PRYPIAT, Ukraine – A ceremony at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant on November 29 marked the successful conclusion of the erection of a new confinement structure over the stricken reactor No. 4. The process of sliding the arch structure into place via hydraulic jacks took two weeks.
The operation is a key milestone before the finalization of the international program to transform Chornobyl – site of the world’s worst nuclear accident on April 26, 1986 – into an environmentally safe and secure state by November of next year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) noted.
Chornobyl’s giant New Safe Confinement (NSC) was moved over a distance of 327 meters from its assembly point to its final resting place, completely enclosing a previous makeshift shelter that was hastily assembled immediately after the 1986 accident.
The Chornobyl arch is the largest moveable land-based structure ever built, with a span of 257 meters (843 feet), a length of 162 meters (531 feet), a height of 108 meters (354 feet)and a total weight of 36,000 tons.
President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine described the new shelter as “the biggest moving construction that humanity has ever created,” and EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti hailed the shelter as “a testament to the lasting international solidarity with Ukraine and the commitment to nuclear safety.”
The NSC will make the accident site safe and, with a lifetime of 100 years, will allow for the eventual dismantling of the aging makeshift shelter from 1986 and the management of the reactor’s radioactive waste.
The structure was built by Novarka, a consortium of the French construction firms VINCI Construction and Bouygues Construction. Work started in 2010. With a cost of 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion U.S.), the giant structure is the most prominent element of the Shelter Implementation Plan for Chornobyl, which involved 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 New Safe Confinement project.
Placing the arch over the reactor “is the beginning of the end of a 30-year-long fight with the consequences of the 1986 accident,” said Ukraine’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Ostap Semerak. A 3,000-square-kilometer area around the Chornobyl plant remains unfit for living and farming, though there are now plans to develop the region as a source of clean energy. Mr. Semerak told the Financial Times that nearly 10 companies are eyeing billion-dollar solar power projects.
Sources: EBRD, Associated Press, Financial Times.
EBRD/Novarka
A view of the arch being constructed next to the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in a photo taken in September 2015.