Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed legislation that suspends the bilateral agreement under which his nation and the United States were each to dispose of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium.
Putin early last month signed a decree suspending the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), citing hostile U.S. behavior and Washington’s failure to fulfill its commitment under the deal. He then submitted legislation to the Russian Federal Assembly on PMDA suspension, which passed both houses of the legislature with overwhelming support over the last two weeks. The government on Monday published the signed bill; even so, Putin’s decree has been in effect since early October.
The legislation outlines conditions for resumption of the deal, including a reduction of U.S. troops in countries that joined NATO after September 2000, the lifting of U.S. sanctions against Russia, and compensation for the economic damage those sanctions inflicted.
Russian officials have specifically taken issue with the U.S. domestic battle over plutonium disposition methods, arguing that the Obama administration’s proposal to cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is under construction in South Carolina to dispose of the U.S. plutonium, is a breach of the agreement. The administration wants to pursue an alternative method of processing plutonium that it says would cost tens of billions of dollars less and cut years off the project completion timeline. It has run into opposition from Congress, particularly the South Carolina delegation.
Russian officials have also noted that Putin can reinstate the agreement, provided his conditions are met. Commenting on the Russian stance toward next week’s U.S. presidential election, Putin said during a public event last week that he will be “ready to speak with a new [U.S.] president” to address “difficult questions.”
Russian Reactor for Plutonium Disposition Named ‘Top Plant’
Russia’s Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station Unit 4 has been named a “Top Plant” for 2016 in the nuclear generation category of POWER Magazine’s annual POWER awards. The magazine noted in its announcement this week that in 2000, Putin began a new program to expand his nation’s nuclear capacity, which included construction of the fast-neutron reactor at the Beloyarsk facility. Bringing the reactor to power was also one of the steps Russia took to fulfill its commitment under the PMDA.
The Russians completed construction of the country’s mixed-oxide fuel fabrication facility at the Zheleznogorsk site of the Mining and Chemical Combine – which produces fuel assemblies for BN-800, the fast reactor and fourth unit at Beloyarsk – and brought to full power BN-800 for irradiation and disposition of plutonium under the agreement. Russia has begun producing MOX fuel through this process and plans to produce more plutonium-based MOX in upcoming years.
The reactor reached first criticality in 2014 and was connected to the grid at the end of last year. “By August 18, 2016, the unit started operating at 100% power for the first time,” the magazine said, calling it “a major achievement in the right direction.”
POWER lauded the BN-800 as the “most powerful sodium-cooled fast-breeder reactor in the world”; serving multiple purposes such as power generation, plutonium consumption, processing of supertransuranics accumulated in radioactive waste, and isotope production; and being a key component in Russia’s plan to close the nuclear fuel cycle, produce more nuclear fuel, and reduce nuclear waste.
“Today, Russia’s fast-neutron reactor program continues to be integral to the development of a closed uranium-plutonium fuel cycle whose MOX fuel will be reprocessed and recycled,” POWER said.
BN-800 has been commissioned for commercial operation as of Oct. 31, reactor operator Rosenergoatom, the electric power division of state energy company Rosatom, announced this week.
The other winners under 2016 Top Plants in nuclear generation are the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania and the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in China.
