OREANDA-NEWS. Russia expects to reprocess all of its 'damaged' used nuclear fuel - at Mayak Production Association in Ozersk - by 2030, and to open the second stage of its centralized dry storage facility - at the Mining and Chemical Combine (MCC) in Zheleznogorsk - by 2016.

"My view is that it is better to try and reprocess, rather than store, damaged fuel to avoid the problems associated with its long-term storage," Evgenvy Kudryavtsev, head of the department for regulation of the safety of nuclear fuel cycle facilities at Russian regulator Rostechnadzor, told World Nuclear News. "We expect to complete this in Russia in 10-15 years." Kudryavtsev spoke at the side of the 58th International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference being held in Vienna this week.

Russia's stated policy is to close the nuclear fuel cycle as far as possible and utilize recycled uranium, and eventually also to use plutonium in mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. In 2011 only about 16% of used fuel was reprocessed, but the target is 100% by 2030.

This strategy has four main elements. The RT-1 used fuel reprocessing facility at Mayak will be updated and then decommissioned in about 2030. At MCC, a MOX fuel fabrication plant for fast reactors will be completed this year; a pilot demonstration centre for used nuclear fuel reprocessing will be completed by 2016; a full-scale RT-2 facility will be completed to reprocess VVER, RBMK and BN used fuel into MOX fuel or into Remix - the regenerated mixture of uranium and plutonium oxides; and used fuel pool storage will be replaced with dry storage.

The first phase of the centralized 'dry' interim storage facility (ISF) for used fuel from its RBMK-1000 reactors - some 270 metres long, 35 metres wide and 40 metres high - was commissioned in December 2011. This is used to store 8129 tonnes of RBMK fuel from the three power plants in the country using that kind of reactor: Leningrad, Kursk and Smolensk. The used fuel from these plants was stored in on-site water-filled pools that were reaching full-capacity.

Later, used VVER-1000 fuel from reactors at the Balakovo, Kalinin, Novovoronezh and Rostov plants will also be stored at the facility. Such fuel has already been sent to Zheleznogorsk for storage in water pools. Three buildings of the dry store will ultimately hold about 30,000 tonnes of used RBMK and VVER fuel.

The fuel will be stored in the facility for up to 50 years, during which time substantial reprocessing capacity should be brought online. In the long-term, a geological repository for high-level radioactive waste is planned.

Construction of the second phase of the dry storage facility "is nearly finished" and will be commissioned at the end of next year or in early 2016, Kudryavtsev said. "It is very important that most of the accumulated fuel from Russian nuclear power plants will be shipped and stored at a single long-term storage site."