#11 - RW 281
Russia suspends weapons-grade plutonium disposal programme
Interfax-AVN

Moscow, 6 November: Moscow has suspended the implementation of the
Russia-US agreement on weapon-grade plutonium because of serious financial
problems, an Atomic Energy Ministry spokesman has told Interfax. He said
Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev had discussed the bilateral
agreement on the disposal of 34 tonnes of weapon-grade plutonium during a
visit to the United States. The visit is still under way.

The project's cost for Russia is 2bn dollars, the source said. "The country
will have to build a factory for the disposal of weapon-grade plutonium at
a cost of nearly 400m dollars, modernize power units, and so on," the
source said. The United States has assigned 200m dollars for the programme,
and a similar allocation will be made in future, but the money is not
enough to launch the project. It was planned to use the weapon-grade
plutonium in the production of MOX fuel for nuclear power plants. "But
Russia has no technologies for the industrial production of MOX fuel from
weapon-grade plutonium," the source said. "It is now cheaper and simpler to
produce nuclear fuel from uranium."