Going Nuclear

Constructing a small, experimental nuclear plant to power a proposed gold mine in the Russian Arctic is the stuff of nightmares for many environmentalists. But nightmare or not, that’s exactly what Russian state corporation RosAtom has planned in Yakutia Republic just outside the village of Ust-Kuiga, north of the Arctic Circle.

Specifically, RosAtom proposes to build a first-of-its-kind small nuclear power station with what’s known as a RITM-200N reactor unit and a capacity of at least 55 MW. The project would facilitate the development of the Kyuchus deposit, a large gold deposit located in Northern Yakutia. The reactor, modelled off a ship-based reactor design, would be the first land-based reactor of its kind in the world. Construction is expected to begin in 2024.

This article is part of a collaborative, journalism initiative between Earth Island Journal and Ecology and Business, an environmental journal based in Vladivostok, Russia that covers environmental issues in Eurasia. Translations from Russian are being provided courtesy of Earth Island’s The Altai Project.

Tough questions were raised during two public discussions about the project held in Yakutsk in June by governmental and scientific authorities. The first discussion was attended by Andrey Ozharovsky, an engineering physicist and member of the Russian Socio-Ecological Union, and his Greenpeace Russia colleague, Victoria Glushchenko, who highlighted the dangers associated with the plant and the controversial issues around it. Well-known Russian ecologist and chairwoman of the Republic of Yakutiya Association of Ecologists, Lyubov Kipriyanova, and the director of the Eige Center for Environmental Education, Valentina Dmitrieva were also present. The second event was a science and education roundtable convened to discuss the nuclear plant’s Environmental Impact Assessment.

At the events, those opposed to the project noted that all nuclear power stations, even low-power ones, pose a significant risk to people and the environment. They all produce solid, liquid, and gas waste, and radioactive waste products have to be stored on-site for a period of time before being moved somewhere else for permanent storage or reprocessing. RosAtom has not addressed the question of what will happen with the facility’s dangerous waste products. Participants cited the example of the Bilibino nuclear power facility to the east of Yakutia, in Russia’s Chukotka federal region. To this day, the final destination of radioactive waste from that facility, now reaching the end of its operational lifespan, remains unknown.

What’s more, residents strongly suspect that the Kyuchus mine, as is the case with other gold mines in the North, will be controlled by Russian oligarchs or foreign business interests with the potential to siphon off profits to offshore companies, meaning the mine will bring little economic benefit locally. Meanwhile, Yakutia’s fragile Arctic landscape and carbon-sequestering tundra permafrost will be contaminated, rivers ruined, and its people subjected to continued poverty. At most they might receive a token ambulance, a rebuilt school, or a bridge. There are countless such examples in Siberia, they pointed out.

“Over 7,000 people live in Ust-Yansky ulus municipality,” Kipriyanova said at one of the recent discussions. “Do we need this nuclear power plant to be built to improve the lives of these people? I think not.”

The people who live here “have their own traditions, their own culture, their own concepts,” she added. “They have their own life in this landscape. Were they asked how to live here, what to do next to preserve the North’s, the Arctic’s, highly vulnerable ecosystem? No, they weren’t.”

As expected, RosAtom’s public relations team presented the project in the best possible light. According to Ozharovsky, who attended both events, the company did not respond to a number of questions and failed to provide information related to the risks of nuclear power stations, even small ones.

RosAtom’s plan for small nuclear plants extends beyond Yakutia. The Russian government recently decided to allocate nearly 80 billion rubles ($1.1 billion US) for the company’s small nuclear development program over the next three years. The program will focus on plants that can generate up to 300 MW of energy. According to RosAtom, small nuclear plants are useful for providing energy in remote regions, and export demand for such reactors is likely to grow in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

In Russia, the company plans to build four RITM-200 reactors — similar to those planned for Yakutia — to power a new copper-mining project in Baimsky in eastern Siberia. The biggest difference: Those four reactors will be stationed at sea.

RosAtom touts small nuclear power plants as a carbon-free, environmentally friendly energy source, but Russian nonprofit EcoDefense disagrees. “Attempts to use the nuclear industry as a means of decarbonization, not only in Russia, but all over the world, is, alas, a fait accompli,” the NGO said in a statement. But given the high cost of nuclear infrastructure and waste management, even small scale plants can’t offer any significant reductions in global emissions, it says.