Russia to close down last reactor generating weapons-grade plutonium.

WASHINGTON, April 14 (Itar-Tass) - Russia is going to close down
before the end of this month the last nuclear reactor generating
weapon-grade plutonium, which is located in the town of Zheleznogorsk, the
Krasnoyarsk territory in Siberia, Russian President's press secretary
Natalya Timakova said Thursday.
"In his speech at the plenary session of the world /nuclear/ summit,
President Dmitry Medvedev made known the decision to close down the last
plutonium-generating reactor in Zheleznogorsk," Timakova said.
The mining and chemical plant in Zheleznogorsk is considered to be a
unique subterranean facility without analogues anywhere in the world.
The amount of soil and rock excavated during its construction is
comparable with the quantities of excavations in the Moscow metro.
A reactor factory and a radiochemical factory have been built in its
subterranean part.
For decades since the commissioning of the facility in the 1950's, it
manufactured weapons-grade plutonium, but the process of
military-to-civilian manufacturing conversion that began there in 1995
shifted its main production activity to the area of transportation and
storage of waste nuclear fuel and the output of electric power at an
underground nuclear power plant.