By KYIV. Nov 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom and Holtec International plan to build a plant in Ukraine to produce containers for spent nuclear fuel, currently produced in the United States, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine has reported.
As stated in its press release on Wednesday, this was discussed during a meeting in Washington between Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko and the company’s President and CEO Kris Singh.
“With such professional partners as Holtec International, the revival of Ukrainian nuclear energy is not just our goal, but a reality. We are grateful to our partners for believing in the importance of nuclear energy for a sustainable future and success of Ukraine,” Haluschenko said, as quoted in the press release.
According to Singh, Ukraine’s nuclear energy potential is the best in the region, and Holtec has been and remains its reliable partner.
The Ministry of Energy said that the cooperation between Holtec International and Energoatom has already had a practical result – the Centralized Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility has been built, which is already receiving spent nuclear fuel from Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
Energoatom, in turn, said on its Telegram channel that the Central Storage Facility is operating successfully and is fully fulfilling its function. At the same time, according to the company’s calculations, the cost savings for the removal and storage of spent nuclear fuel from domestic nuclear power plants already this year completely covered the costs of building the storage facility.
As reported, Ukraine’s use of its own central spent nuclear fuel storage facility and refusal of Russia’s services for spent fuel storage and reprocessing saves approximately $200 million annually.
At the end of April 2022, Energoatom received a special permit from the State Nuclear Inspectorate to launch the central nuclear storage facility intended for long-term storage of spent fuel from the Pivdennoukrainska, Khmelnytsky and Rivne nuclear power plants, which was exported to Russia before 2021.
