A nuclear waste burial to be built in Novaya Zemlya

The Russian Nuclear Energy Ministry has taken a decision to build a nuclear waste burial in Novaya Zemlya. The project will cost 70 million dollars.

This was said to reporters on Friday by Valery Lebedev, Russian deputy minister for nuclear energy.

The burial will be "built in hard rock and the containers with nuclear waste will not let it get into the waters of the Northern seas or the Arctic ocean," he is sure. "This project has passed ecological and technical expert examinations in Russia and technical examinations by nuclear scientists from France, Britain, Finland and Germany," he stressed.

This burial intends "utilisation of aqueous solutions with nuclear components which have to be buried after nuclear submarines with nuclear reactors aboard are removed from service," Lebedev said. As many as 190 submarines have to be utilised in this way, he noted.

The deputy minister reported that the means to build the burial will come from the federal budget. He did not rule out "certain financial aid from Scandinavian countries interested in preserving the Northern seas from nuclear pollution." The first stage of the storage pit, designed to keep 5,000 tonnes of nuclear waste, will be put to use in Novaya Zemlya in two to three years to come and cost 14.7 million dollars, said Lebedev.