Nuclear Fuel Hits Black Market

The Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant information service circulated a release saying that some Ukrainian and foreign media outlets have recently published reports on the arrests of individuals who tried to illegally sell nuclear materials in Belarus. “Television news has showed items whose form resembled fragments of heat producing elements used in RBMK type reactors. The lack of any detailed information on the items, their dimensions, properties, and chemical composition, makes it impossible to conclude that these are nuclear materials,” the release says. Simultaneously, the Chornobyl NPP information service stresses that in early 1990s a theft of fresh nuclear fuel was uncovered and criminal charges were filed. As a result of security measures at the plant, all fresh nuclear fuel is now stored in accordance with established procedure and under the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The attempt to sell nuclear fuel thwarted in Belarus kept experts working in nuclear power engineering racking their brains as to who needed such materials and for what purpose. “As a nuclear specialist, I cannot imagine where such a small quantity of nuclear fuel can be used, especially since it is designed for a specific type of reactors,” Director of the State Research and Technical Center for Control Systems and Emergencies at the Ministry of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine Ludvig Lytvynsky, Doctor in physics and mathematics, told The Day. According to him, buyers might be interested to purchase fresh fuel in quantities sufficient to load a reactor, but in this case they will be after kilograms, not grams, of fuel. With the 200 or 300 grams seized in Belarus nothing can be done in practical terms. As to rogue states, Mr. Lytvynsky maintained, they are primarily interested in plutonium, something conventional fuel for nuclear reactors does not include. Fresh nuclear fuel cannot be used to make an atom bomb, The Day’s expert stressed. Now that most states have signed on with the international convention and there is a system of guarantees closely watched by the IAEA, no country with modern nuclear technologies will risk buying nuclear fuel on the black market, Mr. Lytvynsky emphasized, adding that there is every reason to believe that those who stole the nuclear fuel were not experts.

This view is shared by the head of the Enerhoatom’s department for handling fuel, Natalia Shumkova, “Only those with a lack of expertise in the field would buy this reduced-enrichment fuel which is not used in small quantities.” However, since the type of stolen fuel remains unknown, one can only guess at its possible effects on human health. According to Ms. Shumkova, fresh fuel is virtually environmentally safe. By contrast, that exposed to radiation or taken from nuclear storage or dump sites has a high level of radioactivity.

But Ms. Shumkova does not rule out that the fuel seized in Belarus may have a Chornobyl trail, being part of the nuclear material stolen in 1993 there. She is convinced that the storage of nuclear materials meets international control standards which rule out any theft, “All Ukraine is under IAEA guarantees and any operations with nuclear fuel are rigorously registered down to the last gram.”