It seems the atomic engineering is waited by hard times?

The co-chairman of ecological group «Ecodefense», the author of the best-seller «From Hiroshima to Fukushima», the famous expert in the development of atomic engineering Vladimir Slivyak told our portal what occurs in branch, long time being considered as a synonym of scientific and technical progress:
About prospects of atomic engineering in Russia
- There is no progress at the state level concerning renewable energy. And if it will be in the near future, so not from the part of power. And it is necessary to develop it, after all it is fast-growing sector where scientific and technical progress is concentrated in fact. If we don’t consider it, we will lose the huge market. But this market will grow and whether we will stand aside and will look how the world refuses atomic energy or actively will join in process.
We have a serious scientific potential. Our official purpose is 4,5% of energy from renewable energy by 2020.
The Council of Europe sets other purpose — 20%. In 2012 they already have 12,7%, and in forecasts will surpass the planned boundary by 2020. Germany already now has 20% and will have 30%. In Russia everything is possible too, but the political will is necessary for this purpose —nothing can be made without it. But even if solve nothing, the situation will force us! Simply the whole world goes there and the question consists in that, what is the time we will lose and how many then we will hurry after all.
The half of reactors in our country can be called the old. 22 from 33 reactors are already close to the term determined by the project or surpassed it. This term is 30 years. If to look at a problem from the economic point of view, it is clear that huge funds are necessary to take reactors out of service. It is prospect of our near future and it will demand huge funds.
There are two approaches to a solution. The first is to remain the reactors on a place, protection and service is necessary. The reactor won’t make energy any more … So, continuous loss. If to do full dismantle according to the concept of «green lawn», it is very expensive. According to nuclear scientists such expenses are comparable to the cost of the reactor construction!
The fastest payback which the NPP can have is 20 years. In the West it is the main problem which led to stagnation in the nuclear industry in fact. They understood that everything is expensive and unprofitable and there is no money… In Russia and China a situation is another — we have no private investments; if the state considers that it is favourable, so it does. And it usually considers when there are many lobbyists nearby.
Nuclear industry is absolutele young. Still even the mass conclusion from operation of reactors of the first wave didn’t begin. In Russia there are four reactors which are stopped, but aren’t dismantled (two reactors on the Novovoronezh NPP and two on the Beloyarsk NPP). And nobody knows what to do with them yet… Simply still there is no technology — it is in the development process. Here the reactors also stand from the 80th …
The nuclear industry knows: to receive money for future development, for construction of new reactors, it is necessary to prove that it is economically effective and reactors are safe.
The issue with safety is resolved very simply— they publish a heap of invited papers about it, try to form public opinion.
As for economy, the nuclear power is very seriously subsidized from the budget; and generally, it is the hidden subsidies. Two years ago Greenpeace tried to count how many ways of indirect subsidizing of nuclear power exist —about 30 ways were found. I think that some changes will happen when the wavy conclusion from operation of old reactors goes. And this time will come within the next decade
…and about nuclear wastes
The nuclear industry makes many different types of waste. For example, when uranium is extracted, there is a huge number of toxic and radioactive wastes. Uranium ore is cleaned and there are so-called uranium tails which are very toxic. Further there is a spent fuel on the NPP. And there is also low-active waste: clothes of employees, packing for transportation of materials … That is, there are very different types of waste. For example, if spent fuel is recycled, there is a huge number of liquid wastes.
What to do with all this? There is no unique technology for all. Most often tell about the fulfilled nuclear fuel, because it is the most dangerous. There are two approaches to a problem: the first is to store and bury, and the second is to overwork. We will begin with the second. Processing of spent fuel doesn’t mean that it is utilized. It means that we receive a huge number of liquid nuclear waste and plutonium a little. Roughly speaking, this technology is directed on plutonium extraction.
Also there is a question: what to do with this liquid waste farther? There is a technology of evaporation; liquid glass becomes a barrier to radiation. But the problem consists that danger of radiation will be during hundreds of years and liquid glass keeps durability at most hundred years.

That is, it is not a final decision — it means that someone will need to do something with all this through hundred years.
What is the sense to emit plutonium? The technology was developed in the 70th years. Then there was a scientific idea about so-called short circuit of a nuclear fuel cycle. If to use fuel with plutonium in a certain type reactors, then plutonium will be received more. As a result it turns out that you won’t depend on that how many uranium is … But the technology wasn’t brought to industrial application: many issues aren’t resolved. Three countries invested big money in it: USSR, Japan and France. France refused all experiments in the second half of the 90th, but Russia still declares that will work with breeder reactors. In Russia there is one breeder from 33 reactors and one more is in a construction stage.
But there is uranium, but not plutonium is used in our breeder reactor. That is, we are in the same place where were with this technology in the 70th … Could this technology be able once to finish? Who knows?! Take a thermonuclear reaction: was written and told so much about it and that it seemed still slightly no problems will exist! And, maybe, it simply would be told the next 50 years.
There is also other way of the solution of nuclear wastes problems — storage and, perhaps, burial. The problem consists that there is no such technology which can close a question. In other words, there is no such material of which it is possible to make the container where you put nuclear materials, and it won’t collapse until nuclear waste is dangerous. There are no such materials in our hands. There is no that it would be possible to call a solution.
Now let’s speak about uranium tails or about the grown poor uranium hexafluoride. About 10% of that bring can be extracted and then to use, but 90% remain! The enormous quantity of this waste accumulated at four combines on uranium enrichment— they lie in cylinders open-air on the asphalted platforms. The total is estimated at millions of tons. But it is not only foreign waste — the USSR made a large amount of nuclear materials for a bomb — waste of this process is here too. About 15% of total amount is the waste from other countries. And again there is no way completely to solve a problem.
If there is a leak from these cylinders, so the danger of a lethal outcome can be in a radius of 30 kilometres. If to carry out defluorination, we have only one installation bought in France and 100 years are required that to process all volume with its help.