Radioactive waste storage facility to complete in 2019

The storage facility that will provide a permanent place for the stockpile of low- and medium-activity radioactive waste, located in Saligny, near Cernavoda, the second of its kind in the country, will be completed in 2019, five years later than initially planned. The project will cost the country up to €220 million to build. "The deadline for the completion of the facility has been extended for two reasons: the necessary permits from the Environment Agency are difficult to obtain, which we didn't consider at first, and second of all, it depends on the waste treatment plant that needs to complete in 2017, when nuclear power plant units 3 and 4 at Cernavoda will have gone into operation", said the chairman of the Nuclear and Radioactive Waste Agency (ANDR), Ion Nastasescu.

He added that the storage facility in Saligny would go into operation when the first construction stage ends, in 2017, following to be shut down in 2080.The short-life low- and medium-activity radioactive waste from the two CANDU units and the following 3 and 4 nuclear power plants in Cernavoda will be buried in this storage facility.

The financing of the project is secured by Radioactive Waste Management Fund founded in 2007, to which the nuclear power plant in Cernavoda contributes with €1.40 for each MWh it produces, in line with the polluter pays principle.The builders have already agreed on the location of the facility, for which the ANDR representative hopes to receive a final authorization by 2012.

"Meanwhile, we are conducting the feasibility studies for the project, which we expect to end this year. The feasibility study costs around €2 million and is carried by Onet Technologies Grands Projets", said Ion Nastasescu.The facility will have a capacity of 113,000 cubic meters and will stretch 67 hectares, and a big portion of this area is on the exclusion area of the Cernavoda nuclear plant (1 km around the plant).