On 21 November 2022, a round table entitled ‘Nuclear Legacy Sites: Experience and Prospects for Cooperation’ was held in Sochi as part of the 12th International Forum ATOMEXPO 2022. It was organized by TVEL Fuel Company of ROSATOM.
The event was attended by representatives of the ROSATOM and relevant Commonwealth ministries, agencies, and organizations as well as international experts in decommissioning. The participants discussed nuclear legacy decommissioning projects currently underway in the CIS, modern technologies, and a joint programme for cooperation. The discussion was moderated by Olga Lugovskaya, Head of Gosatomnadzor of the Republic of Belarus.
Participants stressed the importance of developing nuclear back-end cooperation. First generation nuclear facilities have already been around for 75 years now. The first nuclear power units and fuel cycle facilities, many of which have been shut down without being permanently decommissioned, are fast approaching the 60–70-year mark.
Eduard Nikitin, Director of Decommissioning Programmes at TVEL, presented a Programme Concept for working together to ensure nuclear legacy sites in the CIS are kept in a safe condition. The programme covers six countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Preliminary studies estimate there to be more than 40 nuclear legacy sites located in these countries and include shut-down nuclear power units, research reactors, RW storage and disposal facilities, SNF reprocessing facilities, uranium deposits, and tailing ponds.
According to Nikitin, the 23rd meeting of the Commission of CIS Member States on the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy in November 2022 approved a methodology proposed by TVEL for determining the potential hazard of nuclear legacy sites capable of serving as the first step to developing and implementing a joint programme. This would make it possible to compile an inventory and create a register of all core facilities located in Commonwealth countries, determine a generalized indicator of potential danger for each, and rank them. In turn, the development of a programme based on this methodology would serve as the basis for solving the most pressing issue: attracting funding for project implementation by all possible means.
Dmitry Pavlov, Head of the Radioactive Waste Management Office of Gosatomnadzor of the Republic of Belarus, thanked TVEL for its assistance in learning more about Russia’s experience and in developing Belarus’ Strategy for Radioactive Waste Management, the draft of which successfully passed public hearings in November 2022.
Vahram Petrosyan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant and Director of the Armatom Research Institute noted that the issue of greatest important to Armenia was the construction of third and fourth stage dry spent fuel storage facilities (a difficult international logistics situation prevents the export of irradiated fuel for reprocessing in Russia).
Ilham Sadikov, Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan (INP), spoke of the importance of nuclear legacy remediation in regards to the republic’s mothballed Yanigabad and Charkesar uranium mines. What’s more, there happen to be RW storage facilities present within the territory of the INP itself, and negotiations for their decommissioning are currently taking place with TVEL. Finally, another prospective area for cooperation is the removal of spent fuel from the research reactor.
Gumar Sergazin, Deputy Chair of the Kazakh Ministry of Energy's Committee for Nuclear and Energy Supervision and Monitoring, spoke of several types of legacy sites located within the country. One such unique site is the BN-350, the world’s first fast neutron power reactor, which was shut down in 1998. At present, it is the world’s only decommissioning project for a fast reactor. Work has been carried out in cooperation with Russian organizations to study technologies for liquid waste management and sodium removal (the coolant in BN reactors), with a feasibility study for the decommissioning project already developed. Some other relevant projects in the republic include the rehabilitation of the Semipalatinsk test site and uranium legacy sites.
Bakytbek Asankulov, Department Head in the Agency for Maintaining Radioactive Tailings at the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Kyrgyz Republic, talked about the 33 tailings and 27 mine dumps under the ministry’s jurisdiction. He emphasized the importance of the Interstate Target Programme for the Reclamation of State Territories Affected by Uranium Mining Operations, whose implementation in the CIS was taking place under the coordination of ROSATOM.
The roundtable also discussed promising new technologies for nuclear back-end projects. Cao Qinjian, Chief Expert at the Chinese Institute for Radiation Protection, touched on the application of digital solutions to nuclear and radiation safety. In addition, Anatoly Annenkov, General Director of Gidrospetsgeologiya, introduced some modern geo-ecological monitoring tools, which included information systems and mathematical modeling methods.
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TVEL Fuel Company of ROSATOM serves as an integrator of the Russian nuclear industry on issues of nuclear legacy elimination and base organization for this field in the CIS. In June 2021, by decision of the CIS Economic Council, TVEL was appointed base organization for the CIS for decommissioning and radioactive waste and spent fuel management. TVEL activities as a base organization span a wide range of areas: the consolidation and systematization of accumulated experience and scientific knowledge, the development of common approaches, the harmonization of the regulatory framework, personnel training and professional development, and the provision of direct assistance in the implementation of projects and programmes involving the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and territorial rehabilitation, including the construction and operation of storage sites for nuclear material.