Ukraine has started the construction of a Centralized storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, informs on Tuesday, the operator of the Ukrainian NPP Company " Energoatom ".

" Given the real start of construction of a Centralized storage facility for spent nuclear fuel (cheat), which will give you the opportunity to strengthen energy independence of the country and will help the development of the Russian fuel and energy complex, " said the report.

The presence of cheat assume that Ukraine will remove the issue of export of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), almost half of which country currently exports to the Russian Federation for storage and processing. According to the examination results, spending on the construction and operation of the repository will be almost four times less than the total costs, which today bears Ukraine, discharge fuel into the Russian Federation. It is assumed that investments in cheat will pay not more than four years of operation.

" since the signing in 2005 of the contract between Energoatom and Holtec (USA back) it's been nine years, but only now we were able to cross all the bureaucratic obstacles and get to the physical execution of the major project. This became possible only because of the support of the government, which acknowledged and returned to the nuclear industry status priority industry ", - said the head of " Energoatom " Yuriy Nedashkovsky.

today, the share of Ukrainian nuclear power plants accounts for almost 50% of the total volume of all electricity produced in the country. For this reason, the development of conditions for long-term and secure storage of spent fuel is a strategic priority of the energy industry of Ukraine, says the Company.

before the Cabinet of Ministers has allocated for the construction of storage two land plots with total area of 45, 2 hectares in the Chernobyl exclusion area. The total area under cheat - 18 hectares. The duration of construction will be determined based on the time required to fill the spent fuel. After the construction of the launch complex of the store, the completion of which is scheduled for the end of 2017, and putting it into use in the store will be sent to the spent nuclear fuel From three nuclear power plants - Khmelnytsky, Rivne and South-Ukrainian NPP.

sections: Politics