[A.Zolotkov, captioned as chemical engineer, Murmansk Shipping Company] You only need to think back to the accident in Andreyev Bay in the 1980s, which led to quite a large amount of radioactive water entering the bay. As a result of this, the entire storage facility had to be refilled.

[Correspondent] Nuclear specialists and the command of the Northern Fleet never tire of saying that the amount of spent nuclear fuel here poses a threat to us all.

The fleet is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain control of written-off submarines - it has neither the manpower nor the resources. Keeping just one nuclear submarine afloat costs the fleet 4,500 million roubles (US$ 750,000) a year. And there are about 100 written-off submarines on the Kola peninsula. It would only take one of them to sink and the result would be a tragedy more terrible than Chernobyl and would clearly affect not only the peninsula. The lack of funds has brought yet another problem - the inability to remove radioactive waste on time. Temporary storage points are now full to bursting point and it would take over 150 special trains to have the waste sent off for reprocessing. But there is only one such specially-equipped train, with four to six wagons, in all of Russia. The removal process is therefore proceeding at a snail's pace. Russia has signed the START-2 treaty, under which many more nuclear submarines will have to be taken out of service and have their weapons removed. The professionals think it will cost over 20,000bn roubles to put the treaty into effect.

Three activists demonstrated with 10-metr-long banner that said "Nuclear Power? No, Thanks!". Other activists, dressed in white skirts painted with radiation symbols, were giving away leaflets about European Union funding to the former Soviet Union's nuclear industry. Hideous monstr in a skirt that said "Don't touch my nuclear plant!" was posing to photographers. Action participants said the monster symbolized the nuclear madness of the European Union and the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power.

At 12.30, activists walked to the EU embassy, where two activists climbed onto the roof and put up a 7-metr-long banner reading "Stop Kalinin-3!". Other protesters demanded a meeting with the EU ambassador.

Ten minutes later, the EU vice ambassador came to talk to the protestors, who gave him a potition demanding the rejection of the Kalinin-3 loan proposal. The ambassador said all the documents he got from the protestors would be sent to Bruxelles and promised to give russian public a consultative place in the Environmental Impact Assessment of Kalinin-3 loan.

Additionally:

In 1996 European Commission issued grant to Euratom to prepare the necessary documentation for the Kalinin-3 loan, which is intended to provide Russia with funding to complete the unit-3 at Kalinin nuclear power plant. Euratom's russian partner is Rosenergoatom and according to our source in the European Commission, the amount of the loan will be about $ 170 million.

Two VVER-1000 reactors are currently in operation at the Kalinin plant, 3th is completed for 60%. The plant has lowlevel of safety: about 120 incidents related to safety systems occured from 1991 to 1994, including two INES level-2 incidents and nine INES level-1 incidents. Plant uses natural sources of water to cool the reactors, and since 1990, such water has been in significantly short supply.

An expert commission from Russia's Ministry of the Environment assessed the proposal for the construction of the third unit at KNPP in 1991. It stated that government's expertize, or analysis, will not be positive until its recommendations are put into effect. A key recommendation was to find an alternative source of water to use as reactor coolant, and it has not been implemented. The project will not be legal without a positive government expertize.

The Ministry of Atomic Power is building Kalinin-3 as part of its MOX program. MOX is mixed plutonium-uranium oxide reactor fuel, in which Russian plans to use weapons-grade plutonium as a fuel component. The VVER-1000 was designed for fundamentally different type of fuel, and MOX technology is not developed enough to be safe for commercial use. In Russia, it has been tested only in research reactors.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE BEST OF ACTION PHOTOS VIA THE INTERNET:

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(see next article for more information on russian MOX plans)

Russia has experimented with plutonium fuel in research reactors since the 1950s, and the Paket plant near Chelyabinsk can produce 40 plutonium fuel assemblies per year. Work on the Complex 300 MOX fuel plant has halted to due lack of finance. At present time Minatom promotes High-Tempertature Reactor for MOX program in Russia as absolutely new, safe, cheap and effective in plutonium burning. The US National Academy of Science stated in its report in 1994 that HTR was assessed by the US government and rejected as expensive among other types of reactors which can be used for plutonium disposition.

Both France and Germany have recently increased their bilateral cooperation with Russia on MOX fuel. Studies concluded that MOX fuel from weapons plutonium can be loaded into Russian VVER-1000 reactors and fast reactors, and that a pilot MOX plant should be built; this culminated in the trilateral initiative of the DEMOX plant, to process 1,300 kg of weapons-grade plutonium per year from 2001 or 2002, and loading the MOX fuel assemblies into Russian reactors. At the same time soviet-designed commercial fast reactors has never worked with MOX fuel. Specialists which tested VVERs with MOX assemblies says technology is not developed enough.

Minatom officialy stated that DEMOX plant construction began in March 1997 (the same was stated in Uranium Institute' 1997 Symphosium abstracts at its Internet server) with a joint French-German team. This is good example how russian dream becomes true ... in the abstract. Phase One, which really started that time, of the programmes comprises harmonisation and consolidation of the existing bilateral projects (DEMOX benefits from Cogema's and Siemens' experience in utilising the MELOX Advanced MIMAS fabrication process, the Hanau design and unused equipment, and the technological and commissioning experience from the Cadarache and MELOX plants);and completion of the basic design. This should be finished by June 1998 and that's what really goin on. Phase Two is construction, and Phase Three, operation of the plant by Minatom.

"These plans could, by 2001, provide an entire industrial system for the peaceful disposition of weapon plutonium", - says Guy Bousquet & G Broehler in their abstract which Uranium Institute in London put on the internet. Well, in 1992 Minatom promised to construct 26 new nuclear reactors in Russia before 2005. In fact, only one new reactor was put into operation during last 5 years.

Sources: Uranium Institute Information Service, 1997 Symposium Abstracts by Guy Bousquet & G Broehler