Rosatom completes the disposal of spent nuclear fuel from submarines in the Arctic

The project for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) of nuclear submarine reactors in the Arctic zone, which started in the early 2000s, has reached the finish line, said the head of the Rosatom State Corporation Alexey Likhachev.
According to him, in the process of implementing this large-scale undertaking, thousands of tons of radioactive materials were processed on the lands of the Arctic.
For decades the Arctic territories of Russia, including areas in the Arctic Ocean, have been used for the storage of spent nuclear fuel – this was facilitated by the significant remoteness of the relevant areas from large agglomerations.
Over time, these nuclear facilities began to pose a significant danger to the environment, which required systematic efforts to eliminate them. One example of this work is the project for the disposal of the Lepse floating base, on board of which there were reactor assemblies from nuclear ships, implemented from 2008 to 2021. During this time, more than 600 spent fuel assemblies were unloaded and disposed of from this SNF "warehouse", goarctic.ru reported.

Alex Shishlo for Rough&Polished