23 Dec (NucNet): Lithuania’s State Nuclear Power Safety Inspectorate (Vatesi) has issued a licence to the state enterprise Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant authorising the construction and operation of very low-level radioactive waste disposal facility, Vatesi said.
The landfill-type facility at Ignalina will consist of three modules, each able to store about 20,000 cubic metres of operational and decommissioning radioactive waste from Ignalina, Vatesi said.
Construction is scheduled to begin in mid-2016 and operation in 2018. It will take around 20 years to fill the facility, after which it will be decommissioned and “active surveillance” will begin for 30 years, Vatesi said.
Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant is managing the decommissioning of the two-unit Ignalina nuclear station.
Lithuania agreed to shut down Ignalina-1 and -2, both Soviet-design RBMK reactors, as a condition of its accession to the European Union. Unit 1 was shut down in December 2004 and Unit 2 in December 2009.
