As the United States wrestles with management of spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors, Ukraine expects to consolidate its material two years from now, Holtec International announced last week.
Ukraine’s consolidated interim storage facility is due to open in 2019 in the Exclusion Zone around the Chernobyl nuclear plant. It would hold spent fuel from nine VVER reactors at Rivne, Khmelnitsky, and South Ukraine, according to a press release from the New Jersey-based energy industry equipment manufacturer.
NAEK Energoatom, Ukraine’s national utility, will manage the facility, which will feature storage technology from Holtec. Twelve representatives from Energoatom and Ukraine’s regulatory agency earlier this month visited Holtec production facilities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey.
“I am very satisfied with the preparedness of all the Holtec manufacturing facilities,” Energoatom Project Director Oleksandr Rybchuk said in the release. They have vast experience in manufacturing of similar equipment under the strict rules of quality assurance program enforced for the manufacturing of the equipment for nuclear applications. I am quite confident that with the demonstrated spirit of cooperation the Holtec and NAEK Energoatom project team will successfully complete the project on schedule.”
The facility will have storage capacity for 16,530 used fuel assemblies, according to the World Nuclear Association. The total cost is estimated at $460 million.
Holtec International is also one of two companies that have filed license applications with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate consolidated interim storage facilities closer to home. The Holtec site, to be built in southeastern New Mexico, would hold up to 120,000 metric tons of material.
Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists in April asked the NRC to suspend review of its license application for a 40,000-metric-ton facility in West Texas. The company is waiting on the outcome of its acquisition by EnergySolutions, which the U.S. Justice Department challenged on antitrust grounds. Following a bench trial, a federal judge is scheduled to issue a ruling on the case in a matter of weeks.
