On 7-11 August, the Radiation Safety Lab was held in Slavutych, a satellite town of ChNPP. The event became a platform for the experience exchange between experts in the Radiation Safety field.
The Chornobyl NPP was a co-organiser and participant of the event, in particular, the programme included two lectures from the plant specialists. The first one was entitled "Organisation of Radiation Protection at ChNPP", where Oleksandr Novikov, Deputy Technical Director of the plant, and leading experts of the Radiation Safety Shop told about how radiation safety is ensured for personnel of one of the most complex facilities on the planet.
"We hope to continue such cooperation in the future. Of course, we would like the event participants to visit our site and make measurements here, in our "field" conditions. We are ready to provide a variety of landscapes, surfaces, rooms inside the plant, roofs, and, of course, the area under the NSC arch. It would be very interesting and useful! But, unfortunately, we are 14 kilometres away from the Republic of Belarus, so a visit is practically impossible now," Olexandr Novikov concluded his report.
The second lecture was devoted to radiation monitoring devices. It was delivered by Oleh Solonenko, the shift supervisor of the ChNPP Radiation Safety Shop.
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In addition, the participants of the Radiation Safety Lab visited the ChNPP Training Centre, where more than 15 thousand people involved in the New Safe Confinement construction project were trained, and where all plant personnel passes annual training.
In addition to the theoretical part, the Radiation Safety Lab offered the opportunity to learn practical radiation safety skills. The participants were divided into 3 teams and, accompanied by experienced supervisors, were engaged in radiation surveys within Slavutych for 3 days.
The final exercise was a search for radioactive contamination in one of the city's buildings. The entire process was accompanied by the soldiers of Slavutych Voluntary formation of a territorial community, since according to legend, it was hostile actions that caused the radiation contamination, and enemy forces could have been operating in the area of the exercise.
The main organizer of the Radiation Safety Lab is the Regional Development Agency in cooperation with the Chornobyl NPP, the Institute of Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants, the Slavutych branch of the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Atomremontservis and others.
The event was held as part of the events following the annual INUDECO international conference. The events in 2023 included the International conference “Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment: Ukrainian context”, the international workshop “Digital twins in the life cycle of nuclear power facilities” and the online event “Post-INUDECO”.