The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) last week received grants totaling 19 million euros ($21.7 million) from the European Union for a fund used to support waste management operations at the long-shuttered Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
The bank’s 24-year-old Nuclear Safety Account provides financing for safety and security activities at Soviet-era nuclear power plants. Today it aids work on the Interim Storage Facility 2 and Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant at Chernobyl, site of the 1986 nuclear disaster in what is now Ukraine.
The Interim Storage Facility 2, now undergoing testing, will ultimately hold over 20,000 spent fuel assemblies from a deteriorating storage pond at Chernobyl. Extraction, processing, and storage of the used fuel is expected to begin later in 2017 and to last seven years, according to a July 6 EBRD press release.
“In terms of nuclear safety, the completion of this €400 million facility will be a major achievement and a huge step forward in the reduction of radiological hazards,” Vince Novak, EBRD nuclear safety director, said in the release. “We are very pleased to be able to continue this work to increase nuclear safety and security in eastern Europe.”
The European Union is the top contributor to EBRD nuclear safety funds, providing 2.4 billion to date.
