions, the agency reports on its own portal.
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