Belona Archive

The Russian nuclear fuel cycle incorporates all of those element in the industry aimed at producing nuclear fuel. There are two types of fuel cycles used in the world today―open and closed. The open cycle, which, for instance, has been used in the United States since the administration of President Jimmy Carter in the mid-1970s. buries spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in special storage depots without trying to recycle it for usable fuel materials. This is considered safer from an environmental and non-proliferation stand-point. The closed fuel cycle, which Russian uses, recycles SNF for fuel usable material such as uranium and plutonium. It also yields other highly active liquid and solid by-products. Russia reprocesses fuel from VVER-440 type reactors and maritime reactors, but is incapable of dealing with fuel from its other reactor types. Fuel that can be recycled is reprocessed at the Mayak Chemical Combine in the southern Urals, widely considered the most radioactively contaminated spot in Russia.