This book tells the story of half a century of nuclear waste management activities and contamination incidents in the former Soviet Union (FSU). It paints a striking picture of the USSR and now FSU nuclear waste management activities, tracing the evolution of what is likely the world's largest nuclear waste management problem. The information in this book - taken from hundreds of literature sources, as well as from the author's first-hand knowledge of nuclear-waste-related events in Russia - represents the largest compilation ever on nuclear waste management practices, past and present in the former Soviet Union.
It covers uranium mining, milling, and enrichment, as well as reprocessing and disposal. In addition, separate chapters are devoted to naval waste management and contamination of oceans and seas, as well as the conditions in the FSU and the Baltic countries and the weapons test sites. Finally, separate chapters are devoted to Chornobyl and the three processing centers, Mayak, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk.
The appendices contain information on the operating and decommissioned reactors, as well as on comparative worldwide releases of radioactivity into the environment, nuclear accidents, and nuclear weapons tests.
Behind the Nuclear Curtain reveals some of the truths behind decades of nuclear neglect in that part of the world. Information from Russian scientists, along with illustrations, maps, and schematics of contamination sites, helps bring into focus a problem that has long been unknown, misunderstood, and under-estimated and is now emerging with long-term environmental restoration implications.
