“A slow-motion Chernobyl on the seabed”: il Barents Observer, an online newspaper specializing in the Arctic, ha defined so is the depot of Russian nuclear submarines between the Kara Sea and the Barents Sea, south of the Arctic Ocean. For decades Russia has used these areas as dump sites for its nuclear waste, and at the bottom of these seas are two still intact nuclear-powered submarines, as well as a dozen reactors filled with nuclear fuel. This underwater nuclear cemetery is very dangerous: the corrosion of reactors left underwater could cause large losses of radioactive material and dangerous contamination for both marine fauna and flora and for people.
Nuclear submarines have returned to talk recently after the signing of the anti-China military pact known as AUKUS (acronym for Australia, United Kingdom and United States, the countries that are part of it): the pact provides for the allocation of these vehicles to Australia, which would become the seventh country in the world to possess nuclear-powered submarines.
Nuclear submarines are a very sophisticated and strategically relevant weapon. They are so called because they use engines powered by one or more nuclear reactors, which make them much more powerful and faster and less interceptible than submarines powered by conventional fuels. They are among the most expensive weapons that exist and are huge: they weigh thousands of tons and are as long as a small skyscraper (as long as the Vertical Forest of Milan, to understand, or up to four times the Tower of Pisa).
Russia is one of the countries that has more nuclear submarines, and it was also among the first to have them. It did so especially during the Cold War, when both the Soviet Union and the United States put together two huge fleets of nuclear submarines – circa 400, between both – to be used above all with a deterrent function: not to attack the enemy directly, therefore, but for discourage him from acting for fear of reaction.
– Read also: What is a nuclear submarine
The Cold War never resulted in open conflict, and all those submarines therefore remained a silent weapon at the bottom of the sea: Russia kept them parked especially near the Arctic Ocean, although it had also scattered others elsewhere, near Korea. North and in the Baltic bar.
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the so-called “then the problem of what to do with all those submarines arose, also because, in addition to being very expensive and requiring highly specialized personnel, nuclear submarines are not very long-lived, and after about 20 or 30 years they begin to perform less well.
Already during the Cold War, then, there had been accidents with leaks of radioactive material and the question arose of how to dispose of older submarines.
An undated photo of a Russian nuclear submarine (Getty Images)
–
At the end of the Cold War, Russia had one hundred of active nuclear submarines, many of them equipped with double nuclear reactors and loaded with ballistic missiles on which nuclear warheads had been mounted. Then began a huge and very expensive divestment (it cost more than one billion euros today), which Russia carried out together with some Western countries, including the United Kingdom.
The decommissioning work, however, was neither complete nor well done.
The disposal of nuclear submarines is a long, complicated and dangerous process, which requires specialized personnel and long dives, for several periods: the first phase of the dismantling involves the removal of the nuclear reactors present (in addition to any missiles with nuclear warheads mounted on the submarine) , and subsequently the extraction of the radioactive material from the reactor: to do this, it is necessary to take the fuel rods from the core of each reactor, seal them in steel drums and prepare them for transport and storage.
An old Russian submarine is brought back to the surface (Oleg Nikishin / Newsmakers)
–
During the disposal operations, Russia dumped a lot of nuclear waste directly into the sea: two years ago in the Arctic ocean they were found thousands of radioactive objects, many of them with levels of radioactivity considered dangerous, and about 14 nuclear reactors still loaded with nuclear fuel rods.
There were also two entire nuclear submarines left at sea complete with all their parts, which are still underwater and still potentially capable of emitting a lot of radiation. about a quarter of those released in the first months of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Dismissing them would have required long and strenuous dives in icy waters, in which it would only be possible to dive in three or four months of the year, and Russia left them where they were.
One of the two submarines, called K-27, is located in the Kara Sea and is known as “the golden fish ”for its enormous cost. It is 118 meters long, almost like a 40-story building.
In 1968, a few years after its construction, in that submarine they died nine people in an accident due to a gas leak from the reactors, which exposed them to lethal radiation: the other crew members (about a hundred) fell ill, dying prematurely in the following years. In 1981 the K-27 submarine was towed and sunk, but without being deprived of its nuclear reactors. According to some experts who went to inspect it, it could remain intact at most until 2032.
The wreck of a submarine, corroded by sea water (James Delgado / US Embassy in Panama via AP)
—
The other submarine, the K-159, is located on the bottom of the Barents Sea. In 2003 the order finally came to dispose of it. It was then brought to the surface and attached to a pier in the Gremikha marina, nicknamed “the island of flying dogs” due to its strong winds. Early in the morning, as ten operators were aboard the submarine to work on the decommissioning, a storm he agitated the sea so much that the waves managed to smash the huge and very heavy wreck, causing it to slam violently against the dock.
The tow line that kept it attached to the dock broke and the submarine sank within an hour, with people on board, as the storm hampered rescue. Only one of the sailors on board was saved. Since then the K-159 has lain, still loaded with its reactors (which contain approx 800 chili of nuclear fuel), on the bottom of the Barents Sea, one of the largest reserves of cod in the world, where it is caught most of the cod sold in the UK, as well as the habitat of many red king crabs, walruses, whales, polar bears and many other animals.
In March 2020, after years of pressure, Russian President Vladimir Putin finally announced a plan to decommission the two submarines and recover the many reactors still full of nuclear fuel lost in the water from the two Nordic seas. If finalized, the operation will remove approximately 90 percent of all radioactive materials in the Arctic ocean. Is considered very urgent, but it is not expected to be able to complete it before 2030, given that Russia will have to equip itself with some of the necessary means to carry out the long and demanding dives, which he does not yet possess.
The first submarine to be removed will be the K-159, the one sunk during the storm. In order to complete the operation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development she said she was ready to cooperate with the expenses.
– Read also: How many atomic weapons are there in the world?
–
