Baltic Nuclear Power Plant

Ecologists are getting more uncomfortable with the fact that Russia is tinkering around with the science of extending the usual 30-year operational life span of nuclear reactors. The concern was raised during a joint conference in Oslo on December 10 of the Bellona Foundation and Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom on 'Russia's Atomic Energy: Conditions, Tendencies and Safety'. The discussion focused on the safety of Russian reactors, especially those in Northwest Russia, closest to Norway; nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel handling; and safety upgrades to nuclear installations.

Rosatom wishes by 2020 to build nine nuclear power stations, but the plans are dubious. The construction of the so-called Baltic Nuclear Power Plant in Kaliningrad by 2018 provoked a hail of questions. These are issues tied to Rosatom's official roadmap¹ for nuclear power plant construction.

Currently, Russia operates 10 nuclear power stations with a total of 33 reactors, which supply 16% of the country's electricity. Yet, 19 of these reactors are operating on state granted engineering life span extensions, and another four are operating beyond their engineered power parameters, or at more than 100%.

"This isn't Russian 'know how' – many countries do this," said Alexander Nikitin, chairman of the Environmental Rights Center (ERC) Bellona in St. Petersburg. "But Bellona is concerned by the fact that Russian atomic stations operate on excessive power output and extended reactors."

One nuclear power plant experimenting with running reactors beyond capacity is the Kola station, which is such a source of worry to Scandinavia.² In October, the Kola station was given the go-ahead to continue running its 30-year-old No 4 reactor for an astonishing 25 more years – an unprecedented license extension in the industry.³ The extensions means all of the plant's reactors are operating longer than their engineered design limit.

"Extending the resources of the Kola plant, as well as running its reactors beyond their power capacity, is associated with regional power demands, not just because the industry wants to do it," said Sergei Zhavoronkin, secretary of Rosatom's Public Chamber on Safe Nuclear Energy Usage in the Murmansk Region.

But, as Bellona Murmansk has noted many times, the region holds an energy surplus, to which the Kola nuclear plant contributed 60% of the energy, with the remaining 40% coming from hydroelectric stations.

Nuclear power stations are yours, the waste is ours

As of December 1, 2014, Rosatom's portfolio included 27 inter-government agreements for reactor construction abroad.

"It's clear that international agreements are still not contracts, but they already contain certain prescribed requirements for the countries in question," said Alexander Nikitin.

The countries holding agreements with Rosatom for reactor construction include Turkey, Finland, Jordan, India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Hungary, Armenia and Iran.

"All of these agreements stipulate that Russia takes back the spent nuclear fuel [generated by these prospective] plants, which are built abroad," said Nikitin. "No other country behaves this way aside from Russia."

And all this on top of the spent nuclear fuel being returned via the Port of Murmansk from international research reactors built by the Soviet Union.

According to Zhavoronkin, 70 containers of spent nuclear fuel from Russian-built foreign sources were safely offloaded and transported through Murmansk between 2008 and 2014.

Zhavoronkin called "rhetorical" the question of how safely these loads are actually delivered. In 2010, the vessel Puma, having offloaded spent nuclear fuel, nearly sank. And the vessels bringing these nuclear loads are not always rated to carry them.

Regarding the Puma, Zhavoronkin said it was "good that the accident happened after and not before" the offloading of spent fuel.

"And that the Puma is an old ship is a rhetorical issue," Zhavoronkin said.

What should become of spent nuclear fuel?

According to 2013 figures, Russia has amassed 24,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. Eleven of its reactors are of the fatally-flawed RBMK-1000 Chernobyl design and produce 550 tons of spent nuclear fuel a year. Onsite storage of spent nuclear fuel at stations running RMBKs has reached 13,000 tons nationwide. Stations running VVER-1000 reactors produce 230 tons of spent fuel annually, and they've piled up a combined 6,800 tons of it.

Russia's six VVER-440 reactors have pumped out 87 tons of spent nuclear fuel, which will continue to be reprocessed at the Mayak Chemical Combine in the Southern Urals. Finally, Russia's fast neutron BN-600 reactor has produced 3.7 tons of spent nuclear fuel.

"Spent nuclear fuel is a big problem for all nuclear countries," said Nikitin. "No one knows in the world knows what to do with it, including Russia."

• Abridged and reprinted from Bellona, http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2014-12-russian-reactor-power-exp...

References:

1. http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/nuclear-russia/2013-11-rosatoms-n...
2. http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/nuclear-issues-in-ex-soviet-repub...
3. http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2014-10-kola-nuclear-plant-gets-g...

On July 21, leading Russian anti-nuclear group Ecodefense was included in the Russian Ministry of Justice's "foreign agent" roster. Ecodefense, one of the oldest environmental groups in Russia, became the first environmental organisation in Russia to be targeted by the "foreign agent" law for successfully resisting the construction of the Baltic Nuclear Power Plant in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

The Russian government also filed a lawsuit against activists which may result in the fine of up to US$22,000 (€16,500). The first court hearing is to be held on August 25 in Kaliningrad. Further governmental action may lead to Ecodefense being closed down and even a jail term for its director.

Ecodefense's campaign against the Baltic Nuclear Power Plant started in 2007, when information surfaced that Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom was looking to build a nuclear power plant in the enclave of Kaliningrad Region to export energy to Russia's European neighbours. Ecodefense succeeded in convincing a number of European banks to deny financing for the construction. Several major energy companies in Europe also declined to invest in Rosatom's project, and no contracts for future electricity have been signed with potential customers. Europe's financial participation could have given Rosatom the needed market entry to sell nuclear power to European grids – but the plan failed, and construction of the plant ceased in June last year. Kaliningrad Region has plenty of energy of its own, and there is no exporting electricity to customers who do not want to buy it from a plant no-one wants to invest money in. Stopping the Baltic nuclear project was a major success for the environmental movement and Ecodefense owes a great debt of gratitude to its partners in Europe, who helped make it happen.

Russia's 'Foreign Agent' law

In 2012, Russia adopted the notorious law that forces to register as "foreign agents" non-governmental organisations that engage in "political activities" and also receive funding from abroad. Since then, no organisation actually engaged in political activity has come to harm from the new law. Rather, trouble started for those who have always distanced themselves from the political process and focused on protecting the rights of Russian citizens.

Having completed its inspection of Ecodefense in early June, the Ministry of Justice asserted in its summary of inspection that Ecodefense is a "foreign agent" by saying that "the organisation has been conducting political activity, including in the interests of foreign [funding] sources." Now, the justice ministry sees Ecodefense's campaign against the Baltic nuclear plant as political, not environmental activity. This, after Fukushima and Chernobyl – two catastrophes that showed to the world what irreparable environmental harm nuclear power can wreak. The accusation appears all the more absurd if one takes into account that opposition to the Baltic nuclear plant is a sentiment shared by a large majority of Kaliningrad residents.

Ecodefense's position

Given the scarce resources, the day-to-day work that the organisation has been created to do is thus effectively finished; what follows is inspections, more inspections, court hearings, and fines. This naturally forces the organisation to stop its activities and close because a non-profit group like Ecodefense does not earn any money. The Ministry of Justice was well aware of this situation.

And yet, this is not the main problem, and not the main reason why the status of a "foreign agent" is unacceptable to the group. Agreeing to be labeled as a "foreign agent" would mean compromising one's moral standards and misleading the public. Ecodefense has always conducted its activities in accordance with decisions made by its board, a council consisting of Russian citizens, and never in the interests of any foreign citizens, organisations, or governments. As a matter of principle, Ecodefense has never in its history participated in politics – elections or any other actions aimed at gaining access to political power. Never has our organisation even agitated for or endorsed any politician, Russian or foreign.

Being designated as a "foreign agent" would harm the reputation we have worked for many years to build and would create a false impression that environmental work is undertaken in the interest of foreign entities when in fact it is undertaken to defend the ecological rights of Russian citizens.

Therefore, Ecodefense will never agree to the "foreign agent" status. We know that Russian courts almost always side with the state, and we do not entertain high hopes for a just decision when we face these charges in court. But some little hope we do hold out – and we will fight to continue our work in Russia. Russia's environmental situation is too severe to abandon this fight.

Support Ecodefense

You can help Ecodefense in these ways:

Please donate to help us to cover legal costs (we have two lawsuits proceeding presently). Our contact details are listed below.

Organisations are asked to sign the letter initiated by Friends of the Earth France and WISE Amsterdam − see the box below.

Organisations or individuals can write your own letter. Please mention two most important points – protesting nuclear power is not a crime; and Ecodefense is not anyone's agent, it is an independent organisation campaigning for an environmentally-sustainable and nuclear-free future. Write to:

Mr. Alexander Konovalov

Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation

14 Zhitnaya Str. Moscow, Russia

Official municipal post-1, 119991

Contact Ecodefense: ph +7 903 299 7584, e-mail ecodefense@gmail.com, web (in Russian) www.ecodefense.ru

Solidarity Statement for Ecodefense

Organisations willing to endorse the following statement are asked to contact Friends of the Earth France (lucie.pinson@amisdelaterre.org) or WISE Amsterdam (info@wiseinternational.org) as soon as possible.

On July 21st, the Russian government included one the oldest environmental non-governmental organization Ecodefense on the Ministry of Justice "foreign agent" roster. As national and international organizations from many countries, we strongly condemn this decision that criminalizes environmental defenders and supporters of social and environmental justice.

We strongly condemn this decision of the Russian authorities that was taken while proceedings to determine their status have either not yet concluded or even started and that leaves some these organizations without any recourse to contest this labelling.

We are very concerned about the adoption of the "foreign agent" law in November 2012 and the motivations for this adoption as only this environmental organization – Ecodefense − and several more human rights groups are listed in the "foreign agents" roster right now.

While the Russian authorities should protect human rights and support the organizations that help it to do so by bringing human rights violations in Russia to light, this decision illustrates threaten even more democratic rights and leave Russian citizens under the threat of arbitrary choices.

We also particularly condemn the listing of the environmental association Ecodefense for the campaign against Baltic nuclear plant construction near Kaliningrad. Protesting nuclear power cannot be considered as a crime and discussing risks of nuclear is a democratic right. We have been working with Ecodefense for many years and acknowledged the quality of its work as an organization that works independently from any other political power for the people and the environment in Russia and elsewhere.

We urge you to stop repression and let Ecodefense as other environmental and human rights organizations work free in Russia. We called the Russian authorities to reverse their decision to include Ecodefense on the "foreign agent" roster and repeal the November 2012 "foreign agent" law, which brings under threat civil and democratic rights.