Bellona Archive

Russia’s some 1000 RTGs are radioactive sources of energy used in remote areas for powering navigation beacons and lighthouses. Powered by strontium-90 and scattered mostly along Russia’s northern and eastern coasts, all have exceed their 10-year-engineered life spans. Furthermore the majority RTGs are largely unguarded and their strontium-90 cores easily accessible. There is also a problem accounting for the location of many of the RTGs themselves, and therefore many have not been inspected in years. Their remote locations and Rosatom’s inability to account for their condition and locations make them one of Russia’s biggest possible sources of radioactive contamination.