Russia to dismantle Soviet-era nuclear waste storage ship

New Scientist : The cargo ship Lepse contains 638 fuel rods from Soviet-era Russian nuclear-powered ships and submarines. The fuel rods produce 2.7 × 10¹⁶ Bq of radioactivity, equivalent to the radiation released by the Chernobyl disaster. For the last 15 years the ship has been sitting in a harbor in Murmansk, Russia. In October, it was towed into dry dock for dismantling. If there is an accident during the process, significant radiation could be released. Russia has previously refused assistance for the project, likely because of national secrecy concerns. The threat of radiation to the Arctic region from Russian nuclear waste is not limited to the Lepse. Sixteen nuclear reactors have been deposited offshore, many with their fuel assemblies still onboard. Two of those—one in a submarine that sank while being towed in for scrapping and the other in a submarine scuttled after an accident—account for half of the radioactive waste in the Arctic Ocean. Because of the corrosiveness of saltwater, both submarines are considered at risk of leaks that could seriously contaminate the Arctic.