Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ostap Semerak visited the Chernobyl NPP site within the frame of a working visit to the Exclusion Zone on October 24.
Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility No.2 (ISF-2) was the first object visited by the Minister. The storage facility is designed for receiving, processing for storage and storage of spent nuclear fuel accumulated during the Chernobyl NPP operation. Here representatives of top management of the ChNPP and Building Contractor told about the facility construction progress, future works and implementation periods.
After this information visit the Minister, Head of the State Agency of Ukraine on the Exclusion Zone Management and ChNPP Director General answered questions of representatives of the Ukrainian mass media.
“During its operation the Chernobyl NPP generated more than 22 thousand spent fuel assemblies. I want to emphasize – this is not radioactive waste, but strategic raw material that, I hope, our successors could use in next-generation nuclear reactors. Definitely, this raw material must be stored under absolutely safe conditions; and the new storage facility will provide such conditions” – stated Chernobyl NPP Director General Igor Gramotkin.
The Minister of Ecology Ostap Semerak: “We try to look at this area not only as the accident area, but as the area of changes and development. The construction of the new spent nuclear fuel storage facility is important as it offers a possibility for the safe storage of the Chernobyl NPP spent fuel over the period of one hundred years, and, consequently, a possibility of future usage of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone area.”
After that, the delegation, which was headed by the Minister, visited the Chernobyl NPP Unit 1 Turbine Hall, where preparatory works on creating a storage facility for the radioactive waste (RAW) generated as a result of the NPP decommissioning are underway.
Such decision was made given that the free capacities of the existing storage facilities will be exhausted over the next 2-3 years. Placement of the storage facility at the Turbine Hall has economic justification – the I Stage Hall is equipped with required utility networks, hoisting machines, transport accesses and physical protection systems. This allows minimizing construction works when creating new RAW management facilities, while placement of the whole infrastructure in one room will reduce transport expenses in future.
Prior to the construction and installation works, the Turbine Halls’ room must be released from structures, equipment and pipelines which are subject to dismantling within the frame of the decommissioning design.
Creation of the container-type storage facilities is expected in boxes of turbine generators No. 1-4. Each of them can accommodate about 16 000 (3 230 m3) of 200-L drums with waste.
