Russia says will not store foreign nuclear fuel

MOSCOW, July 11 (Reuters) Russia does not plan to store spent nuclear fuel from foreign-made reactors as part of a possible atomic deal between Vladimir Putin and US President George W Bush, Russia's nuclear chief today said.

Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom, said he expected Bush and Putin to discuss the idea of a US-Russian deal on the peaceful use of atomic energy when they meet ahead of the Group of Eight summit at the weekend.

But he appeared to slap down reports in The Washington Post and the Financial Times that the White House was offering Russia a slice of the lucrative business to store spent nuclear fuel from US-supplied reactors.

''We have never imported foreign spent fuel in the past, we do not import it now and we will not import it,'' Kiriyenko said, Interfax news agency reported.

''What Russia does is to return fuel that was created inside Russia,'' he said during a visit to the Urals town of Ozersk, where access for foreigners is limited because of nuclear installations.

Kiriyenko said a possible US-Russia agreement would mark a nuclear ''renaissance,'' but any deal could take a least a year.

''We are prepared to get to work on a bilateral deal if the political will is there, but the process of drafting an agreement takes a long time,'' he said. ''This is laborious and could take at least a year for the preparatory work alone.'' The agreement would allow major civil nuclear cooperation between the Russia and the United States, both of which want to expand global access to atomic power with a system where a few states would offer nuclear power to other countries.

But their technical approaches differ and the US plan envisages a tighter limit on the number of nuclear states.

NUCLEAR = SECURITY? Bush has said nuclear energy is important for the G8 summit theme of ''energy security'' and would help tackle global warming.

''I view energy security... as how do we diversify away from hydrocarbons,'' he told a briefing of foreign reporters, according to a transcript sent by the U.S. embassy in Moscow.

''We're working with Japan, Russia, France and Great Britain to spend money to come up with a fast breeder reactor programme, so that we can reprocess, burn and reduce the amount of waste, which will hopefully then make the idea of additional civilian nuclear power in other countries more palatable politically.'' Kiriyenko, asked about possible areas of cooperation with the United States, he said Russia wanted to develop fast neutron reactor technology and technologies for producing mixed oxide fuel, containing uranium and plutonium, for power generation.

He also said an agreement would allow Russia to enrich US uranium to supply US power plants, Interfax reported.

Russia is keen to boost its energy portfolio, already bulging with oil and gas wealth, with new revenues from nuclear power, while the United States sees nuclear energy as a way of weaning the world off dependence on fossil fuels.

REUTERS SY BST2242