An appeal by the environmental groups World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace to hold a national referendum on environmental issues failed to garner enough valid signatures, Russian's Central Election Commission ruled this week. If the Duma allows Russia to accept foreign nuclear wastes, the government could reprocess them and sell weapons-useable plutonium to countries such as Japan, Iran and Korean, he said. Tom Lipman, World Wildlife Fund vice president for communications in Washington, D.C., acknowledged that Russia has an economic problem and, like the United States, a nuclear waste problem. The nuclear waste solution is a long-term effort and expensive, Lipman said. What happens to the fuel once it gets to Russia has not been decided, Jane's reported.
Options range from permanent storage to processing and reuse.
In 50 years Russia could return fresh, reprocessed fuel and wastes to the original owners, Adamov said. The atomic energy ministry is also promoting an amendment before the Duma that would approve transferring license functions from regulators to managing agencies. If that amendment passes, independent regulatory agencies would disappear in Russia. Instead, the right to license civilian nuclear-related projects would pass from the state nuclear inspectors to the ministry. Read our policy on privacy and cookies.