The meeting of the Board of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine was held on December 1, 2016, in course of which the issue "On the approaches to the licensing of Confinement operation, including Chernobyl NPP "Shelter" object" has been considered.
Currently activity at the Chernobyl NPP "Shelter" object is carried out under the License EO series No 000033 issued by the State Nuclear Regulatory Committee on December 30, 2001. Period of license validity is till the New Safe Confinement (hereinafter: NSC) commissioning.
According to the plans of the State Enterprises Chernobyl NPP and the Contractor for NSC designing and construction, the facility construction completion is expected in November 2017. After the NSC first stage commissioning Chernobyl NPP should obtain a new license for its operation.
Proceeding from the confinement definition and taking into account the multidimensionality of the "Shelter" object status, application of the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On licensing activity in the field of Nuclear Energy usage" to the matters of confinement operation licensing, including the "Shelter" object is multivalued.
Within the definition of the possible approaches to such activity licensing several options were emphasized and analyzed. First is amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On licensing activity in the field of Nuclear Energy usage" and other legislative and normative documents. Second approach is to issue a separate permit for such activity implementation within the framework of the License for Chernobyl nuclear power plant decommissioning. The third option is to issue a license for the specific type of activity, namely "Radioactive Waste Processing, Storage".
All the proposed approaches have disadvantages and difficulties in the practical application.
As a result of discussions, it was decided that one of the most appropriate approaches is to issue the License to the special type of activity - "Radioactive Waste Processing, Storage", which exists and are generated during the "Shelter" object transformation into ecologically safe system, within the confinement operation, including the "Shelter" object.
By majority vote SNRIU Board adopted the latest approach.
SNRIU Press service