The generators, used by the Soviets to power navigational beacons and communications equipment in remote areas, each contain up to 40,000 curies of highly radioactive strontium or cesium -- two heavy metals could contaminate large areas if combined with conventional explosives in a radiological weapon or "dirty bomb," the Post reported.

The daily, quoting scientists, added that even a tiny fraction of a single curie of strontium has a high probability of causing a fatal cancer.

In Georgia, on the Black Sea, a search is underway for at least two of the devices, called radiothermal generators, or RTGs, believed to have been abandoned and then stolen after the closing of a Soviet military base.

Some of the machines had been vandalized for scrap metal, and at least one could not be found, according to Russian government documents obtained by The Washington Post.

A report by a Russian commission that inspected the generators in 1997 cast the aging but potentially lethal devices in a troubling light.

"They would be easy targets for a terrorist attack," the report wrote.

RTGs are compact, self-contained power sources that convert radioactive energy into electricity.

They are ideal for remote areas with little access to traditional fuels. The Soviets are known to have built more than 300 of the devices, mostly to power navigational beacons along Arctic shipping lanes, according to the newspaper.

Russian Nuclear Waste Import Plans Unsound: Scientist
Meanwhile, a leading scientist warned Sunday that Russian plans to import some 20,000 tonnes of other countries' nuclear waste for an estimated gain of 20 billion dollars were unsound economically, ecologically and technologically.

President Vladimir Putin signed a law authorising the import of nuclear wastes into Russia last year, and earlier this month the lower-house State Duma approved the third and final reading of a bill creating a panel of experts that will oversee the operation, bringing the move closer to reality.

Academician Viktor Danilov-Danilian, co-chairman of the Russian Ecological Union, warned however that apart from the environmental hazards involved, much of the supposed financial gain could prove illusory.

"Barely half of Russia's own stocks of nuclear wastes are processed, so importing nuclear wastes actually means they will not be processed at all, but simply buried," he said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

"The supposed 20 billion dollars in benefit to Russia will be reduced by enormous spending on storing the wastes, on environmental monitoring and on insurance," he noted.

Government studies say the project could earn Russia some 21 billion dollars (24 billion euros) over the next 10 years.

However the legislation now approaching completion has been vigorously opposed by environmental groups and some scientists who argue that Russia lacks the necessary equipment and finances to safely store nuclear waste.

A recent report said that Russia had already accumulated 14,000 tonnes of high-grade nuclear waste from its own reactors and weaponry.

The United States -- the maker of nuclear power plants that account for most of the world's atomic waste -- has also warned that it will not allow spent fuel to be transferred to Russia from third countries without assurances from Moscow on its safety and security.

All rights reserved. � 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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