Established in 1996 the State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company ‘Energoatom’ is responsible for everything nuclear in Ukraine, including radioactive waste management. There is no intention for final disposal in Ukraine in the coming decades, though the possibility remains under consideration. In 2008 the National Target Environmental Program of Radioactive Waste Management was approved. Storage of used fuel for at least 50 years before disposal remains the policy.(*01)

Waste management: interim storage
Before 2005, Ukraine transported annually about 220 tons of spent fuel to Russia.(*02) Because of the rising price of Russia’s reprocessing and spent-fuel storage services, however, Energoatom decided in the 1990s to construct dry storage facilities. The first Ukrainian dry-cask interim storage facility came into operation in July 2001 at the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant for storage of fuel from the six reactors.(*03) But since 2005, Ukraine has been shipping spent fuel again to Russia from its other sites: about 150 tons a year from seven VVER-1000s and about 30 tons a year from its two VVER-
440s,(*04) at a cost to Ukraine of over US$100 annual.(*05)
In December 2005, Energoatom signed a US$ 150 million agreement with the US-based Holtec International to implement the Central Spent Fuel Storage Project for Ukraine’s VVER reactors.(*06) This was projected for completion in 2008, but was held up pending legislation. Then in October 2011 parliament (and upper house in February 2012) passed a bill on management of spent nuclear fuel. It provides for construction of the dry storage facility within the Chernobyl exclusion area. The storage facility will become a part of the spent nuclear fuel management complex of the state-owned company Chernobyl NPP,(*07) also constructed by Holtec.

The first pond-type spent fuel storage facility (SFSF-1) for RBMK-1000 spent fuel at Chernobyl has been in operation since 1986. Due to the “unavailability of SFSF-2 and taking into account the future prospects of this project it was decided to withdraw SFSF-1 from the list of facilities, subject to decommissioning.” SFSF-2 (or Interim Storage Facility-2 as it is often called outside Ukraine) construction started in June 2000 by Framatome (later Areva), financed by EBRD’s Nuclear Safety Account, and part of the Shelter Implementation Plan. ISF-2 is designed for long-term storage (100 years) of all Chernobyl spent fuel and is a necessary condition for decommissioning Chernobyl and SFSF-1. At the beginning of April, 2007 the agreement was canceled and in September 2007 a contract for completion was signed also with Holtec.(*08) The design of the new facility was approved by the Ukrainian regulator in late-2010. Work can commence once the contract amendment for the implementation is signed. It is expected that construction work will be finalized by 2014.(*09) Negotiations with Holtec on the construction could be completed in April 2012. Costs, however, have been escalating since the project financing scheme was drawn up before the 2008 financial crisis: some U.S. banks that participated in the financing scheme had ceased to exist.(*10)
High-level wastes from reprocessed spent fuel will be returned from Russia from 2013 onwards and should be stored at the existing repository ‘Vektor’ 17 km away from Chernobyl where a low-level waste repository has been built.(*11) Preliminary investigations have shortlisted sites for a deep geological repository for high- and intermediate-level wastes including all those arising from Chernobyl decommissioning and clean-up.(*12)

*01- World Nuclear Association, Nuclear Power in Ukraine, February 2012
*02- K.G. Kudinov: Creating an Infrastructure for Managing Spent Nuclear Fuel, in Glenn E. Schweitzer and A. Chelsea Sharber, ed., An International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility-Exploring a Russian Site as a Prototype, National Academies Press, 2005, pp. 145-151
*03- David G. Marcelli and Tommy B. Smith: The Zaporozhye ISFS, Radwaste solutions, Jan/Febr 2002
*04- International Panel of Fissile Materials: Managing spent fuel from nuclear power reactors, 2011
*05- World Nuclear Association, February 2012
*06- Business wire: Energoatom and Holtec International Formalize the Contract to Build a Central Storage Facility in Ukraine, 30 December 2005
*07- World Nuclear Association, February 2012
*08- Ukraine: Ukraine National Report on Compliance with the Obligations under the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, September 2008, p.48-49
*09- EBRD: Chernobyl: New Safe Confinement and Spent Fuel Storage Facility, March 2011
*10- Ukrinform: Talks on construction of storage facility for spent nuclear fuel to be completed in April, 28 March 2012
*11- Foratom: Ukrainian Nuclear Forum Association, 28 February 2012
www.foratom.org/associate-members/ukraine.html
*12- World Nuclear Association, February 2012