EU Nuke Waste Going to Russia

(Moscow, Russia) The Russian government has entered into a deal with the European Union to use a former nuclear weapons production site, Krasnoyarsk-26, as a nuclear waste repository for Europe's nuclear plants. In return for functioning as Europe's nuclear garbage dump, Russia gets $20 billion.

It's expected that most of the money will be "diverted" to officials for personal use instead of improved security and radiation protection measures at the site.

And there is the symbolism involved. The facility was built by slave laborers in the GULAG at Stalin’s direct order in January 1950. Thousands– there were 27,000 there in 1953, of whom 4,000 were women – worked and in many cases died to dig out the inside of a granite mountain to protect Soviet plutonium production against even a direct hit by a nuclear bomb.

Consequently, not only is Krasnoyarsk-26 an ugly reminder of the communist slave labor camps which killed millions, it is already one of the more radioactive places on Earth.

The nuclear waste at Krasnoyarsk-26 already has a total radioactivity equal to three billion curies. By next year, that figure is projected to rise to 10 billion curies. And by 2015 – six years from now – it will be more than 25 billion curies – a figure equal to “the explosive of 500 Chernobyls.”

Interestingly, the EU has a strong NIMBY (not in my back yard) mentality which has entered into a civil union with a DINBY (dump in neighbor's back yard) permissiveness.