nuclear-news

The spent fuel will be soon transferred to new storage, as the old one’s operational life is expiring Chornobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) received special permission to run hot tests with the spent nuclear fuel. Press office of the NPP reported that on September 8.

According to the message, over 23 years of service, the storage amounted up to 21,000 elements of nuclear waste. Due to the fact that the operational life of the current storage is expiring, the staff is now making arrangements to transport the waste to a new repository site. At first, only part of the waste will be transferred, and the rest is to be moved after successful “hot” tests.

“The new storage boasts of special technology, allowing to keep the building in the inert atmosphere. It’ll have helium pumped up in there, and the bilateral leak-tight bottles, which are supposed to keep the spent fuel for 100 years,” said Volodymyr Peskov, the Acting Director of Chornobyl NPP enterprise.

The NPP staff managed to get permission for hot tests after cold tests with nuclear waste were performed successfully.