Disposing of submarines that are equipped with nuclear equipment is not an easy process. Nuclear boats have always excited people's minds from the first days of the publication of data on their creation. When these powerful devices are decommissioned, they are sent to the submarine cemetery.
Description
Warships, when their service life expires, become a dangerous phenomenon due to radioactive radiation. The thing is that there is nuclear fuel on board, which is extremely difficult to extract. This necessitates the creation of a cemetery for modern submarines in Russia. There are already a considerable number of them.
The Navy needs to exert tremendous efforts to dispose of submarines, which are the legacy of war. There are places where similar procedures are performed on the Pacific coast, beyond the Arctic Circle, near Vladivostok. There are currently several submarine cemeteries in Russia. Of course, accurate data on how many of them are not published.
Each last berth for formidable vessels of international influence has its own unique features. Each of them is not like any other. The most dangerous of them are located near the Kara Sea in Siberia. These submarine cemeteries are essentially nuclear waste dumps. The reactors that were removed from the warships are stored there, and the spent fuel lies at a depth of three hundred meters. Until the 1990s, it was here that the spent submarines of the USSR were brought there. They simply drowned in the sea.
Remains
There is a separate submarine cemetery on the Kola Peninsula. It is a surreal landscape - everywhere canals of torpedo tubes sticking out of the ground, rusty logging, remains of the hulls are visible.
According to the European environmental association Bellona, the USSR submarines turned the Kara Sea into a huge "aquarium of radioactive waste." Now at its bottom there are more than 17,000 waste containers, 16 nuclear reactors. At this submarine cemetery lies five nuclear submarines. Flooded them completely.
All this causes a certain risk when oil and gas enterprises begin to take a closer look at the place. If they begin to drill a well, they may accidentally damage the reactor. If this happens, the submarine cemetery will provoke radioactive contamination of fishing in the region.
Official
There are also official cemeteries for military vehicles. They are easy to find on the Internet in satellite photographs. The largest cemetery with nuclear waste is located in the United States at Hanford. Shipyards near Vladivostok are clearly visible, where container tubes stick out twelve meters in length.
In rocky areas near Murmansk, there is a base of submarines of the Northern Fleet of Gadzhievo. There are active submarines here, but they also store spent fuel from decommissioned submarines right there. On Gub Pale, on the basis of the submarines of the Northern Fleet of Gadzhievo, ships are stored that are intended for disposal. But among all objects, according to the Russian Navy, only one object is related to radioactivity. This is a tanker built to transport radioactive waste in the Barents Sea. Despite this fact, foreign environmental associations often shoot stories about the danger of Gadzhievo in the Murmansk region.
The base was created in 1956, when the port of registration of submarines was opened here. After 7 years, submarines began to move here. In 1995, a nuclear accident almost happened in Gadzhievo in the Murmansk region. It was connected with the fact that during the difficult period for Russia in the 1990s, there were conflicts between energy companies and the Ministry of Defense. The intervention of the Government of the Russian Federation prevented the conflict.
During the Cold War, there was its own base of submarines in Balaclava. It was a quiet place near Sevastopol, quite suitable for a secret facility. A submarine base was located in Balaklava with a plant that was built in such a way as to withstand the impact of a nuclear bomb 5 times the strength dropped on Hiroshima in case of war.
All construction took place in an atmosphere of secrecy, even the removal of gravel was masked by quarrying, which was carried out nearby.
Already towards the end of the 1990s, the object lost its significance, now a museum is open here. However, a number of documents relating to the history of the complex are still classified.
Known as an object related to submarines and the Bay of Invisible. At the moment, only shapeless fragments that can be seen at low tide are visible on it. It is located in the Arctic on the Kola Peninsula. Access to the bay is still closed, but there are cross-country trails from Gadzhievo and Snezhnogorsk.
Since the late 1970s, the bay began to be used as a cemetery for military submarines. Since all plants were loaded with many tasks related to the ships used, there was no question of cutting obsolete machines. Submarines were simply disposed of - either they were shot as a target during the exercises, or transported to quiet bays.
According to veterans, back in the 1980s, some ships that were there remained afloat. But then it was decided to disassemble them into metal. In the late 1990s, private individuals engaged in dismantling these formidable ships.
Fuel recovery
All that remains of dozens of atomic submarines are containers, called three-compartment units. These are reactor blocks created during the decommissioning of submarines. Creating them is difficult. First of all, the warship is transported to a special dock, where liquid is drained from the reactor compartments. Then each spent fuel assembly is removed from the reactor, put into a container and sent to the plants that process the used fuel. In the Russian Federation this is available in the Chelyabinsk region.
Despite the fact that after these measures no enriched uranium remains anywhere, the metal itself has acquired radioactivity over decades of operation. For this reason, the submarine is taken to a dry dock, and the reactor compartment with nearby ones is removed. Then metal plugs are welded onto these parts. That is, the three-compartment blocks are sealed elements of the submarine. Each non-radioactive part is disposed of separately.
Currently, the Russian Federation uses the same technology as Western countries. The thing is that the world community was afraid that in Russia the requirements for the disposal of nuclear waste are not so strict, which creates a risk that they can get to the terrorists.
Since 2002, by decision of the G8 member countries, a program has been launched aimed at transferring to the Russian Federation Western technologies for the disposal of nuclear waste. This led to the improvement of this process in the country, it became safer. A land storage facility was erected in the country.
Hazardous waste afloat
A similar decision was justified also because a lot of three-compartment blocks remained afloat in Russia. Until now, there are those in Pavlovsk, which remains dangerous. It is not always possible to dispose of the above method. A number of Soviet submarines had a special design - the reactors were cooled by alloys of lead and bismuth, but not by water. When the reactor stops, the cooler freezes and the reactor compartment becomes a monolith.
Two such combat vehicles have not yet been recycled; they have only been taken far to the Kola Peninsula, where they are still far away from people.
According to the latest technologies of three-compartment units, 120 submarines belonging to the Northern Fleet and 75 to the Pacific fleet were utilized. In the United States, 125 Cold War submarines were disposed of in this way.
Only in the UK were submarines built differently, and the process for their disposal is significantly different. At the moment, this issue has risen sharply in the UK. The thing is that the country's plans to write off 12 submarines that are located on the southern coasts, as well as another 7 located off the coast of Scotland. But the government has not yet decided which company will store the spent fuel reactors together. The decision was clearly delayed, and residents of nearby territories are worried, as the number of submarines to be decommissioned is constantly increasing in that area.
Submarine Fleet Growth
However, the Western submarine disposal methodology has been criticized by environmental associations. So, in the United States, spent nuclear fuel from submarines is sent to Idaho, where it is stored in an underground aquifer. The spent fuel is not put into the ground, but the remaining waste from the submarines is buried in the ground, and such procedures will be repeated regularly for dozens of years. This worries many locals. Such a dangerous neighborhood threatens both the quality of fresh water and the potato crops that the area is famous for.
But the reality is that even with the strictest safety measures, radioactive waste can be in the environment, and sometimes this happens in the most unpredictable way. For example, documented cases where the leakage of hazardous waste was noted due to tumbleweed. They found themselves in tanks for cooling radioactive waste, absorbed hazardous water, and then they were blown away by the wind far across the country.
Modern trend
But the fact that the safety of the disposal of hazardous waste is difficult to ensure does not concern military experts. The US Navy prefers to equip submarines with nuclear installations and do not plan to switch to other energy sources. The same thing happens in the Russian fleet. By 2020, it is planned to build another 8 nuclear submarines. Although the budget in Russia for this area is very limited, the Russian Federation is steadily increasing the power of its nuclear submarine fleet. The same process is noted in China. For this reason, submarine cemeteries will only gain momentum, not disappear. And the current storage sites for spent fuel and metals will not soon be empty.
As a result of the nuclear submarine dismantlement program, repositories of atomic submarines arose. They can be found in the north of the US Pacific coast, beyond the Arctic Circle, and also not far from the base of the Russian Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok. The cemeteries of the submarines are different from each other. The dirtiest and most unsafe of them, located on the Kara Sea coast in northern Siberia, are actually dumps of nuclear waste - reactors dismantled from submarines and spent fuel elements dot the seabed at a depth of 300 meters. Apparently, until the early 1990s, Soviet sailors got rid of nuclear and diesel-electric submarines in this place, just flooding them into the sea.
Most dangerous places
There is an opinion that a rather high probability of an atomic catastrophe remains in the Arctic Ocean. The fact is that in 1981 a nuclear submarine was secretly flooded there, and its reactor can easily get out of control when sea water enters it.
Also, the warship K-27, which lies at the bottom of the Kara Sea, was sunk. There was an accident during which 9 Soviet sailors received a lethal dose of radiation. According to IBRAE, since 1981, there has been a leak of radiation in the amount of 851 million becquerels every year.
It remains likely that a nuclear reaction could occur on board this vessel. The surface of the submarine may have large-scale breaches. The radioactive materials that are in the nucleus can easily be released, which will lead to a real catastrophe. A similar situation arose with K-159, a submarine sunk in 2003 in the Barents Sea. Even the long-flooded submarines require vigilant federal attention, as they continue to pose a danger to the surrounding territories.
For now
Back in 2009, Rosatom advocated the development of a program for the disposal of nuclear submarines until 2020. It included warships that were waiting in line for disposal. The total number of such submarines was 191. Most of these ships were already decommissioned in the 1990s. On a number of them for a long time the duties of reduced crews were conducted. This was done to extend the non-flooding of submarines.
Formed a whole queue for disposal. This was due to the fact that the nuclear fuel storage facilities were overcrowded.
The transportation of spent nuclear fuel also needs to be improved, as the country has more than 30 active zones per year. Factories can not cope with the loads associated with the transportation of waste. The Russian Federation often reprocesses spent fuel, since the uranium contained in it is suitable for subsequent use in nuclear reactors.
This is one of the main distinguishing features of working with nuclear fuel in Russia. Fuel has been processed for a long time, and the infrastructure is underdeveloped. For this reason, the plants do not have time to timely clean up spent nuclear fuel in full. However, work in this area is underway, as in the world there is a tendency to increase the combat power of nuclear submarines.
Conclusion
Despite all the dangers posed by nuclear reactors, the number of nuclear boats to be disposed of will increase steadily. The number of submarine cemeteries will increase, not only in the Russian Federation, but also throughout the world. And the old cemeteries of formidable war machines will be empty soon.