ArmInfo. The project on the export of spent nuclear fuel from Armenia is still "raw" this is just an opportunity. On March 20 in an interview with the ArmInfo correspondent Artem Petrosyan, Head of Nuclear Energy Unit of Energy Department of RA Ministry for Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources said.
According to him, in the implementation of this program it is necessary to determine its technical feasibility, but most importantly, to agree with the Government of Georgia. The head of the department noted that spent nuclear fuel can be stored in a dry storage facility for 50 years, although according to the latest assessment of American specialists, this period can be extended for all 100 years. "But again, this is not a solution to the issue," Artem Petrosyan stated.
He noted that the issue could be resolved either by expanding the storage of SNF or building a burial ground in deep formations. For this, it is necessary to conduct research in order to assess the possibilities for building such burial grounds. "Canada, for example, invested about 12.5 billion Canadian dollars in construction of burial grounds. In Armenia, there are no such funds. For this reason, we can either count on international assistance or start transporting SNF to the Russian Federation, which would be an ideal solution for such a small countries like Armenia, " Artyom Petrosyan said.
To recall, on March 12, at the meeting of the Joint Armenian-Russian Coordinating Committee on the modernization and extension of the service life of the second power unit of the Armenian NPP, it was decided to prepare a pilot project for the removal and reprocessing of the SNF batch. According to the official website of the State Committee on Regulation of Nuclear Safety of the Armenian Government, the dry storage facility for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) of the Armenian NPP is operational until 2020. On August 1, 2000, Gosatomnadzor of the Republic issued a license to the Armenian NPP to operate the storage facility for a period of 20 years. Storage type NUHOMS-56 consists of 11 horizontal modules with 616 insulating containers. In 2005, the Armenian parliament decided to expand the storage facility, which will make it possible to store up to 1,890 containers for at least 50 years.