Spent fuel management in the former Soviet Union and the eastern European countries

There is a total of 66 nuclear power plant units in the former Soviet Union and eastern European countries, with a generating capacity of more than 44,000 MWe. Changes in politics and trading relationships are affecting spent fuel management policies. This paper describes the various approaches to the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle adopting in these countries and reports data on the amount of spent fuel discharged from the nuclear power reactors with a summary table. Various types of interim storage capacities for the countries of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. The Nuclear Materials and Fuel Cycle Technology Section in the Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Management of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is responsible for organizing work concerning the management of spent fuel from power plants and research reactors, providing a forum to exchange and disseminate information on the storage of spent fuel from research and test reactors. An account is given of IAEA programs and recent publications.