Chernobyl Nuclear Waste Deal Signed

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thursday September 16 12:21 PM ET 

Chernobyl Nuclear Waste Deal Signed

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine and a consortium of Belgian, French and 
Italian firms signed a deal Thursday to build a nuclear waste 
processing facility at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.  

The $122 million contract, to be financed by the European Bank for 
Reconstruction and Development, was signed in Kiev by Ukraine's state 
nuclear energy company Energoatom and Belgium's Belgatom, France's 
SGN and Italy's Ansaldo.  

The deal is a key part of the 1996 agreement between the former 
Soviet republic and the EBRD on improving safety at Chernobyl. The 
plant became infamous in 1986 after its No. 4 reactor exploded, 
spewing radiation over large parts of Europe.  

Ukraine, at the West's urging, has pledged to close down the troubled 
facility by 2000, but wants outside financial help to complete the 
lengthy procedure of removing nuclear fuel and turning the plant into 
an environmentally safe zone.  

Two of Chernobyl's four Soviet-designed RBMK reactors have already 
been shut down, leaving only one reactor in operation.

The nuclear waste facility, to be completed at the end of 2001, will 
have the capacity to process 87,500 cubic feet of liquid nuclear 
waste annually.  

Some 472,500 cubic feet of waste has accumulated in Chernobyl over 
the 21 years of the plant's operation, Chernobyl officials said.  

The 1996 deal with the EBRD calls for $758 million in repairs on the 
concrete-and-steel shelter that covers the destroyed reactor No. 4.  

It also calls for other safety projects, including construction of 
the waste processing plant and of a waste depository that was
launched earlier this year.

Ukraine has also demanded more than $1 billion to complete two new 
nuclear reactors to compensate for the loss of power that  
would result from Chernobyl's closure.

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html