Dismantling work continues at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. One of the tasks ahead is building a deep repository to store spent nuclear fuel.
By now, about 40 percent of the dismantling work at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Lithuania has been completed. The nuclear fuel removed from the reactors has been safely transferred to a storage facility in four-metre-high casks.
According to the plant’s director general Linas Baužys, one hundred and ninety casks contain 90 percent of the most dangerous radioactive material from the plant.
“In principle, there is a temporary storage facility, which is supposed to last for fifty years. And after fifty years, we should have built a deep repository where we can store the spent nuclear fuel in a safer, more sustainable way, because it is not going to disappear by itself,” he tells LRT TV.
Where such a repository will be located will presumably become apparent in 20 years’ time. Seventy-seven potential sites across Lithuania have now been identified, and municipalities will be consulted.
“The deep repository will be about 700 metres deep, which is equivalent to two TV towers at that depth,” says Baužys. “So, not only have we deepened them and everything, but they will be specially concreted, cemented.”
Now that the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant is nearing the second reactor hall, no outside visitor will be able to enter once the dismantling begins.
“The radiation background increases and it becomes dangerous for outside visitors to go there. But given the high level of interest, we will certainly look for alternatives to show the nuclear power plant in other ways,” says the facility’s head of communications Jolita Mažeikienė.
The decommissioning process since 2010 has involved dismantling over 90,000 tonnes of equipment. Just as much work remains until the task is complete.
Lithuania’s strategy is to dismantle the plant immediately.
“One strategy is to shut down the plant, conserve it and leave it for future generations to deal with in a hundred years or so, with better technology. In Lithuania, we chose a different scenario, which is to start the dismantling work immediately after the shutdown,” explains Inglaina NPP planning manager Valdas Ledzinskas.
The decommissioning works at the plant are expected to last until 2038.
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