Overview of current Russian activities in P and T area

The general policy of radioactive waste management is consistent with the long-term plans for nuclear power development adopted in each country. Russian activities aimed at setting up in the future a fuel cycle of nuclear power with reasonably minimized quantities of Radwaste subject disposal are being carried out by Minatom as part of the general Strategy for development of national nuclear power. Several key missions of this Strategy deserve special mention: in the next 20-40 years, construction of advanced thermal reactors which will run on enriched uranium until the economically acceptable reserves of natural uranium are exhausted; reprocessing of all spent fuel of thermal reactors to separate plutonium and long-lived nuclides; development of a new generation of fast reactors which will meet the requirements placed on innovative reactors for large-scale electricity production (economic efficiency, safety, minimized Radwaste, proliferation resistance); after 2030, deployment of a system of innovative fast reactors, using plutonium separated from spent fuel of thermal reactors, and solution with their help of the totality of problems associated with transmutation of long-lived nuclides. Task named ''Transmutation'' was set up in 2001, within the general Minatom programme, to develop a scenario for transition to the fuel cycle of future large-scale nuclear power as part of the above Strategy and to resolve the technological problems of minimising the quantities of long-lived nuclides generated in the closed fuel cycle and subject to final disposal. (author)