Lepse (ship)

The vessel was named in memory of the participant of the three Russian revolutions of the worker Ivan Lepse and laid at the Nikolaev shipyard in 1934. Its construction continued until the beginning of the Second World War. The Lepse motor ship was lifted from the bottom of the Black Sea after the end of World War II .

In 1959, during the construction of the atomic icebreaker "Lenin", it became clear that for the normal operation of an icebreaker, an escort vessel, specially equipped to receive radioactive waste and cooling water of reactor circuits, is necessary. The choice of specialists fell on the Lepse dry cargo ship due to the hull, which was very durable for those times. And in 1961, the Admiralty Plant in Leningrad re-equipped the vessel for new purposes.

In the period from 1963 to 1981, Lepse carried out 14 operations to recharge nuclear fuel on the nuclear-powered icebreakers Lenin, Arktika and Siberia . In 1981, the vessel was re-equipped into a repository of spent nuclear fuel, radioactive waste, and equipment.

At the same time, uranium fuel rods from the Lenin icebreaker were located on the Lepse from the time of the accident with an insufficient amount of coolant that took place in the 1960s until 2011. The level of gamma radiation in the compartment with these rods, many of which are partially destroyed, as well as in the neighboring compartments exceeded the natural level several thousand times ^[1] .

In 1984, the ship set off on its last voyage and got into a heavy storm in the Kara Sea . Radioactive water spilled into the storage room, and then it was not possible to completely deactivate it. Since then, radiation levels in all the Lepse premises have remained high, which prevents its disposal. Since the end of the 1980s, Lepse has been at the pier, representing an increasing potential nuclear and radiation threat ^[2] .

On September 10, 1986, a special resolution was adopted by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers on the ship recycling project.

639 fuel assemblies with SNF are placed in the storage of the vessel, some of which are damaged, and unloading of some of these assemblies from the storage is not possible in a regular manner. A total of 260 kg of uranium ( U-235 ), 156 kg of fission products, and 8 kg of plutonium ( Pu-239 ) are still stored on the ship built back in 1934. The activity of SNF in the storage facility is currently about 680 thousand curies, which is commensurate with the release activity during the Mayak accident in 1957 ^[2] .

Recycling "Lepse" is included in the list of nine priority projects of the Strategic Master Plan, developed by request of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Disposal of the vessel will cost over 43 million euros. ^{[3]. The} start of SNF unloading from the Lepse storage tanks is scheduled for the end of 2018. The unloading of spent nuclear fuel from the FTB Lepse is scheduled to be completed no later than 2020.

Since 2008, the Lepse utilization project has been carried out by the Federal Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety, JSC FTsNRB (an enterprise of ROSATOM) with the support of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). ^[four]

About 250 million rubles were allocated from the federal budget of Russia for the disposal project, of which about 200 million were funds for handling spent nuclear fuel ^[5] . Foreign funds are directed to the disposal of the ship itself ^[5] .

On September 14, 2012, the vessel was towed on its last voyage to the recycling plant ^[6] .

In December 2013, the second stage of the preparation of the Lepse for disposal was carried out at the Nerpa shipyard. The vessel was towed from the temporary storage site to Embankment No. 1. It is supposed to carry out work on dismantling part of the superstructures and prepare the vessel for staging on the deck plate ^[7] .

In October 2014, the Lepse floating center was transferred to an open deck plate ^[8] .

By the end of 2016, the vessel was cut into several parts. Relatively clean superstructures, the engine room and the bow of the vessel are disposed of. The compartment with radioactive waste is enclosed in a capsule and prepared for long-term storage onshore. The spent fuel compartment is preparing to unload the fuel, for which the coastal infrastructure is being built. It is supposed to be ready by 2018. All work on the Lepse disposal is planned to be completed by 2020. ^[9]

• Project Lepse
• International project for the disposal of the floating technical base “Lepse” in Murmansk
• "The history of a nuclear vessel"
• Ship on wikimapia