Since the ChNPP is located within the area that was radioactively contaminated as a result of the 1986 accident and some engineering structures of Unit 3 are common with the Shelter Object, the end goal of decommissioning ChNPP is such a condition that conventionally may be called a ‘brown spot’. The ‘brown spot’ is a condition of a site, where dismantling of equipment, structures, and buildings is complete and radioactivity of engineering structures, being the sources of ionizing radiation, is within the levels established for a restricted release from regulatory control. Actually, this is a cleanup of the site and engineering structures down to the contamination level similar to the one present within the Exclusion Zone around the ChNPP and resulting from the 1986 accident. However, in the current context such a final status of the ChNPP site is economically inadvisable.

Currently, the ChNPP is endeavouring to prepare a new Decommissioning Concept that will identify the site’s new final status, i.e. an ‘industrially developed site’. Development of the ChNPP site shall not only remove the burden from the state budget that is imposed by the upkeep of the Exclusion Zone, elimination of the Chornobyl accident consequences and ChNPP decommissioning, but also recover economic activity on the restricted lands, take the maximum benefit, turn the lands into an economically developed area. For this purpose, it is necessary to efficiently use the following specific features of the Exclusion Zone and ChNPP industrial site:
- simultaneous decommissioning of three metal-intensive units;
- availability of the undeveloped operational structure, i.e. the systems of communications, power supply, physical security, water supply, radiation monitoring and railroad and motor access ways;
- isolation from centres of population;
- availability of the personnel competent in radioactive material management;
- location within the Exclusion Zone, being the a restricted use area.

We propose to more actively use the above specific features and potentialities of the ChNPP industrial site and Exclusion Zone for the needs of Ukraine’s nuclear industry, with regard to the final link in a nuclear energy uses technique (nuclear power plant units decommissioning and radioactive material management), for example:
- develop a centralized system for the Ukrainian NPPs SNF management within the Exclusion Zone and provide the ChNPP with an operator status;
- launch production of RAW long-term storage/disposal containers for Ukraine’s nuclear industry and establish an integrated unified SNF and RAW transportation and processing pattern to enable the following:
- recycle the Exclusion Zone’s radioactively contaminated materials for the purpose of RAW storage containers production, which will also allow a significant reduction in the total volume of radioactively contaminated waste;
- save government funds spent on disposal of the branch-produced RAW;
- establish a complex facility for the NPPs’ RAW management within the Exclusion Zone, the facility shall include:
- a plant for large-sized equipment processing and interim storage;
- a complex facility for processing and remelt of the radioactively contaminated metal from nuclear facilities (including the ChNPP and Exclusion Zone) and industrial complex of Ukraine.
- on the basis of the Chornobyl NPP training centre, establish a head training centre in Ukraine for training, retraining, and advanced vocational training of personnel in decommissioning and RAW management techniques.