Monthly Bulletin May/June 2005 - Vol 8 No. 3

RTGs still an underestimated foe in securing loose nukes in Russia

by Rashid Alimov & Charles Digges

A low profile joint US-Russian meeting on the subject of bilaterally dismantling Russia’s dilapidated and largely untended Radioactive Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs)—long viewed by both countries as fertile hunting ground for potential “dirty bomb” nuclear terrorists—was held for a small group of specialists, and passed almost completely unnoticed by the Russian public. 

The joint effort to dismantle Russia’s estimated 1000 RTGs falls under the common goals of the Group of Eight industrialised nations’ Global Partnership programme to lock down Russia’s proliferation hazards entirely over the next eight years. The US Department of Energy (DOE) got on board with the RTG dismantlement effort along the Eastern part of Russia’s Northern Shipping Route in 2004, to the tune of some $40m. 

The conference dealt with several accidents in dismantling RTGs—the most recent of which occurred in Northeast Russia where the DOE is concentrating its funding. The incident, which occurred in September, was only recently made public by Russian nuclear authorities. The conference also publicised the unacceptably high incidence of theft of precious metals and vandalism of RTGs, leading to the abandonment of the highly active nuclear sources that power them. 

Most recent accident only publicised months after the fact
The most recent known RTG accident occurred when two RTGs were being dismantled on September 10th 2004, but no information was released about it until four months later, even though substantial gamma radiation was measured above the accident site. The two RTGs—Nos. 4 and 5 of the “Efir-MA” model produced in 1982—were being transported from the “New Siberia” island lighthouse off the Northeastern arctic coast of Siberia.

They were suspended from a helicopter by cables for transport to the Russian polar station at Bunge. When the helicopter ran into heavy weather the crew was forced to jettison the two RTGs from a height of 50 meters on the tundra at Zemlya Bunge island, 112 kilometres from another Russian polar station, Sannikova. They have not yet been recovered. 

The full article can be read at http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/37566.html

Rashid Alimov reported from St Petersburg and Charles Digges reported from Oslo.