President Petro Poroshenko emphasizes that at the next stage of improvement of the state policy on the revival of territories that have been exposed to radioactive contamination and social protection of the victims of the Chernobyl catastrophe, the engineers face an extremely difficult task of finding the safest and the most effective technology for the removal of fuel-containing materials and their disposal. At the same time, it is necessary to improve the whole system of radioactive waste management in the country.
"Last year, Energoatom began construction of a centralized spent nuclear fuel storage facility for domestic nuclear power plants - Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, South-Ukrainian," Petro Poroshenko said during a meeting at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and stressed that during the 26 years of independence, Ukraine remained the only country in a world that did not have its own storage facility for the spent nuclear fuel from domestic nuclear power plants.
"It was beneficial for somebody to be on the needle of Moscow all the time. Today, it may accept. Tomorrow, it may not. It can easily set tariffs that "undress" Ukrainians. We paid over two hundred million and we pay now," the President said and noted that the construction of the most modern repository pays off in 1,5-2 years.
"With a full-fledged beginning of construction of a repository, our state will get one more - nuclear independence from Russia,” the President emphasized. According to him, the filling of the storage facility with spent fuel to the project volume will take about 50 years, which will enable Ukraine to be completely independent in the issues of storage and disposal of nuclear fuel.
The President reported on his meetings with the winner of the construction of the repository - the American company Holtec International (USA) and emphasized that the total cost of the construction of the repository would be significant. At the same time, 10% of these funds will be directed to the social development of the districts adjacent to the Chernobyl zone, to the improvement of people's lives and building of the roads.
"We cannot have a nuclear storage facility and without an infrastructure that allows its efficient use," Petro Poroshenko emphasized and proposed to allocate some of these funds to the needs of the Chernobyl radiation and ecological biosphere reserve.
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