Experts say the facility should help reduce dependency on Russia
Holtec International, an American company specializing in energy technology solutions, has inked a $150 million contract to build a new nuclear fuel waste storage facility in Ukraine. Experts say the facility should help Ukraine reduce dependency on its northern neighbor Russia, to which it currently pays more than $100 million annually for accepting, processing and storing spent nuclear fuel.
The contract, signed with Ukraine’s nuclear power holding EnergoAtom on Dec. 26 in the presence of United States Ambassador John Herbst, represents the largest investment in Ukraine’s nuclear sector by a U.S. company. It also marks a growing cooperation between the power industries of the U.S. and Ukraine, whose energy sector remains tightly integrated with Russia.
At the signing ceremony, Holtec officials expressed their eagerness to establish a state-of-the-art central storage facility, adding that their company would help raise the funds needed to bankroll the project. The contract will also yield Holtec major contract work in Ukraine, one of the largest nuclear power-producing countries in the world.
“Achieving self-sufficiency in managing its spent nuclear fuel is only fitting and proper for a country that boasts Europe’s third largest commercial nuclear power program and relies on its nuclear plants for roughly half of its energy needs,” said Holtec President and CEO Kris Singh.
Holtec, headquartered in Marlton, New Jersey, is a diversified energy technology company specializing in storage and transport of used nuclear fuel. Spent nuclear fuel storage equipment designed and installed by Holtec is used in over 80 nuclear power plants in the U.S., Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The company claims that its facilities, which can store nuclear waste for 50-100 years, adhere to high safety standards, preventing the release of radiation even in extreme cases such as potential aircraft crashes.
Holtec won the contract in 2004, after winning an EnergoAtom tender launched in 2003. The contract envisions Holtec building a so-called launch complex site with a smaller capacity valued at about $150 million. The site will serve as a model for expansion that could cost in excess of 400 million euros. The contract grants the Ukrainian side license rights to expand capacity of the sample site built by Holtec.
EnergoAtom President Yury Nedashkovsky emphasized the significance of the project, saying “Russia has consistently been raising the price for removal of spent nuclear fuel.”
EnergoAtom officials hope that the new facility will be built in the next several years.
Officials envision that further project approval processes and construction could take several years.
They also point to the future prospects of selling spent nuclear fuel on the international market, and acquiring technology that permits the waste to be reused for power production and other purposes.
Yuriy Kubrushko, business development director at IMEPOWER Investment Group, a Kyiv energy consultancy, described the project as an “important step” in Ukraine’s aspiration to become self-sufficient in the business of storing, processing and reusing spent nuclear fuel.
“Implementation of this project is important to reduce EnergoAtom’s dependence on Russia’s services on treatment of the spent nuclear fuel,” he said.
“For Holtec, this contract represents the company’s expansion to a new market and establishment of working relations with EnergoAtom, which is a big energy company on an international scale,” Kubrushko added.
EnergoAtom currently operates 14 nuclear power blocks at four Nuclear Power Plants. Six of the blocks are located at the Zaporizhya Nuclear Power Plant, home to the only spent nuclear fuel facility in Ukraine. The rest of the power plants in the country are dependent on Russian services for storage and processing of their nuclear waste.
An official at the Zaporizhya plant told the Post that the technology for their recently launched facility was acquired from a U.S. company in the late 1990s.
Officials have yet to choose and receive complete approval for a site for the Holtec facility. Sources say the defunct Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant is being considered as a site.Holtec is currently involved in a project providing processing technology to place used fuel at the Chornobyl plant’s three idle reactors in storage systems. The project is being bankrolled by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
