On 27 April 2021, the 6th International Conference on Nuclear Decommissioning and Environmental Recovery INUDECO-2021 started at Chornobyl NPP and in the city of Slavutych. The conference is held as part of the National programme of events dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster and pursuant to the Decree of the President of Ukraine №556/2020 dated 9th December 2020 «On high priority efforts aimed at ensuring environmental safety, and preparation of events dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the Chronobyl disaster», in particular to consider the challenges and opportunities, enhance the efficiency of research and surveys, establish cooperation and exchange experience in the area of nuclear facilities decommissioning and management of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Due to the worldwide situation connected with the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 INUDECO conference is held both in-person and online. Participants have decided themselves upon which participation format is safe for their health.
In advance of the conference opening, a meeting was held via Zoom with veterans of Ukraine’s atomic energy industry on topic «Prypiat town: Just a moment before…», and start of online Hackathon «The city of new ideas». The next day, in-person participants of the conference came to Chornobyl NPP site for a technical tour and break-out sessions.
In a welcome speech to the guests of ChNPP site, the ChNPP's Technical Director (-Chief Engineer) Andrii Bilyk said the following: «Today, the objective of our conference is particularly relevant. 35 years ago, at the time of the Chornobyl accident, not only the Soviet Union where it happened, but the whole world faced a global never-before-seen challenge.
Over three and a half decades which passed after the accident, the humanity learned a lot, and the evidence of it is the construction of the New Safe Confinement which is now being prepared to full-scale operation, the Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility (ISF-2) and other facilities which were built thanks to the assistance and support from the international community. The NSC, which was built at the cost of financial and technological efforts, scientific research and great difficulties of literally the whole global community, is now ready, but the process of overcoming the consequences of the accident continues.
After the Chornobyl accident, we all wanted to believe that it was the first and the last global accident at the nuclear facility, but then the Fukushima-Daiichi accident demonstrated that unfortunately it was not. For Ukraine and Japan, and other countries which took the brunt of the man-made disasters, it will take years to reintegrate the territories and carry out social adaptation of the affected people and rehabilitation of the environment. That is why the importance of conferences of this topic is difficult to overestaimate, for the solutions they allow to make, contribute greatly to addressing both current and future challenges of the global community».
Within three days of the conference, participants will be considering reports regarding the current state of radioactively contaminated territories of the Chornobyl Exclusion zone and its existing environmental hazards; Chornobyl NPP decommissioning and its site development prospects; and activity on transforming the Shelter Object into an environmentally safe system.
FYI. The annual INUDECO conference has been held in Slavutych (Ukraine) since 2016 as part of events dedicated to the anniversary of the Chornobyl accident. Over this time, more than 500 academics and practitioners from Denmark, Belarus, Germany, Poland, the Russian Federation, Spain, Norway, the United States of America, Ukraine, France, the Czech Republic, and Japan took part in the conference which is held and organized in the youngest Ukrainian city of Slavutych. The Conference is organized by the Executive Committee of the Slavutych City Council of Vyshhorod raion, Municipal Enterprise «Regional Development Agency» of the Slavutych City Council, the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management, State Specialized Enterprise «Chornobyl NPP», Institute for NPP Safety Problems of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, Institute of Mathematical Machines & Systems Problems, and Slavutych branch of the National Technical University of Ukraine «Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute».
