Year
2001
Abstract
Russia has recently approved legislation allowing it to offer to import foreign spent fuel for storage, reprocessing, or even disposal in Russia. This represents a potentially dramatic development in the decades-long history of efforts to establish internationally collaborative approaches to management of spent fuel and nuclear wastes. Based on a recently published study, this paper reviews the wide range of issues raised by Russia's offer to serve as host for other countries' spent fuel. These include: (a) safety and security (especially given Russia's past record of inadequate management of nuclear wastes, and decaying transportation infrastructure); (b) public acceptance and civil society in Russia (polls indicated that 90% of the Russian public opposes the import plan); (c) economics (Russia may be able to earn $10-$20 billion in gross revenue from imports, and dry cask storage would cost a small fraction of that, but development of reprocessing and/or repository facilities is likely to be costly); (d) potential contribution to nonproliferation, arms reduction, and cleanup (negotiations over this import may lead to a deal on Russia's cooperation with Iran, it may be possible to convince Russia to allocate a substantial portion of the revenue to mutually agreed projects in these areas, and such a storage site would make it possible for some utilities to avoid the proliferation hazards of reprocessing plutonium before the plutonium is needed as fuel); and (e) potential contribution to nuclear waste management (for a variety of reasons, in the long run consolidating wastes in a modest number of international facilities would be more desirable than establishing scores of national waste repositories around the world). Most of the spent fuel Russia might import is U.S.-obligated, meaning that it cannot be shipped to Russia without U.S. approval. Thus the principal thing now standing between Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy and $10-$20 billion in revenue is the U.S. government's permission. Under the Atomic Energy Act, the U.S. government cannot give its permission without a Section 123 agreement for nuclear cooperation. The negotiation of such an agreement will involve a wide range of factors, including Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran, reprocessing of the spent fuel, use of the revenues earned, and U.S. government attitudes toward Russian public opposition to the imports, among others. The policy issues for the U.S. government raised by the upcoming negotiation of such an agreement (especially the nonproliferation and arms reduction issues) are explored.