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Newsletter:  May 2003/ Issue 4
Enhancing Russian ADE Reactor Safety

The US and Russia have begun a two-year, $20 million dollar upgrade of three Russian reactors that PNNL project manager Ron Omberg describes as perhaps the least safe reactors still operating in the world today.

Two of the reactors, ADE 4 & 5 are located in the Siberian Chemical Combine near the closed city of Seversk; the third, ADE 2, is near the closed city of Zheleznogorsk. All provide heat and electricity for people living in the harsh landscape of the Siberian taiga—the Russian forest growing above areas of former glaciation and patchy permafrost where the average annual temperature is -0.5 ºC.

The design of these reactors precedes the Chornobyl RBMK design, with features analogous to the early production reactors built at Hanford.

Replacing the reactors with fossil fuel power plants will allow the Russians to discontinue the reactors’ production of weapons-grade plutonium—1 ½ metric tons of fissile material annually, enough for between 120 and 350 nuclear bombs. Omberg emphasized the importance of “keeping disciplined control of this material in the troubled post-Soviet times in this part of Russia.” These concerns and the risk of diversion of nuclear materials during transport over vast Russian distances—the country has 11 time zones—motivated the National Security Council and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of International Nuclear Safety and Cooperation to support shutting down the reactors in five to six years.

As compelling as the nonproliferation issue, is the need to reduce the chances of a Chornobyl-like accident during the interim reactor operation. The decision to move forward on safety measures was spurred by a joint Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation and DOE “probabilistic risk assessment” that identified high priority actions that can be taken now to reduce the likelihood of severe accidents at these three reactors. So, until fossil fuel plants begin operation, the old reactors will require safety upgrades.

Safety upgrades include installing: emergency cooling systems; “passive protective systems” that enable rapid reactor shut down; emergency electrical power monitoring systems; fire protection; upgrades to reactor control mechanisms; systems to stabilize graphite stacks within the reactors; and emergency communication systems.

There are 27 individual projects in all. Upgrades will be consistent with the goal of closing down the reactors, and will be evaluated to assure they do not extend their life span.

Technical and financial assistance to make the ADE reactors safer is an incentive for the Russians to participate in an overall program, the Elimination of Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production Program, the objective of which is to shut down aging and unsafe nuclear reactors across Russia. Omberg believes that the $20 million spent on safety upgrades to the ADE 2, 4 & 5 reactors may have a comparable benefit in terms of risk reduction as the efforts spent on upgrading or shutting down commercial reactors throughout the former Soviet Union.

This work is part of a transition that fascinates and gratifies Jim Wiborg of PNNL, also involved in the effort to stop the production of weapons-grade plutonium.

“I never thought I’d see the day when Russian and American scientists would work together to eliminate the production of weapons-grade plutonium,” he said. “The heart of the matter is getting the last three production reactors in the world that are making weapons-grade plutonium shut down.”

He observes that the transition from the cold war arms race to the current dismantlement of production facilities has been even more dramatic for Russians than for Americans. But now, in this new era, he said, the Russian scientists working on these projects “regard us as technical folks trying to solve technical problems together.”

“It has been fascinating for me,” Wiborg said, “to sit across the table from my Russian counterparts and former adversaries. To see the similarities between us. That they have families and careers. To see that they, too, were motivated by patriotism, mistrust and a desire to maintain world balance.”