The Chornobyl Sarcophagus Fund, which was set up to build a new, safe confinement (sarcophagus) with a 1997 price tag of $768 million at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), is several hundred million US dollars short, according to Shelter Implementation Plan Chief Engineer Valery Kulishenko. Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant representatives have declined to name the specific amount needed to complete the project by 2008, claiming that the only way out of this situation is more active efforts by the government in its talks with donor countries that are supposed to provide additional funds for the new confinement. There is still enough time: bids from contractors for the tender to design and build the shelter will be accepted until October 27, and Ukraine will not sign the contract with the successful bidder until next spring.
Chornobyl NPP representatives believe that everything is going according to plan, including the construction work to stabilize the existing sarcophagus. Built in seven months and designed to last for thirty years, the structure is crumbling after a little more than eighteen years and releasing radioactive nuclides into the atmosphere. Under the contract, work to reinforce it will begin this year. The deaerator framework, which has tilted by one and a half meters and threatens to collapse from the smallest of seismic waves onto the generator room, is to be stabilized by 2006, along with the crack-riddled western wall of the shelter ahead of the new construction project.
The far-reaching plans extend until 2016, by which time the work to dismantle the first three power units should begin. Meanwhile, according to Andriy Bilyk, deputy chief engineer for the operation of the Chornobyl NPP power units, a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel has yet to be built, there are no funds for dismantling the units, and it is not yet clear by how much the completion dates will be delayed. Apart from the stabilization project, a liquid radioactive waste processing facility will be launched in November — December 2004, built by a consortium of Belgatom (Belgium), Ansaldo (Italy), SGN (France), and Ukrainian construc tion companies.
Contrary to popular belief, Ukrainian builders involved in the construction project have not made a fortune — they earn a mere 500 hryvnias ($95) per fifteen-day shift — small reward for hard work, especially considering the project’s overall cost of eighteen million euros. Speaking with The Day, one of the builders said, “At first we were very scared to work in the exclusion zone. Invisible radiation is a slow killer, but hunger can kill much faster. Living in Slavutych without a job is like living in an economic trap. I would abandon everything and leave, but apartments in the town of nuclear engineers cost peanuts, and no one buys them. To relocate, say, to Chernihiv you’d have to sell three such apartments or as many as eight to buy an apartment in Kyiv. How am I supposed to look my wife in the eye? She works as a sales clerk and earns even less. Often, what little she earns is not even enough to pay the utility bills. Plus, I have to travel to Chernihiv for groceries, which are cheaper there. That’s what keeps us in the thirty-kilometer zone.”
Apparently, the local authorities should not expect a labor shortage, as every project underway in Chornobyl will find willing hands. Laymen will undergo instruction at a training center and a personnel rehabilitation center that will be set up in the affected area. Construction of both centers should be completed by the end of the year, by which time it is hoped the Chornobyl NPP will revert to the Enerhoatom state atomic power generation company. “We hope that then our life and work will become easier,” says Chornobyl NPP director Oleksandr Smyshliayev. “Moreover, decommissioning the power plant is a joint task for all the nuclear power plants that are part of the national atomic power generation company, not a problem of the Chornobyl NPP alone. Our personnel will also qualify for Enerhoatom’s social benefits package.”
Yet despite all the difficulties, decommissioning is progressing at a constant pace. The decommissioning crew will shortly begin dismantling equipment in the generator room. By way of an experiment they will take down the evaporating facility of turbine generator No. 1, as it is the least contaminated component of the machinery. “These tons of scrap metal will be sent to metallurgical plants after decontamination,” says Smyshliayev. To this end, the plant has already prepared all the necessary paperwork and formed an expert team from among the Chornobyl NPP staff, who are ready to begin work. In general, decommissioning will take years. During all this time Slavutych will survive somehow. The local authorities are certain that the town will prosper, as it is economically attractive. First Deputy Mayor Volodymyr Zhyhallo believes that the town’s attractiveness is not only due to its geographic location and industrial potential but also its working and living conditions, which the town fathers are creating in Slavutych, aside from a special economic zone and concerted efforts of the local Business Development Agency and the Business Incubator.
Unemployment in Slavutych is below 5%. According to Zhyhallo, the job market situation is stable and controllable, especially considering the fact that there are no more layoffs at the plant: “Of course, we can’t involve every former nuclear engineer in ongoing projects. But not many of them have left. The plant employs a staff of thirty nine hundred, while others are employed at public utilities and other businesses. We need to create five thousand new jobs for Slavutych to grow and develop.” The administration is pinning big hopes on Atomremontservice [Nuclear repairs service], a division of Enerhoatom, which designs, installs, repairs, and upgrades nuclear power generation equipment, whose personnel is to be increased from 700 to 4,000. Yet the top priority is to attract investments to Slavutych.
