Last year, on November 29, 2016, the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure over Chornobyl’s reactor No. 4 was moved into final position. The year 2017 marks the site’s transformation into an environmentally safe and secure state, as noted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti hailed the shelter as “a testament to the lasting international solidarity with Ukraine and the commitment to nuclear safety.”
Chornobyl was the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident on April 26, 1986, and the NSC, built by Novarka – a consortium of the French construction firms VINCI Construction and Bouygues Construction – is hoped to keep the earth safe from the radioactive contaminants within the nuclear power plant for the next 100 years.
Work began in 2010 with a cost of 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion U.S.). The NSC is the largest moveable land-based structure ever built, measuring 257 meters wide (843 feet), 162 meters (531 feet) long, 108 meters (354 feet) high, with a total weight of 36,000 tons.
The first section of the structure was raised on November 27, 2012. The initial lifting operation had jacked nearly 5,000 tons of steel to a height of 22 meters. At that time, it was expected that the project would be completed by 2015. One of the major challenges in the construction of the NSC was the dismantling of the plant’s contaminated chimney, which needed to be removed (without further spreading the radioactive residues) so that the arch covering could fit into place.
The NSC was part of the Shelter Implementation Plan for Chornobyl, which includes more than 300 projects and activities. The 2.1 billion euro ($2.24 billion U.S.) program is financed by the Chornobyl Shelter Fund. Established in 1997, the fund has received contributions from 45 donor governments. The EBRD manages the fund and is the largest contributor to the NSC project.
Ukraine’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Ostap Semerak said the placing of the arch over the reactor was “the beginning of the end of a 30-year-long fight with the consequences of the 1986 accident.” Mr. Semerak told the Financial Times that multiple companies had expressed interest in developing areas of the Chornobyl exclusion zone for billion-dollar solar power projects and other sources of clean energy.
Source: “Massive Chornobyl confinement structure is moved into position,” (sources: EBRD, Associated Press, Financial Times), The Ukrainian Weekly, December 4, 2016.