Last batch of highly radioactive uranium fuel removed from remote Arctic military town

Removing the spent nuclear fuel elements from the Alfa-class submarine reactors in Gremikha became some of the most challenging operations in Russia’s nuclear cleanup after the last Cold War.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union developed the Alfa-class of small, but very fast, attack hunter submarines. All were based in Zapadnaya Litsa, not far from the border with Norway on the Barents Sea coast.

With a hull made of titanium, several times more expensive than steel, the subs could dive deep and sail fast. To limit the size, however, a special small nuclear reactor had to be designed.

Instead of cooling the uranium fuel elements with water, like the traditional maritime reactors used in submarines and icebreakers, the Alfa class vessels were equipped with a liquid-metal coolant, a lead-bismuth eutectic.

A problem, though, is that this mixture only stays liquid as long as the reactor is warm and running. When taken out of service in the 1980s, the reactors were turned off and the highly radioactive uranium fuel elements got stuck.

After being laid-up for years in Zapadnaya Litsa and in Severodvinsk, the reactor compartments were cut out of the hulls of the submarines. The ration risk, however, still remained and it was decided to move them as far away from densely populated areas as possible.

Gremikha, by locals in Murmansk nick-named ‘the flying dogs town’ because of it’s harsh weather conditions, is likely as far away from anywhere as you can get. There are no roads, only a weekly ferry, and most importantly, the military town is still closed for visitors although the navy’s last operative submarine left in the early 1990s.

Work aimed at removing the spent nuclear fuel from the reactors was listed as a high priority by both Russia and the European partners that worked closely together to secure the legacy of the Cold War.

Special equipment were developed with technology and financial support from France. As part of the G7 countries’ non-proliferation program to help clean up the nuclear waste problems in the northwest regions of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.

Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, this week announced that the last batch of containers with spent nuclear fuel has sailed from Gremikha.

“The process of disassembling and removing all the elements took more than a decade,” Rosatom’s press service reports in Telegram.

“This is the first time in the world, such technology for disassembling uranium-beryllium active zones, their transportation and reprocessing has been demonstrated,” Rosatom says.

Brought to the nuclear icebreaker base Atomflot in Murmansk, the last containers with spent nuclear fuel will now be sent by train to Russia’s reprocessing plant in Mayak north of Chelyabinsk.

Rosatom doesn’t mention with one word that the safe removal of the Alfa-submarines’ reactor cores couldn’t take place without massive support from France and other European donor countries in the course of the last 25 years.

With Gremikha out of the list, only one Soviet-era spent nuclear fuel dump remains on the Kola Peninsula: The Andreeva Bay in Zapadnaya Litsa. Here, more than 22,000 spent nuclear fuel elements from water-cooled navy reactors where stored in some run-down concrete tanks. Their removal is in full swing, so far about half of the elements are sent to reprocessing.

Located in Kirkenes, Norway, just a few kilometres from the borders to Russia and Finland, the Barents Observer is dedicated to cross-border journalism in Scandinavia, Russia and the wider Arctic.

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