On July 22 Chornobyl NPP took part in a joint video meeting between the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management (SAUEZM) and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI).

The meeting objective was to discuss the next steps of the Ukrainian and Korean sides to initiate a cooperative project within the Exclusion Zone and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on technical cooperation in nuclear energy research and development works.

At this meeting the KAERI experts presented technologies to be tested during the first phase of the project at the end of 2020. This involves the concrete waste treatment technology and the foam decontamination technology. These technologies are experimental and the ChNPP site is to become their “testing field”.

The meeting resulted in a decision to sign the MoU between SAUEZM and KAERI in August this year, as well as to develop a technical documentation on implementing the first phase of the project together with the ChNPP.

As explained by Oleh Nasvit, Adviser to the Head of SAUEZM, the creation of such project was boosted by the approval of a decision by the Republic of Korea to shut down its own NPPs, operating life of which expires. Five years ago the Korean government together with the KAERI developed a program for preparation of nuclear decommissioning technologies. During that time they developed most of technologies, except for some of them which should be checked at real facilities.

Read more: KAERI-ChNPP: Cooperation with the Republic of Korea

“The KAERI expressed its interest to find these facilities, because the Republic of Korea does not have such. They tested all their technologies only in a laboratory, and now they would like to check everything in the field. This is the cooperation they are interested in” – says Mr Nasvit.

For the ChNPP such project opens a possibility to test the latest world technologies which in future potentially could be used for its own needs in decontamination of radioactively contaminated materials to be generated during decommissioning of the Chornobyl NPP and transformation of the Shelter Object into an environmentally safe system.