Nuclear Safety

25 years since the Chernobyl disaster. Environmentalists in Murmansk say modern society has no right to repeat such mistake and call for closure of Kola nuclear power plant.

The planned three shipments of spent uranium fuel from Germany along the coast of Norway to Murmansk will not take place after a decision by Environmental Minister Norbert Roettgen on Monday. But, this morning another nuclear cargo is sailing northbound Norway towards Murmansk.

The old rebuilt vessel “Serebryanka” has shipped the first load of spent nuclear fuel from the run-down storage facility in the Andreeva bay near the border to Norway to Atomflot in Murmansk. Norwegian authorities was not informed about the shipment before after the vessel arrived in Murmansk.

Norway has granted 50 million NOK to the Governor of Finnmark’s nuclear safety projects in Russia. A new cantina for the workers at the nuclear waste dump in Andreeva bay is one of the funded projects.

The chairman of Russia’s Accounting Chamber Sergey Stepashin will together with Norway’s Auditor General Jørgen Kosmo sign a memorandum with conclusions and analysis of Norwegian sponsored nuclear safety projects in Northwest Russia.

On December 3rd 1959, the world’s first nuclear powered civilian vessel was officially taken into operation. Lenin was the first of nine nuclear icebreakers designed for navigation in the Arctic out of Murmansk. Today Lenin is a museum of Russia’s nuclear fleet.

SAIDA BAY: The reactor compartments from the five nuclear powered submarines decommissioned with Norwegian financial assistance are now safely stored onshore in the Saida bay on the Kola Peninsula.

The wreck of the Russian nuclear powered submarine K-159 is still corroding on the bottom of the Barents Sea. On August 30, it is six years since the submarine sank near the Kildin Island north of Murmansk, an area important for both Russian and Norwegian fisheries.