As of today, 91 of the 194 submarines with nuclear power plants removed from the fleet's inventories are waiting for their lot or being dismantled. Fifty eight submarines with nuclear fuel on board are berthed. Expectation of fuel discharge and dismantling lasts ten or even 20 years.
Discharging nuclear fuel is no end of utilisation. A submarine is cut in three. The bow and stern are cut for scrap, equipment is removed. The reactor and two adjacent compartments are sealed. They are cut out together with the sub's pressure hull, made of special steel almost four centimetres thick. This portion is the protection against radiation. It defies corrosion for dozens of years. These three-compartment sections are towed to special bays to be temporarily kept. They remain afloat at special observed and protected berths.
Alongside submarines, about 40 nuclear technical servicing vessels are pending utilisation. Their hulls are not as strong and the potential environmental hazard is much higher. In many such vessels radioactive waste or wasted fuel are kept.
Perhaps, the most topical and uphill goal of today is the rehabilitation of former overland maintenance bases, containing a vast amount of radioactive materials and wasted fuel. For instance, storehouses have never been overhauled over the 40 years of operation in the Andreeva Bay shore base in the Murmansk region.
Very soon, though nobody can say when, it is planned to move reactor sections cut out from submarines and berthed afloat to safety on dry land. Two such facilities are being built near the Saida gulf on the Kola peninsula and in the Far Eastern region of Russia.
