“Just as required, we submitted to the European Commission a coordinated plan of actions or measures, how we will address those technical issues... Now we are waiting for a reply, for the Commission’s comments,” INPP CEO, Žilvinas Jurkšus, told BNS.
The Commission told BNS on Monday that it expected Lithuania to submit a letter specifying technical solutions for the temporary spent nuclear fuel storage facility this week.
A delegation from the European Parliament (EP), which visited Lithuania last week, warned the authorities that the European Union (EU) might freeze funding for the Ignalina decommissioning project if no agreement was reached on the closure projects by 17 July.
According to Jurkšus, the parties had agreed that Germany’s GNS, the manufacturer of casks, would provide full documentation showing that the casks were fit for use by November.
“They have to send us a full package of scientifically-based documentation showing that their casks are good. If their suitability is justified, there will be no problems. We just want to get the proofs and we also want the casks to be certified anew,” he told BNS.
GNS, which manufactured casks non-compliant with the project’s technical specifications, had two options – either to manufacture new casks or to prove that the casks it had manufactured were fully compliant with safety requirements and could be used, he said.
The INPP sought to finalize both decommissioning projects by December 2013, Jurkšus said adding that this deadline would be provided in a revised project implementation program, which was expected to be signed in September or October.
According to media reports, INPP reportedly agreed to wait until November for GNS to provide the documents certifying that the casks of Constor RBMK1500 type, despite technological deviations, did not go against the project’s technical requirements and were fully compliant with safety requirements.
Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas has recently said that Lithuania will stand firm on its stance not to allow Nukem, a Russian-owned German company that is carrying out multi-billion-litas closure projects at INPP, to use non-certified spent nuclear fuel storage casks.
According to Jurkšus, the consortium of Nukem and GNS has so far manufactured 150 out of 200 casks required, of which four have already been delivered to Visaginas, the site of INPP. The casks do not comply with the project‘s technical specifications and do not have the necessary certificates.
