NRS-1 has entered the home stretch with targets exceeded by 8.5% despite budget cuts. “Thanks to our joint efforts and, most notably, those of Rosatom, we have established a well balanced monitoring system at nuclear facilities and, let us hope, eliminated almost all major risks of radiation-related environmental disasters,” Dmitri Medvedev noted. “Russia is a nuclear power, which is both our pride and responsibility. Joint efforts across different areas fine-tuned and coordinated a radiation safety monitoring system that roots out radioactive contamination risks. Nuclear facilities with service life expired will be phased out and decommissioned within 15 years. We should develop an infrastructure for the storage, reprocessing and disposal of irradiated fuel and radioactive waste,” the Prime Minister added.

With a total budget of 562.43 billion rubles, NRS-2 will be financed by the Government (70%) and from other sources (30%). Rosatom alone will provide 166 billion rubles. Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Rosatom CEO Sergei Kirienko presented NRS-1 results and said that decommissioning of nuclear legacy facilities and bringing them into ultimately safe mode would be the overarching goal of the new program.

The program will be divided into three 5-year phases. Most finance (73.3%) will be used to bring the nuclear legacy into safe mode and subsequently liquidate it. This large-scale initiative will comprise the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) removal from temporary storage, reprocessing, transfer to long-term storage and nuclear decommissioning. Another portion of finance will be spent on the rehabilitation of contaminated sites, safe removal and disposal of radioactive waste.

Rosatom will have to create all the necessary infrastructure for the nuclear fuel cycle back end. There will be two facilities at its core – a pilot center for spent nuclear fuel reprocessing at the Mining and Chemical Plant and an underground storage facility for high-level radioactive waste in Krasnoyarsk Krai.

Oleg Kryukov, Rosatom’s Director for Public Policy on RAW, SNF and Nuclear Decommissioning, named the pilot reprocessing center a project of major importance, “This project is about innovative SNF reprocessing technologies. Nuclear fuel reprocessing is a major global problem, and I am sure that we are on the right track.” The second greatest challenge, according to Oleg Kryukov, is ultimate disposal of medium and high level radioactive waste in the Lower Kansk Ridge in Krasnoyarsk Krai. “This ultimate disposal site is second to none in the world.”