(Source : Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to IAEA, 22 March
1999
It can be noted that while the International
Guidelines for the Management of Plutonium - which have been adopted
by the Russian Federation - explicitely call for the plublication of
figures on plutonium inventory covering two following years (as of 31
Dec. of one year, and in parentheses the previous year's figures), the
Russian Federation has published two separate years (in fact 1997 is
missing), and for 1996, as in the middle of the year.
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Word of the month
"I am going to tell you something:
The biggest threat in the world is the chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons' proliferation. If we don't address this question, humanity
will soon be extinguished. (...) I am very annoyed with the fact that
other countries don't consider seriously the link between terrorism
and weapons of massive destruction."
Madeleine Albright
United States Secretary of State in an interview by Der Spiegel, 26th
of July 1999
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What a Waste
Will
Trillo's nuclear waste repository in Spain be brought to light?
The Council of Ministers gave its go
ahead 31st of July 1999 to the high level radioactive waste repository
at Trillo, in the center of Spain. The government used the "urgency
or exceptionnal public interest" article of the Soil Management Law
to circumvent Trillo's laws which forbid the implementation of radioactive
waste storage. This storage center would have a capacity two times bigger
than the amount required by Trillo's nuclear power plant. The town is
associated with 127 other cities of Castilla la Mancha in an initiative
led by Ecologistas en Acción and Greenpeace, and sustained by the president
of Castilla la Mancha Jose Bono to prevent the construction of the repository
in the area. It makes it clear therefore why the Council of Ministers,
facing a large opposition just before the next general election, and
even if the plant will have its irradiated fuel pool saturated by the
year 2003, preferred to approve the 5th General Plan which postpones
from 2000 to 2010 the construction of a storage facility.
EDF
has a stockpile of 6,700 t of spent fuel
According to EDF, the quantities of stored
spent fuel at the La Hague site reached 6,700 t of heavy metal at the
end of 1998, that is to say 700 t more than the quantities of EDF spent
light water reactor fuel reprocessed at the La Hague facilities by the
same date. EDF's fuel department declared to Plutonium Investigation
that this stockpile is planned to be reprocessed, but stated that the
storage capacity of the La Hague's cooling ponds would allow the increase
of the stockpile for 30 years more according to the current annual rate
(300-350 tons/year).
Hidden
increase of production capacity of the MELOX facility or decrease of
French MOX use?
Dominique Voynet, the French minister of Environment,
finally co-signed the decree allowing COGEMA to operate a new production
line at the MELOX facility at Marcoule which could have an annual capacity
of about 50 tons of MOX for boiling water reactors. This extension is
aimed at new foreign contracts, especially with Japan, but the nominal
total production capacity remains limited to its present level of 115
tons (oxyde) per year, corresponds to the amount currently produced
for the French reactors. Should it be deduced from this that EDF's reactors
would load less MOX from now on or would COGEMA try to reach its aim
of 250 tons per year capacity for the MELOX facility in a step by step
approach trying to circumvent the necessary public inquiry?
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