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Making the Russian Bomb from Stalin to Yeltsin

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Making the Russian Bomb from Stalin to Yeltsin MAKING THE RUSSIAN BOMB FROM STALIN TO YELTSIN by Thomas B. Cochran Robert S. Norris and Oleg A. Bukharin A book by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. Westview Press Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford Copyright Natural Resources Defense Council © 1995 Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................. List of Tables ................................................... Preface and Acknowledgements ..................................... CHAPTER ONE A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SOVIET BOMB Russian and Soviet Nuclear Physics ............................... Towards the Atomic Bomb .......................................... Diverted by War ............................................. Full Speed Ahead ............................................ Establishment of the Test Site and the First Test ................ The Role of Espionage ............................................ Thermonuclear Weapons Developments ............................... Was Joe-4 a Hydrogen Bomb? .................................. Testing the Third Idea ...................................... Stalin's Death and the Reorganization of the Bomb Program ........ CHAPTER TWO AN OVERVIEW OF THE STOCKPILE AND COMPLEX The Nuclear Weapons Stockpile .................................... Ministry of Atomic Energy ........................................ The Nuclear Weapons Complex ...................................... Nuclear Weapon Design Laboratories ............................... Arzamas-16 .................................................. Chelyabinsk-70 .............................................. Nuclear Weapon Test Sites ........................................ Semipalatinsk-21 ............................................ Novaya Zemlya ............................................... Nuclear Warhead Production Facilities ............................ Fissile Material Production and Disposition ...................... Waste Management Activities ................................. CHAPTER THREE CHELYABINSK-65/MAYAK CHEMICAL COMBINE Introduction ..................................................... Graphite Reactors ................................................ A-Reactor ................................................... IR Reactor.................................................. AV-1 Reactor................................................ AV-2 Reactor................................................ AV-3 Reactor................................................ Light and Heavy Water Reactors ................................... Lyudmila .................................................... Ruslan ...................................................... Chemical Separation Facilities ................................... B Plant (Plant 25) .......................................... BB Plant, or ``Double B'' Plant ............................. RT-1 Radiochemical Plant .................................... Radioisotope Plant .......................................... Plutonium Processing, Finishing and Component Manufacture ........ MOX Fuel Fabrication Facilities .................................. Pilot Bay................................................... Zemchug ..................................................... Granat ...................................................... Paket ....................................................... Complex 300 MOX Fuel Fabrication Plant ...................... Central Research Laboratory ...................................... Instrument Engineering Plant ..................................... Repair and Machine Shop .......................................... Experimental Scientific Research Center .......................... South Urals Project .............................................. Long-Term Storage Facility for Fissile Material from Weapons ..... Radiation Exposure to Workers .................................... Accidents ........................................................ Waste Management Activities ...................................... Discharge of Waste into the Techa River ..................... Lake Karachay (Reservoir 9) ................................. Lake Staroe Boloto (Old Swamp, Reservoir 17) ................ Waste Explosion in 1957 ..................................... High-Level Waste Tanks ...................................... Waste Vitrification ......................................... Solid Waste Burial .......................................... Contamination Today ......................................... CHAPTER FOUR TOMSK-7 AND KRASNOYARSK-26 Tomsk-7 (The Siberian Chemical Combine, Seversk) ................. Siberian Atomic Power Station ............................... Ivan-1 ................................................. Ivan-2 ................................................. ADE-3 .................................................. ADE-4 .................................................. ADE-5 .................................................. Chemical Separation Plant ................................... Plutonium Processing, Pit Manufacture, and Fissile Material Storage ............................................ Accidents ................................................... Geography and Hydrology ..................................... Waste Management Activities ................................. Uranium Enrichment Plant .................................... Military Conversion Activities .............................. Krasnoyarsk-26 (Mining and Chemical Combine, Zheleznogorsk) ...... Graphite Reactors ........................................... AD ..................................................... ADE-1 .................................................. ADE-2 .................................................. Chemical Separation Plant ................................... Accidents ................................................... RT-2 ........................................................ Spent Fuel Storage ..................................... Reprocessing Plant ..................................... Site 27................................................ Geography and Hydrology ..................................... Waste Management Activities ................................. Waste Tanks............................................ Deep Well Injection .................................... Reservoirs ............................................. Atmospheric Releases ................................... Reactor Coolant discharges ............................. Military Conversion Activities .............................. CHAPTER FIVE NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE ACTIVITIES Front-End of the Fuel Cycle ...................................... Uranium Flows in the 1980s .................................. Uranium Flows in the Early 1990s ............................ Uranium Resources ........................................... Uranium Production .......................................... History and Technology ................................. Kazakhstan ............................................. Uzbekistan ............................................. Ukraine ................................................ Russia ................................................. Uranium Conversion .......................................... Uranium Enrichment .......................................... History and Technology ................................. Enrichment Plant Sites ................................. Enrichment Production .................................. HEU and Natural Uranium Inventories .................... Fabrication of Uranium Fuel ................................. The Electrostal Machine-Building Plant ................. The Plant of Chemical Concentrates ..................... The Ulbinsky Metallurgical Plant ....................... Future Prospects ....................................... Nuclear Reactors, Other than Military Production Reactors ........ Civil Power Reactors ........................................ Naval Propulsion Reactors ................................... Research Reactors ........................................... Back-End of the Fuel Cycle ....................................... Fuel Cycle of Fast and VVER Reactors ........................ RBMK Fuel Cycle ............................................. Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication and Use ........................ CHAPTER SIX RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION FROM NUCLEAR-POWERED VESSELS Introduction ..................................................... Background ....................................................... Origins and Overview of Total Amounts of RW Dumped at Sea ........ RW Dumped in the Arctic .......................................... Liquid RW ................................................... Solid RW.................................................... Reactors with Spent Nuclear Fuel ....................... Reactors without Spent Nuclear Fuel .................... RW Dumped in the Far Eastern Seas ................................ Liquid RW ................................................... Solid RW.................................................... The Extent of Radioactive Contamination .......................... The Hazards of Liquid RW .................................... The Hazards of Buried Solid RW .............................. Expeditions to the Solid RW Dump Sites ................. The On-going Waste Disposal Problems of the Navy and the Murmansk Shipping Company ..................... Decommissioned Nuclear-powered Submarines ................... Spent Nuclear Fuel ....................................
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