UKraine cannot afford massive costs of containing shattered Chernobyl nuclear reactor
Nuclear comeback: Funding fears for hi-tech lid on Chernobyl, The Australian NATHAN HODGE THE WALL STREET JOURNAL APRIL 26, 2016″………A workforce of about 2500 people is finishing a massive steel enclosure that will cover Chernobyl’s reactor 4, where the radioactive innards of the nuclear plant are encased in a concrete sarcophagus hastily built after the disaster. The zone is now aglow with the reflective safety vests of construction workers.
If all goes to plan, the new structure — an arch 260m wide, 165m long and 110m high — will be slid into place late next year over the damaged reactor and its nuclear fuel, creating a leak-tight barrier designed to contain radioactive substances for at least the next 100 years.
The project, known as the New Safe Confinement, is a feat of engineering. It will take two or three days to slide the 36,000- tonne structure into place. The arch, which looks something like a dirigible hangar, is large enough to cover a dozen football fields.
“You could put Wembley Stadium underneath here, with all the car parks,” said David Driscoll, the chief safety officer for the French consortium running the construction site.
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Nicolas Caille, project director for Novarka, the consortium of Vinci and Bouygues, the French contractors running the project, said about 1000 people worked on a typical shift at the construction site, keeping to a schedule of 15 days in and 15 out.
The €2.15 billion ($3.1bn) shelter installation plan has been funded by international donors and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a non-profit lending institution. But the Chernobyl clean-up faces a shortfall: €100 million is needed to finish a storage facility for highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from the other three reactors, all now offline
The EBRD’s spent fuel facility contract is with a US-based energy technology firm. When the dollar-denominated contract was signed, the euro was stronger against the greenback; with the two currencies approaching parity, the bank faces a shortfall.
“This has dug a huge euro hole,” said Vince Novak, director of the nuclear safety department for the EBRD. “Our income is in euros.”
Mr Novak said donors would meet by the end of this month to discuss financing to finish the project, which is financed separately from the Chernobyl shelter fund.
Spent fuel rods are stored in an ageing facility.
Completion of the project, Mr Novak said, “has always been somehow in the shadow of the New Safe Confinement because it is not as attractive, not as sexy. But it is equally important in terms of nuclear safety.
Even if donors plug the gap, Chernobyl will continue to pose a financial challenge for Ukraine.
More than 40 countries and the EBRD have contributed to the Chernobyl containment work, and international donors say it will be years before the Kiev government can take on the larger share of the burden. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/nuclear-comeback-funding-fears-for-hitech-lid-on-chernobyl/news-story/1df7b13de774a981f1063ac3c62e9a36
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