Skip to main content

Video of Radiation Shield to go Over Chernobyl

In light of today’s quarter-century anniversary of the accident, below is a fascinating nine minute video by the French consortium Novarka showing how the “new safe confinement” will entomb Chernobyl unit 4 so it can “accommodate future dismantling of the object shelter.”

For further discussions of the accident this anniversary, stop by to check out a few of the pro-nuclear pieces below.

ANS Nuclear Cafe – Chernobyl: 25 Years Later by Joe Colvin (President of ANS and former president of NEI)

Atomic Insights - “Chernobyl” – 25 years as a profitable brand by Rod Adams

To add from NEI’s website, see our vintage 1997 source book on Soviet-designed nuclear plant operations. It’s a fat document but pretty interesting stuff.

Comments

Martin Burkle said…
Is it true that this plan is not funded?
David Bradish said…
Good question. Part of my post was spurred from this Guardian article the other week:

Governments from around the world have pledged $785m (£480m) at a conference in Kiev, a week before the 25th anniversary of the nuclear accident in Ukraine – on 26 April 1986 the reactor suffered explosions and caught fire. This brings the total raised for the Chernobyl safety works to $1.8bn.

The new safe confinement link in our post notes that it is projected to cost $1.4B.

Here's what Nuclear Power Daily mentioned last September:

The project will cost a total of at least 870 million euros (1.17 billion dollars), according to estimates by the Ukrainian government.

The project currently has a "deficit of 550 million euros," deputy prime minister Andriy Klyuev said during a visit to the site on Thursday.


Looks like they filled a substantial portion of the deficit last week if not all of it.

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...