19 Aug 2022 09:23

Rosatom to start storing radioactive waste at facility being built in Seversk in 2026

TOMSK. Aug 19 (Interfax) - Russia's National Operator for Radioactive Waste Management (NO RWM), a division of state corporation Rosatom, plans to load the first radioactive waste into the storage facility being built in Seversk, Tomsk Region in 2026, NO RWM's director of public relations, Nikita Medyantsev told reporters on Thursday.

"Infrastructure is being built at the construction site. We plan to start filling the facility in 2026. The timeframe is no different than what we had initially, we're on schedule. We plan to start loading radioactive waste that arrives and complies with the facility's acceptance criteria into the first compartments in 2026," Medyantsev said.

He also said that the cost estimate for the facility is 8 billion rubles, although earlier the cost was put at 5 billion rubles.

It was reported earlier that NO RWM planned to build a shallow repository for solid radioactive waste in Seversk, 19 km from Tomsk, at a vacant site that does not have any underground or aerial utility infrastructure. The 24.21-hectare site is 10 km away from the Tomsk River, 6 km away from petrochemical company Tomskneftekhim and 2 km away from the active radiochemical plant of the Siberian Chemical Combine.

Construction of infrastructure, including an office and amenities building, utility networks and roads, began in 2021 by St. Petersburg-based contractor Spetsproyekt LLC, which won a tender for the contract.

The license to store radioactive waste at the site was received in July 2020. The future repository will have gross capacity for 150,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste. It will store Class 3 and 4 waste, primarily from the Siberian Chemical Combine, which is a division of nuclear fuel company TVEL.

NO RAO is responsible for building a system in Russia for permanent isolation of radioactive waste in order to eliminate potential risks for the environment.