IAEA mission was held at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which addressed the issues of buildings and structures decommissioning, decommissioning methods, as well as processing of radioactively contaminated concrete and waste generated, including radioactive ones.

Although the final state of Chornobyl NPP site does not include a large-scale dismantling of existing buildings and structures, a considerable amount of reinforced concrete waste will be formed during the Central Halls hipped roof reconstruction and the equipment dismantling. Another source of its generation will be Shelter object unstable structures dismantling. All this right now requires consideration of such waste decontamination and processing in order to minimize its volume. Existing at Chornobyl NPP decontamination system today is not intended for large-scale decontamination, does not allow to decontaminate firmly fixed contamination and leads to formation of a large volume of secondary waste.

Read also: ChNPP Decommissioning

Invited IAEA experts shared their experience in radioactively contaminated buildings and facilities decommissioning in United States and in United Kingdom and experience in radioactively contaminated materials management. ChNPP specialists presented the situation at the site, the strategy and plans for solving existing problems, the estimated waste volumes that will be generated during decommissioning and Shelter object transformation.

According to the Mission results, IAEA will provide an official Report including recommendations to SSE ChNPP, which will be taken into account duruing revision of the decommissioning documents and planning for the next years.

The mission was organized within the Technical Cooperation Project UKR 9038 “Support to the nuclear Power Units decommissioning and Radioactive Waste Management at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and in the Exclusion Zone".