Deputy head of Rosatom meets with US academicians

07.06.2007 // Press service of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy

The deputy head of Rosatom Andrey Malyshev has met with a delegation of the US National Academy of Sciences

On June 7 2007 the deputy head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy (Rosatom) Andrey Malyshev received a delegation of the US National Academy of Sciences.

During the meeting the head of the delegation, the distinguished professor of Vanderbilt University Frank Parker pointed out that in the last years Rosatom has done much to dispose of nuclear submarines and to recover coastal areas and has shown readiness to share information about its work.

Malyshev said that in the last year Rosatom has actively worked to solve its nuclear and radiation safety problems and to create a national system for treating spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, recovering contaminated territories and protecting nuclear facilities. By 2015 Rosatom is planning over 300 nuclear and radiation safety measures. Almost 131bln RUR will be allocated by the Russian Government for this purpose. Before 2007 the Government had allocated almost 200mln RUR a year for such projects.

Almost 10% of the financing will be spent on the improvement of nuclear waste treatment technologies. “Here we need international cooperation, particularly, we would welcome the cooperation between the Russian Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Sciences,” Malyshev said.

He suggested that the US side consider the possibility of implementing a joint pilot project to recover the shore base in Veluchinsk (Kamchatka). This might be the beginning of wider cooperation in the Far East of Russia.

Presently, 148 of 198 decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines have been destroyed, in 31 cases — with international support.