the Governor of Murmansk Oblast Yury Yevdokimov and his Norwegian counterpart Finnmark County Governor Gunnar Kjønnøy met in Kirkenes to discuss further cooperation within nuclear safety projects. The successful project of removing radioactive strontium batteries from lighthouses will now be adopted in the Baltic Sea.
Norway will grant 62 million NOK to nuclear safety projects in Russia in 2009.
So far Norway has granted 130 million NOK to infrastructure improvements at the nuclear waste storage facility in Andreeva Bay on the Kola Peninsula. This year focus will be on building of a training center and a canteen for 100 workers and also improvements in the electricity supply to the bay from the naval town Zaozersk. The Norwegian side plans to spend another 8-10 million NOK on this project in 2009-2010.
Yevdokimov believes that removal of the nuclear waste form the storage facility can begin in 2010. The harbor facilities have been upgraded, and a an Italian project partner is engaged in building of a special boat that can transport containers with waste from the bay to the railroad for further transportation to the Mayak plant outside Chelyabinsk. He underlines the degree of difficulty connected with the work, and says that it will take years to clear the storage facility.
Since 2001 169 radioactive strontium batteries (RTGs) have been removed from light houses along the coast of the Kola Peninsula and in the White Sea area. The radioactive sources have been replaced with solar cell technology. Only 11 RTGs remain. These are located in difficult accessible places and will be removed in course of 2009. The last RTGs will be removed from Vaygach Island in August under a ceremony where representatives from both the Russian and Norwegian governments are expected to participate.
Based on the successful cooperation in the Norwegian-Russian project on replacing radioactive strontium batteries with solar panels in lighthouses along the White Sea and Barents Sea coast, the two governors have been asked to be project leaders in a similar program in the Baltic Sea.
RTGs will be removed from 79 lighthouses in the Gulf of Finland and eight on the coast of Kaliningrad.
An agreement on the project is expected to be signed in March by Yevdokimov, Kjønnøy and Commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet, who owns and operates the Baltic Sea lighthouses. The first 22 RTGs are planned to be removed this year.
– from barentsobserver. 25 Feb 2009