ST. PETERSBURG, September 26 (RIA Novosti-North-West, Olga Vtorova) - Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency Rosatom is expecting more than $120 million from a number of countries to scrap decommissioned nuclear submarines, a Rosatom spokesman said Monday at an international conference on nuclear security economics in St. Petersburg.
According to deputy head of Rosatom Sergei Antipov, the governments of Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, France, Canada, Japan, Australia and the European Union will allot the funds, with talks on South Korea joining the program already underway.
Antipov also said about $70 million was to be allocated for scrapping nuclear submarines from the 2006 Russian budget.
The Russian Navy has decommissioned a total of 196 atomic submarines since the 1980s, but only scrapped 115 of them.
"The government ordered the disposal of all [decommissioned] nuclear submarines by 2010. Eighteen submarines will be dismantled this year and some 15 others next year," Antipov said.
The aggregate capacity of all the 250 reactors on board the submarines equals that of the country's nuclear power plants, making disposal a huge problem, he said.
