MINSK, 26 February (BelTA) – Belarusian Deputy Energy Minister Mikhail Mikhadyuk told media about how radioactive waste of the Belarusian nuclear power plant will be handled, BelTA has learned.
As part of the project special facilities will be built on site to store radioactive waste for ten years. A separate offsite facility is supposed to be built elsewhere as part of the Belarusian strategy on handling nuclear waste. Scientists of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (NASB) are now working on technologies the dedicated radioactive waste storage facility will use.
As far as spent nuclear fuel is concerned, every year some of the spent fuel will be moved into the cooling pond as part of the fuel reloading process. The pond is designed to accommodate ten years of operation of the nuclear power-generating unit. Spent fuel takes three to four years to cool down (the reaction slows down). After this period of time spent fuel can be moved into secure transportation containers. The Belarusian-Russian intergovernmental agreement on building the nuclear power plant clearly stipulates that the Russian side will take Belarusian fuel for recycling, said Mikhail Mikhadyuk.
The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built using the Russian standard Generation III+ design AES-2006 near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2019, with the second one to go online in 2020.
