List of nuclear facilities in Russia

Igor Kurchatov personally monitored the progress of work on the "peaceful atom" project. Soon, nuclear power plants, as a new and promising way to generate energy, began to be built around the world. The Chelyabinsk region also had to acquire its own station.

"Peaceful" atom

The South Ural NPP is a long-term construction larger than the Chelyabinsk metro. The site for the station began to be erected 10 years earlier than digging tunnels - in 1982 - but apart from the barely begun skeletons of buildings in the village of Metlino, which is 15 km from Ozersk and 140 km from Chelyabinsk, there is nothing to this day. The first time construction was suspended in 1986: the terrible Chernobyl accident extinguished the desire to create such facilities for a long time. Now almost four and a half thousand people live in the Chelyabinsk region, one way or another affected by that disaster - these are the liquidators and their families. They on own experience made sure that jokes with radiation are bad and were forever convinced that nuclear power plants cannot be safe.

However, the South Urals residents have faced the consequences of radioactive contamination before. From 1949 to 1956, Mayak waste was dumped into the Techa River; in 1957, the explosion of a radioactive waste tank at the same Mayak led to the contamination of a vast territory (the East Ural radioactive trace). The echo of those events is still felt, therefore, when in 2006 the construction of its own nuclear power plant was to be resumed, protests were held throughout the region.

Some pluses

The regional government did not share the fears of the residents. From the point of view of the economy, the region had a shortage of energy - about 20% had to be purchased from neighbors. The construction of the station also guaranteed the creation of about ten thousand new jobs for the residents of Ozyorsk and Snezhinsk. The South Ural NPP was supposed to become the safest in the world in terms of waste processing: spent fuel practically did not need to be transported, the Mayak Production Association located right there planned to deal with its neutralization.

However, the start of construction, scheduled for 2011-2013, was again postponed indefinitely. And the reason for this was by no means the indignation of citizens and environmentalists, but the reasons, again, purely economic. During the crisis of 2008, energy consumption in the region decreased, and the federal authorities considered the construction unprofitable. Moreover, according to the new project, the South Ukraine NPP should have been equipped with the latest fast neutron reactors, the creation and operation of which cost 2-3 times more than conventional ones. Rosatom, in turn, considered the amount of water in the nearby lakes to be insufficient, which, according to experts' calculations, would not be enough to properly cool the four reactors. The public calmed down again.

To be or not to be?

They started talking about construction again in 2011 - and again “at the wrong time”: in March, a strong earthquake and tsunami damaged the power units of the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima-1, which caused a leak of radioactive water and pollution of a vast territory. Frightened by the consequences of the disaster and the ineffectiveness of Japan's liquidation measures, many European countries hastened to develop programs to phase out nuclear energy. For example, Germany plans to close all of its 17 nuclear power plants by 2022, as do the UK and Spain.

Panic moods were not shared in Russia: Rosatom specialists are sure that Japanese engineers made too many mistakes in the first hours after the accident, and the unacceptable wear of the reactor was the main cause of the disaster. Therefore, negotiations between federal and regional officials regarding the construction of the South Ukraine NPP nevertheless took place, albeit under the displeased murmur of environmentalists.

The project of the station was once again revised - now it was planned to launch 2 power units with a total capacity of 2400 MW. But the agreement was not reached again - Rosatom still did not like the water supply scheme, the federal authorities were in no hurry to allocate funds. It was only in November 2013 that it became known that the South Ukraine NPP was included in the scheme for the construction of energy facilities until 2030. This means that any work in Ozersk will not begin until 2025. In any case, nothing depends on the Chelyabinsk region - the financing of such facilities lies entirely with federal budget, and who pays, he orders the music.

The Government of the Russian Federation approved the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Chelyabinsk region until 2030. At the same time, there is not even a nuclear power plant project yet. Rosatom told Delovoy Kvartal that "the project is not being implemented."

Nevertheless, it is known that it is planned to build a station with a fast neutron reactor with a capacity of 1200 MW - one power unit. The Ministry of Tariff Regulation of the Chelyabinsk Region told Delovoy Kvartal that the region has a need for a nuclear power plant.

“In 2015, 30% of the electricity consumption of the Chelyabinsk region was provided by the flow from other energy systems. Within the framework of the existing socio-economic development forecast, the need to purchase electricity produced in other regions will continue. In the event of an increase in the rate of economic growth by 2030, the need for energy resources will further increase,” the Ministry of Tariff Regulation said.

Due to the fact that all electricity will be produced in the region, the cost of electricity will decrease, according to the department. In addition, the construction of a nuclear power plant ensures independence from fuel sources due to the small amount of fuel used.

“The cost of transporting nuclear fuel, unlike the cost of conventional fuel, is negligible. At the same time, the source of electrical energy is environmentally friendly and has a low resource cost, unlike traditional generating plants,” the department lists the advantages.

They also add that the construction of a nuclear power plant as a major investment project will solve many problems - socio-economic, energy, environmental.

What do the experts think

The vice-chairman for industrial policy of the ChRO "" expresses doubt that the construction of a nuclear power plant is so necessary today.

“As far as I know, the energy deficit of the Chelyabinsk region is not so great,” the expert believes.

AT last years in the Chelyabinsk region, companies actively invested in the energy industry. Thus, this year Fortum completed a multi-year investment program in Russia by commissioning the second power unit. In 2016, a new power unit will be built at a cost of 51.5 billion rubles.

As a representative of a large energy company notes, the construction of any energy source is the result of solving an optimization technical and economic problem: calculating the reliability of the system, construction costs and how the nuclear power plant will affect tariffs. “I would like to see the calculations for the Chelyabinsk region,” the expert says. However, these calculations are not yet available.

To be or not to be

Most of the experts interviewed by "DK" doubt the reality of plans to build a nuclear power plant.

“Given the complicated history with the nuclear power plant in the region, I have big doubts that it will be built,” says Denis Konstantinov.

They wanted to build a nuclear power plant back in the 1980s, and in March 1991 a referendum was held where the inhabitants of the region spoke out against the construction of a nuclear power plant, recalls the leader of the For Nature movement.

“There were many such orders. About 5-6 years ago, we appealed against such a government decision on the construction of the Yuzhnouralsk nuclear power plant in Supreme Court, in fact, design is still not being carried out, ”says Andrey Talevlin.

As the political scientist writes in his blog, the news about the construction of a nuclear power plant in the South Urals is not news at all. The main thing in this message is that the deadlines have shifted again:

“From these constant transfers, the South Ukraine NPP began to look more and more like an abstract project, so that even local radiophobes have already stopped worrying and making noise because of the next news,” notes Alexander Melnikov.

In any case, the energy deficit can be covered by environmentally friendly energy sources and enterprises can optimize their energy costs, Denis Konstantinov believes. Energy management would reduce energy costs by 15-20%. Therefore, for the time being, the big question is how expedient it is to build a nuclear power plant in the Chelyabinsk region.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation on the scheme of territorial planning in the field of energy, which provides for the construction of a nuclear power plant in ZATO Ozersk. Talks about the construction of the facility began in Soviet times, but in 1991 the people of South Urals voted against it in a referendum. Experts interviewed by UralPolit.Ru are skeptical about the prospects for the emergence of nuclear power plants in the South Urals.

In closed Ozersk, where the Mayak chemical plant is located, it is planned to build a nuclear power plant from two power units BN-1200 (on fast neutrons), which will generate a capacity of 1200 MW, which will make it possible to cover the energy balance deficit in the region.

“We believe that the implementation of this project will serve as a driver for the socio-economic development of the Chelyabinsk region in general and the Ozersk urban district in particular. In addition, the implementation of the project will solve the issue of maintaining the balance of generation and flow of electricity, as well as the cost of electricity for nearby cities and districts, such as Kasli, Kyshtym. In 2015, 30% of the electricity consumption of the Chelyabinsk region was provided by the flow from other energy systems., - the press secretary of the governor told UralPolit.Ru Dmitry Fedechkin.

According to him, the construction of the nuclear power plant will make it possible to fully ensure electricity consumption from electricity produced in the South Urals, which will help improve the energy security and reliability of the region, as well as reduce the cost of electricity for consumers: “We also predict that by 2030 the need of the region’s economy for energy resources will further increase”.

The project of the Yuzhnouralsk NPP appeared in the USSR in the 80s. It was originally planned that the station would consist of three BN-800 power units. Among the potential sites considered were Magnitogorsk, Satka, Troitsk, the village of Prigorodny in the Kasli district and the village of Metlino near Ozersk. At that time, the inhabitants of the region were ambivalent about such a construction site and the issue was put to a referendum. In March 1991, the South Ural residents were given the opportunity to express their will. As a result, residents voted against the construction of the facility. But despite the negative attitude of the population, construction still began. In the area of ​​the village of Metlino, which is part of the Ozersky urban district, several buildings, infrastructure facilities and a direct road to Mayak were erected. According to UralPolit.Ru, at present the buildings are not in operation, they are in a mothballed state and are slowly being destroyed.

Experts interviewed by UralPolit.Ru are skeptical about the possibility of implementing the project. “The news is not that a nuclear power plant will be built in the South Urals. Plans for its construction have long appeared in official documents, and their cancellation has not been announced anywhere. Therefore, the relevant news is that the deadlines have shifted again, and thoroughly.”, says the political scientist Alexander Melnikov. He recalls that the project was born back in the USSR in the 80s. In recent years, the construction of the station has been postponed to 2016, then to 2021, and now to 2030. “From these constant transfers, the South Ukraine NPP began to look more and more like an abstract project, so even local radiophobes have already stopped worrying and making noise because of the next news”, adds the expert.

His opinion is shared by the head of the Foundation "For Nature" ecologist Andrey Talevlin, who back in 2010 tried to draw the attention of regional authorities to the environmental threats that nuclear power plants could pose. Then he turned to Governor Mikhail Yurevich with a demand to initiate another nationwide referendum on the construction of the station. But the nationwide expression of will did not take place, and the topic then faded to naught.

The interlocutor of the journalist "UralPolit.Ru" believes that the project of the Yuzhnouralsk nuclear power plant was indicated in the documents in order not to simply forget about its existence. He claims that it will be quite difficult to build such a nuclear power plant, since the BN-1200 power unit declared at the disposal of the Russian government is experimental. The last power unit BN-800 was built for about 30 years at the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in the Sverdlovsk region, but has not yet been put into operation. So far, only the BN-600 has been operating there since Soviet times, which is difficult to maintain. “The whole world has long abandoned such power units, as fast neutron technology is dangerous. There, liquid metal is used as a moderator. At such reactors, the risk of an accident is higher. This is bad from the point of view of nuclear safety. We already have enough radiation facilities that need to be dealt with. New object exacerbate the danger, says the ecologist.

Among the main problems in the implementation of the project, Andrey Talevlin sees the availability of water resources and the choice of territory: “At the first place where they wanted to build in Ozersk, scientists proved that it was impossible to build, since it was impossible to use reservoirs as a cooler for liquid radioactive waste. I mean Techa cascade".

According to him, Rosatom was looking for and is now looking for a new site near other water bodies. “In the Chelyabinsk region, this is difficult because of the scarcity of water resources. To do this, you need to build a new water body. There was an option, and Rosatom discussed it, to build a nuclear power plant at the Dolgobrodsky reservoir, which still cannot be brought to perfection and made a reserve water source., he noted.

It should be noted that today the administration of Ozersk does not have information about the possible resumption of construction and refrains from commenting, saying that the nuclear power plant is under the jurisdiction of Mayak. The official agenda of the chemical plant so far only lists the construction of a new reactor.

The material was prepared jointly by IA "UralPolit.Ru" and RIA "FederalPress"

Photo taken fromlemur59.ru

© Anna Balabukha

From the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant, a train of several container cars arrived at the Mayak Production Association, which delivered fuel assemblies of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from AMB reactors (Atom Mirny Bolshoy) to the radiochemical plant. On October 30, the wagon was successfully unloaded, during which the cassette with AMB SNF was removed from the transport and packaging kit and placed in the storage pool of the RT-1 plant.

SNF management from AMB reactors is one of the most acute problems in the field of nuclear and radiation safety. Two AMB reactors at the Beloyarsk NPP were shut down in 1981 and 1989. SNF has been unloaded from the reactors and is currently stored in the spent fuel pools of the Beloyarsk NPP and in the storage pool of the Mayak Production Association. The characteristic features of AMB spent fuel assemblies (SFAs) are the presence of about 40 types of fuel compositions and large overall dimensions: the length of SFAs reaches 14 meters.

A year ago, in November 2016, a container wagon arrived at the Mayak Production Association, delivering a cassette with spent fuel from AMB reactors to the radiochemical plant, which was removed from the transport and packaging kit and placed in the storage pool of the RT-1 plant.

The delivery to the enterprise was carried out in the form of an experimental batch in order to make sure that the Beloyarsk NPP and Mayak are ready for the removal of this type of SNF for reprocessing. Therefore, on October 30, 2017, the extraction of the 14-meter long length from the container and installation in the storage place took place in the normal mode.

“The start of the export of fuel from AMB SNF from the Beloyarsk NPP to our enterprise crowned the long hard work of specialists from several organizations of Rosatom,” said Dmitry Kolupaev, Chief Engineer Software "Mayak". – This is the final stage of the process of creating a transport and technological export scheme, including a set of technical and organizational work at the Mayak Production Association and the Beloyarsk NPP, as well as the creation of a railway echelon with unique TUK-84 transport and packaging kits for the transportation of SNF from AMB developed by RFNC-VNIITF. The implementation of the entire project will make it possible to solve the problem of radiation-hazardous facilities - these are the nuclear fuel storage pools of the first and second units of the Beloyarsk NPP, and in the medium term to begin decommissioning the power units themselves. Before the "Mayak" stands even more difficult task: within three years, the construction of the section for butchering and canning is to be completed, where 14-meter SFAs will be fragmented and placed in canisters, the dimensions of which will allow processing this fuel at a radiochemical plant. And then we will be able to transfer the SNF from AMB reactors to a completely safe state. Uranium will again be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, and radioactive waste will be reliably vitrified.”

Beloyarsk NPP is the first commercial nuclear power plant in the history of the country's nuclear power industry, and the only one with reactors of different types on the same site. The Beloyarsk NPP operates the world's only power units with industrial-grade fast neutron reactors BN-600 and BN-800. The first power units of the Beloyarsk NPP with thermal reactors AMB-100 and AMB-200 have exhausted their service life

The problem of radioactive waste is a special case of the general problem of pollution. environment waste of human activity. One of the main sources of high-level radioactive waste (RW) is nuclear power (spent nuclear fuel).

Hundreds of millions of tons of radioactive waste generated as a result of the activities of nuclear power plants (liquid and solid waste and materials containing traces of uranium) have accumulated in the world over 50 years of using nuclear energy. At current levels of production, the amount of waste could double in the next few years. At the same time, none of the 34 countries with nuclear energy knows today how to solve the problem of waste. The fact is that most of the waste retains its radioactivity up to 240,000 years and must be isolated from the biosphere for this time. Today waste is kept in "temporary" storage facilities, or buried shallow underground. In many places, waste is irresponsibly dumped on land, lakes and oceans. With regard to deep underground burial, the currently officially recognized method of isolating waste, over time, changes in the course of water flows, earthquakes and other geological factors will break the isolation of the burial place and lead to contamination of water, soil and air.

So far, mankind has not come up with anything more reasonable than the simple storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The fact is that when nuclear power plants with channel reactors were just being built, it was planned that the used fuel assemblies would be transported for processing to a specialized plant. Such a plant was supposed to be built in the closed city of Krasnoyarsk-26. Feeling that the spent fuel pools would soon overflow, namely, the used cassettes removed from the RBMK were temporarily placed in the pools, LNPP decided to build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility (SNF) on its territory. In 1983, a huge building grew, accommodating as many as five pools. A spent nuclear assembly is a highly active substance that poses a mortal danger to all living things. Even at a distance, it reeks of hard x-rays. But most importantly, what is the Achilles' heel of nuclear energy, it will remain dangerous for another 100 thousand years! That is, throughout this period, which is hardly imaginable, spent nuclear fuel will need to be stored in such a way that neither living, but also inanimate nature, nuclear dirt, should not get into the environment under any circumstances. Note that the entire written history of mankind is less than 10 thousand years. The tasks that arise during the disposal of radioactive waste are unprecedented in the history of technology: people have never set themselves such long-term goals.

An interesting aspect of the problem is that it is necessary not only to protect a person from waste, but at the same time protect waste from a person. During the period allotted for their burial, many socio-economic formations will change. It cannot be ruled out that in a certain situation radioactive waste can become a desirable target for terrorists, targets for strike during a military conflict, etc. It is clear that, speaking of millennia, we cannot rely on, say, government control and protection - it is impossible to foresee what changes may occur. It may be best to make the waste physically inaccessible to humans, although, on the other hand, this would make it difficult for our descendants to take further security measures.

It is clear that no technical solution, no artificial material can "work" for thousands of years. The obvious conclusion is that the natural environment itself should isolate the waste. Options were considered: to bury radioactive waste in deep oceanic depressions, in bottom sediments of the oceans, in polar caps; send them into space; lay them in the deep layers of the earth's crust. It is now generally accepted that the best way is to bury the waste in deep geological formations.

It is clear that RW in solid form is less prone to penetration into the environment (migration) than liquid RW. Therefore, it is assumed that liquid radioactive waste will first be converted into a solid form (vitrify, turn into ceramics, etc.). Nevertheless, injection of liquid high-level radioactive waste into deep underground horizons (Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Dimitrovgrad) is still practiced in Russia.

The so-called "multi-barrier" or "deep echelon" disposal concept has now been adopted. The waste is first contained by the matrix (glass, ceramics, fuel pellets), then by the multi-purpose container (used for transport and for disposal), then by the sorbent (absorbent) fill around the containers, and finally by the geological environment.

How much does it cost to decommission a nuclear power plant? According to various estimates and for different stations, these estimates range from 40 to 100% of the capital costs for the construction of the station. These figures are theoretical, since so far the stations have not been completely decommissioned: the wave of decommissioning should begin after 2010, since the life of the stations is 30-40 years, and their main construction took place in the 70-80s. The fact that we do not know the cost of decommissioning reactors means that this "hidden cost" is not included in the cost of electricity produced by nuclear power plants. This is one of the reasons for the apparent "cheapness" of atomic energy.

So, we will try to bury radioactive waste in deep geological fractions. At the same time, we were given a condition: to show that our burial will work, as we plan, for 10 thousand years. Let us now see what problems we will encounter along the way.

The first problems are encountered at the stage of selecting sites for study.

In the US, for example, no state wants a nationwide burial located on its territory. This led to the fact that, through the efforts of politicians, many potentially suitable areas were struck off the list, and not on the basis of a night approach, but due to political games.

How does it look in Russia? At present, it is still possible to study areas in Russia without feeling significant pressure from local authorities (if one does not propose to place a burial near cities!). I believe that as the real independence of the regions and subjects of the Federation strengthens, the situation will shift towards the US situation. Already now there is a tendency of Minatom to move its activity to military facilities, over which there is practically no control: for example, an archipelago is supposed to create a burial place New Earth(Russian polygon No. 1), although in terms of geological parameters this is far from the best place, which will be discussed further.

But suppose that the first stage is over and the site is chosen. It is necessary to study it and give a forecast of the functioning of the burial site for 10 thousand years. Here new problems appear.

The underdevelopment of the method. Geology is a descriptive science. Separate branches of geology are engaged in predictions (for example, engineering geology predicts the behavior of soils during construction, etc.), but never before has geology been tasked with predicting the behavior of geological systems for tens of thousands of years. From years of research into different countries there were even doubts whether a more or less reliable forecast for such periods is possible at all.

Imagine, however, that we managed to develop a reasonable plan for exploring the site. It is clear that the implementation of this plan will take many years: for example, Mount Yaka in Nevada has been studied for more than 15 years, but the conclusion about the suitability or unsuitability of this mountain will be made no earlier than 5 years later. In doing so, the disposal program will be under increasing pressure.

The pressure of external circumstances. In the years cold war no attention was paid to the waste; they were accumulated, stored in temporary containers, lost, etc. An example is the Hanford military facility (analogous to our "Mayak"), where there are several hundred giant tanks with liquid waste, and for many of them it is not known what is inside. One sample costs 1 million dollars! In the same place, in Hanford, buried and "forgotten" barrels or boxes of waste are found about once a month.

In general, over the years of development of nuclear technologies, a lot of waste has accumulated. Temporary storage on many nuclear power plants close to filling, and on military complexes they are often on the verge of failure "due to old age" or even beyond this line.

So, the problem of burial requires an urgent solution. The awareness of this urgency is becoming more acute, especially since 430 power reactors, hundreds of research reactors, hundreds of transport reactors of nuclear submarines, cruisers and icebreakers continue to continuously accumulate radioactive waste. But people backed up against the wall don't necessarily come up with the best technical solutions, and the chances of errors increase. Meanwhile, in decisions related to nuclear technology, mistakes can be very costly.

Finally, let's assume that we spent 10-20 billion dollars and 15-20 years studying a potential site. It's time to make a decision. Obviously, there are no ideal places on Earth, and any place will have positive and negative properties in terms of burial. Obviously, one will have to decide whether the positive properties outweigh the negative ones and whether these positive properties provide sufficient security.

Decision making and technological complexity of the problem. The problem of burial is technically extremely complex. Therefore, it is very important to have, firstly, high-quality science, and secondly, effective interaction (as they say in America, "interface") between science and decision-makers.

The Russian concept of underground isolation of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel in permafrost was developed at the Institute of Industrial Technology of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of Russia (VNIPIP). It was approved by the State Ecological Expertise of the Ministry of Ecology and natural resources Russian Federation, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and Gosatomnadzor of the Russian Federation. Scientific support for the concept is provided by the Department of Permafrost Science of the Moscow state university. It should be noted that this concept is unique. As far as I know, no country in the world considers the issue of RW disposal in permafrost.

The main idea is this. We place heat-generating wastes in the permafrost and separate them from the rocks with an impenetrable engineering barrier. Due to the heat release, the permafrost around the burial site begins to thaw, but after some time, when the heat release decreases (due to the decay of short-lived isotopes), the rocks will freeze again. Therefore, it is sufficient to ensure the impenetrability of engineering barriers for the time when the permafrost will thaw; after freezing, the migration of radionuclides becomes impossible.

concept uncertainty. There are at least two serious problems associated with this concept.

First, the concept assumes that frozen rocks are impervious to radionuclides. At first glance, this seems reasonable: all water is frozen, ice is usually immobile and does not dissolve radionuclides. But if you carefully work with the literature, it turns out that many chemical elements migrate quite actively in frozen rocks. Even at temperatures of 10-12°C, non-freezing, so-called film water is present in the rocks. What is especially important, the properties of radioactive elements that make up RW, from the point of view of their possible migration in permafrost, have not been studied at all. Therefore, the assumption that frozen rocks are impermeable to radionuclides is without any basis.

Secondly, even if it turns out that the permafrost is indeed a good RW insulator, it is impossible to prove that the permafrost itself will last long enough: we recall that the standards provide for burial for a period of 10 thousand years. It is known that the state of permafrost is determined by the climate, with the two most important parameters being air temperature and precipitation. As you know, the air temperature is rising due to global climate change. The highest rate of warming occurs precisely in the middle and high latitudes of the northern hemisphere. It is clear that such warming should lead to thawing of ice and reduction of permafrost. Calculations show that active thawing may begin in 80-100 years, and the rate of thawing may reach 50 meters per century. Thus, the frozen rocks of Novaya Zemlya can completely disappear in 600-700 years, which is only 6-7% of the time required for waste isolation. Without permafrost carbonate rocks Novaya Zemlya have very low insulating properties with respect to radionuclides. No one in the world yet knows where and how to store high-level radioactive waste, although work in this direction is underway. So far, we are talking about promising, and by no means industrial technologies for confining highly active radioactive waste into refractory glass or ceramic compounds. However, it is not clear how these materials will behave under the influence of radioactive waste contained in them for millions of years. Such a long shelf life is due to the huge half-life of a number of radioactive elements. It is clear that their release to the outside is inevitable, because the material of the container in which they will be enclosed does not "live" for so long.

All RW processing and storage technologies are conditional and doubtful. And if nuclear scientists, as usual, dispute this fact, then it would be appropriate to ask them: “Where is the guarantee that all existing storage facilities and burial grounds are no longer carriers of radioactive contamination, since all observations of them are hidden from the public.

Rice. 3. Ecological situation on the territory of the Russian Federation: 1 - underground nuclear explosions; 2 - large accumulations of fissile materials; 3 - testing of nuclear weapons; 4 - degradation of natural fodder lands; 5 - acid atmospheric precipitation; 6 - zones of acute environmental situations; 7 - zones of very acute environmental situations; 8 - numbering of crisis regions.

There are several burial grounds in our country, although they try to keep silent about their existence. The largest is located in the region of Krasnoyarsk near the Yenisei, where waste from most Russian nuclear power plants and nuclear waste from a number of European countries are buried. When carrying out scientific and survey work on this repository, the results turned out to be positive, but recently the observation shows a violation of the ecosystem of the river. Yenisei, that mutant fish appeared, the structure of water in certain areas changed, although the data of scientific examinations are carefully hidden.

Today, the Leningrad Nuclear Facility is already full of INF. For 26 years of operation, the nuclear "tail" of the LNPP amounted to 30,000 assemblies. Given that each weighs a little over a hundred kilograms, the total mass of highly toxic waste reaches 3 thousand tons! And all this nuclear "arsenal" is located not far from the first block of the Leningrad NPP, moreover, on the very shore of the Gulf of Finland: 20 thousand cassettes have accumulated at Smolensk, about the same at the Kursk NPP. The existing SNF reprocessing technologies are not profitable from an economic point of view and are dangerous from an environmental point of view. Despite this, nuclear scientists insist on the need to build SNF reprocessing facilities, including in Russia. There is a plan to build in Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk-26) the second Russian plant for the regeneration of nuclear fuel, the so-called RT-2 (RT-1 is located on the territory of the Mayak plant in the Chelyabinsk region and processes nuclear fuel from VVER-400 type reactors and nuclear submarines). boats). It is assumed that RT-2 will accept SNF for storage and processing, including from abroad, and it was planned to finance the project at the expense of the same countries.

Many nuclear powers are trying to float low- and high-level waste to poorer countries that are in dire need of foreign exchange. For example, low-level waste is usually sold from Europe to Africa. The transfer of toxic waste to less developed countries is all the more irresponsible, given that in these countries there are no suitable conditions for storing spent nuclear fuel, the necessary measures to ensure safety during storage will not be observed, and there will be no quality control over nuclear waste. Nuclear waste should be stored in the places (countries) of its production in long-term storage facilities, experts believe, they should be isolated from the environment and controlled by highly qualified personnel.