Belgrade is a Uranium Keg

The Vinca nuclear institute is only a few minutes of driving away from Belgrade. Apart from an experimental reactor which has been out of order for years, the institute also has a large pool into which used nuclear fuel has been disposed since the early sixties. The aluminum barrels containing a deadly load of uranium, strontium, plutonium and other radioactive waste have been corroding for some years now. If no action is taken in the nearest future, the barrels will leak and cause serious radioactive pollution. Even a nuclear explosion cannot be ruled out. The federal government needs to allocate 100,000 dollars to solve the problem, but at this time it is highly uncertain whether the money will be found.

The story about radioactive waste in Vinca started leaking last month, after a series of articles about the affair were published in a bulletin called "Nuclear Fuel", a part of the US scientific magazine "Nucleonic Week". The article headlined "Vinca requires the disposal of highly enriched uranium due to growing unrest in Serbia" says that the institute has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take 40 kilograms of fresh nuclear fuel, imported from Russia 20 years ago, out of Yugoslavia. The reporter who wrote the story, Mark Hibbs, links the demand with the unstable political situation in Serbia and says the institute management fears that the 85 percent pure uranium 235 could fall into the hands of "political desperadoes" who could use it for terrorist action.

"Nuclear fuel" is a low-profile magazine, but its contents have caused some concern among Serbia's scientists for quite obvious reasons. Dragan Jovanovic's article called "Hiroshima next to Belgrade", published in the weekly NIN on March 7 this year and confirming Mark Hibbs's theory, only added to the confusion. The truth about Vinca is far more complex than what that. It has less to do with desperadoes, secret Serbian programmes and the nuclear mafia, not more with local and international bureaucracy, the consequences of which could be fatal even though the conspiracy factor does not exist in this case.

The institute staff confirmed that they do have the barrels containing highly enriched uranium, but vehemently denied they asked anyone to take it out of the country. "We have imported this fuel for our experimental reactor and it hasn't been used yet," says the institute manager Miroslav Kopecni. Kopecni pointed out the fuel presented no ecological threat, and added this was confirmed by IAEA experts who come to Vinca for an inspection every month.

Experts of the Vienna-based body did have their objections to security standards in Vinca, - a single police officer and a barbed wire. Kopecni says the IAEA has allocated some means to improve these standards, and special surveillance cameras have been bought recently. The IAEA's interest in Vinca's uranium has little do with ecology, but a lot with the concern of some countries that it could be used to make a bomb. "They come hear to check the fillings and make sure that no one has touched the barrels," says Kopecni, as he explains that highly enriched uranium is suitable for producing a number of things, including a bomb. Vinca was being inspected every three months because Yugoslavia had a very good reputation with the IAEA but when the country fell apart in 1991 the inspections became far more frequent for obvious reasons. In spite of the fact that Yugoslavia's expulsion from the UN meant a formal expulsion form the IAEA too, relations between Vinca and the international body never deteriorated. This was confirmed to us in an informal conversation with IAEA representatives in Vienna, who said they had no reason to believe someone in Belgrade was planning to make a bomb.

Speaking about plutonium, one of the basic prerequisites for a bomb, Vinca did produce this element in the seventies. "We produced only a few grams for experimental purposes, and we did not keep it secret" say members of the institute staff and add they cooperated closely with institutes in Czechoslovakia and Norway back then. They point out that the results were published on the front page of many daily newspapers. However, plutonium production has been cut down drastically since then, never to be increased again. The larger of the two reactors was shut down ten years ago for safety reasons, as it no longer met the improved international security standards. The other reactor, with a several thousand times smaller capacity, is still operating. Kopecni maintains that the "Nuclear fuel" articles are part of a campaign whose objective is to take forty kilos of uranium out of Yugoslavia, masterminded by nuclear powers which quite simply don't want this dangerous weapon anywhere outside their territory. "Uranium falls into the category of strategic material, and the US has launched a campaign with the IAEA and through the RETIR program to return all such material it sold to third world countries. However, the Vinca highly-enriched uranium came from Russia, it has been bought and paid for, and therefore it belongs to us", says Kopecki.

We were told the same thing in Vienna. "Vinca has no reason whatsoever to return the uranium to Russia, although some countries would like that very much", our Vienna source says. Kopecni, on the other hand, hopes that the main reactor could be put back into operation. Several million dollars required for that to happen are a case of wishful thinking in this country but according to Kopecni, dismantling Vinca would cost even more. The latter would also affect other scientific programmes being kept alive with rope-and-stick methods. Vinca is the subject of a far more terrifying story than the one on 40 kilos of enriched uranium. Immense amounts of radioactive waste had accumulated in the pool while reactor A was in operation. The reactor was in operation for 30 years, and the end product is the used fuel we mentioned. The uranium combustion in the reactor results in a chain off radioactive substances whose decomposition could last up to a few million years. The pool, built 30 years ago along with the reactor, was supposed to be a temporary solution and that's what it has remained to this day. Used fuel was first stored in stainless steel pipelines, but had to be moved to aluminum barrels when a lack of space became a problem. Aluminum barrels and its rubber edges are corrosive, and this process is well underway according to photos taken by under-water cameras and chemical tests. To make things worse, hydrogen is one of the side-effects and it can result in an explosion because of pressure created in the inner walls of the barrel. If that happened, a radioactive bubble would rise from the pool. It wouldn't kill anyone, but it would cause very serious pollution. According to some estimations, the amount of hydrogen produced should already have caused an explosion inside the barrels, and it is most certain that it could happen any time from now. The Vinca staff say this has not happened yet only because cracks have most probably appeared on the barrels already so the surplus hydrogen is leaking into the pool.

"The situation is potentially very serious. The barrels have been corroding for 30 years and they are obviously under pressure. The bubble could result in an aerosol radioactive solution which wouldn't kill anyone immediately, but it would still be very serious," our Vienna source says. A radioactive bubble would be a fairly harmless consequence of the affair. If the uranium itself starts corroding, the side-product will be uranium - hydride, probably the most flammable substance known to mankind. White phosphorus, used to devise flammable and napalm bombs, is less perilous than this substance. All uranium-hydride needs to explode is a few molecules of oxygen, even under water. A resulting fire inside a pool of radioactive waste would last for days and the consequences would be unforseeable.

The third and most horrifying potential outcome is the least probable one. "If several barrels exploded simultaneously, the geometry of nuclear fuel inside the pool would change and the situation would become critical," our Vienna source says. Anyone who had physics in high school will know what he is talking about: a critical mass of uranium proceeds a nuclear reaction, and an uncontrolled nuclear reaction is what happens when an atomic bomb is dropped. It would not be an explosion like in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, if that is any consolation at all, and the chance of this nightmare happening is very, very tiny. How tiny, our Vienna source could not say.

Vinca experts knew all this long ago, and so did the federal government, whose responsibility when it comes to nuclear waste is zero probability of something like that happening. "Corrosion was not invented by Serbs," says Kopecni, adding that several other countries have the same problem. "We wanted this solved long ago. There is a complete Russian-made program to re-pack the fuel and clean the pool", he says. The problem is money, as usual. The whole thing costs around 300,000 dollars, but the institute does not have the money.

Beside, it has been unclear for some years now whether Vinca falls within the competence of Serbia or Yugoslavia (former and present). The institute experts have pressed for a federal commission for nuclear energy to be formed, and finally got it recently. It is headed by Nikola Sainovic, but it hardly ever convenes. Things don't look much better on the international front: although the IAEA should have offered a helping hand long ago, the fact that Yugoslavia has been expelled from the UN (which the IAEA is formally a part of) made it impossible for the organization to allocate funds controlled by the great powers. "The affair ended up on the desk of the US secretary of state, but it was said from his office that there can be no exceptions," our Vienna source says. The IAEA declared a state of nuclear emergency in Vinca.

There are special funds for situations like that, and half the amount required was allocated. The interesting thing is that the Vinca radioactive waste and its condition was far less intriguing for the "Nuclear fuel" reporter, who failed to even mention that a state of emergency has been declared.

The other half of the sum should be provided by the federal government, but that it will be no easy task in light of the present situation. The position of scientific institutes in Yugoslavia, especially Vinca, is a subject requiring a whole new article, just like the storage of low radiation waste.

The government and the education ministry have spent a lot of time dealing with Vinca lately, but their efforts are unfortunately directed at cutting down politically unacceptable staff rather than solving the problem.

Meanwhile, the radioactive level in the Vinca pool is being doubled or even tripled on a monthly basis. The inhabitants of Belgrade can sleep tight - Nikola Sainovic and Madeleine Albright are watching over them.