CONSULTING

decontamination of 1,500 hectares of land containing over 5,550 terabecquerel of activity. A
railway was built to transport the spent fuel by train carriages.
Following the shutdown of the three operating plants, the total inventory accounted for 21,300 fuel
bundles for a weight of 2,700 tons of uranium and 2,000 absorbers, partly still in the three units'
cores, partly kept in the reactor cooling pools as well as transferred to the interim storage facility
ISF-1. The fuel bundles and absorbers are inserted into a transfer flask and carried by a train
carriage to the SFPF at the ISF-2 site. There they are introduced into a hot cell where the fuel bundle
and absorbers are dried by means of a gas dehydration system and cut by means of a specially built
cutting machine.
The Nuhoms system consists of an enclosure vessel comprising canisters forming separate
confinements to prevent the spread of radioactive materials. Spent fuel bundles are introduced in
an internal basket that is then included into a canister. Each canister is placed horizontally in the
Nuhoms casks that are then introduced in individual compartments of the heavy concrete storage
module built at the ISF-2 site. 261
Construction was due to be completed by March 2003. However, construction went on for about
six years of construction until 2006 and several problems had arisen. Despite the near-completion
of the processing building and the concrete housing structures for the Nuhoms casks, the work was
interrupted due to design errors and negligence of the fact that water had penetrated through the
cladding in more than 10 percent of the fuel assemblies. It was also found that the fuel included
some reprocessed uranium and plutonium, for which a different neutron spectrum would require
redesign of the storage shielding. Additional problems were caused by considerable cost overruns,
which raised the investment into the project from an original €68 million (US$64 million) to
€275 million (US$326 million).
In March 2006, US-based Holtec International submitted to ChNPP a feasibility study for drying the
spent fuel that contained water and, in November 2006, conducted successful testing of the drying
facility model. EBRD's Safety Review Group recommended that the donors continue funding the
project with Holtec as the main contractor.
The Framatome ANP contract was terminated in April 2007 262 and following an international audit
and arbitration, the company was requested to pay the client a compensation of €45 million
(US$59.4 million). In September 2007, Holtec signed a contract to complete the ISF-2. The facility's
final design was approved by the Ukrainian Regulator in October 2010.
While still making use of the Nuhoms system, the project implements several Holtec technologies
including an innovative double-wall canister, an advanced forced gas dehydration system, and a hot cell
to dismantle the RBMK fuel assemblies. The first phase of work, which lasted 100 weeks, valued at
slightly over €30 million (US$41 million) involved the preparation of safety and environmental
qualification documents in compliance with Ukrainian norms and standards.
The entire work, scheduled to span nearly eight years, involves the supply of 231 canisters
manufactured at Holtec's plant in Pittsburgh to be delivered between 2016 and April 2019. The
contract includes the construction of the processing facility, numerous physical modifications to
the site, and issuance of the intermediate and final safety analysis reports.
261 SSE Chernobyl NPP, “Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Facility (ISF-2)”, Undated, see
http://chnpp.gov.ua/en/decommissioning-projects/ongoing-projects/isf-2, accessed 1 July 2016.
262 Le Journal de l’Énergie, “Areva’s incredible fiasco in Chernobyl”, 17 February 2016, see
http://journaldelenergie.com/nucleaire/arevas-incredible-fiasco-in-chernobyl/, accessed 1 July 2016.
Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al. 85 World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016