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Estonia completes secure storage facility for Soviet-era reactors
Tallinn (AFP) Oct 11, 2007 Estonian authorities said Thursday they had finished rebuilding a secure facility meant to prevent potential leaks from two mothballed nuclear reactors and radioactive waste left by the Soviet navy. The upgraded facility at a former Soviet military base in the Estonian coastal town of Paldiski is meant to provide safe storage for the next 50 years, after which the reactors are to be dismantled. Paldiski is one of the most polluted towns in Estonia, which was ruled by Moscow from the end of World War II until it regained its independence amid the collapse of the communist bloc in 1991. Access to the town, which was once home to a major training base for Red Navy submarine crews, was strictly limited during the Soviet period. In 1995 the Russian military, which had inherited the base following the collapse of the Soviet Union, handed over formal control of Paldiski to Estonian authorities, a year after Moscow had withdrawn its troops from the rest of the country. The reactors, which dated back to 1968 and 1983, were part of facilities used to train crews of nuclear-powered submarines. They were temporarily closed by the Soviet military in 1989 to enable building work. They were never brought back into service, largely because of ongoing moves towards Estonian independence and pressure from other Baltic Sea countries worried about risks to the environment. To upgrade the storage facility, Estonia received financial assistance from the European Union, which it joined in 2004, and from the United States. Besides Paldiski, Estonia has also had to deal with radioactive waste at the site of a former uranium enrichment plant in the coastal town of Sillamae, which was also closed to outsiders during the Soviet era. Related Links Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
Nuclear power share-out not delaying grid deal: Lithuania, Poland
Vilnius (AFP) Oct 10, 2007The leaders of Poland and Lithuania Wednesday dismissed suggestions that a dispute over sharing output from a new nuclear power plant was hampering a related accord on linking their power grids. |
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