3 Apr (NucNet): Bulgaria’s plans for the disposal of radioactive waste from the decommissioning of the first two reactors at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant have been approved by the European Commission.
The EC said in a statement that Bulgaria’s disposal plans for Kozloduy-1 and -2 are not liable to result in “significant radioactive contamination” from the point of view of water, soil or airspace of any other EU member state.
The statement said the distance from the storage site to the nearest border of another member state, in this case Romania, is four kilometres. The EC said that “under normal decommissioning conditions” discharges of liquid and gaseous radioactive effluents are “not liable to cause an exposure of the population in another member state that would be significant from the point of view of health”.
In October 2011, Bulgaria awarded a multi-million dollar contract to an international consortium for the design of a national low-level waste and intermediate-level waste (LLW and ILW) repository on a site known as Radiana, next to the Kozloduy nuclear power plant.
According to the EC, solid LLW and ILW will be stored onsite at Kozloduy awaiting the availability of the national repository.
The national repository, scheduled to open in 2015, will accept waste over the next 60 years and store it for some 300 years.
In January 2013, Bulgaria’s state-owned State Enterprise Radioactive Waste signed a contract with a consortium comprising Spanish engineering company Empresarios Agrupados and UK-based Nuvia for consultancy services on the decommissioning of four units at Kozloduy.
Under the three-year contract, the consortium will provide consulting services for the decommissioning of units 1 to 4 of Kozloduy.
Bulgaria is considering options for the future of nuclear. In April 2012, the country’s Cabinet decided to construct a seventh nuclear reactor unit at the Kozloduy nuclear site. That decision came after the Cabinet decided on 28 March 2012 to abandon the project for two new units at Belene, saying it would be more realistic to add a reactor at Kozloduy where two VVER-1000s are operating and four VVER-440s are being decommissioned.
In 1999, Bulgaria closed down Kozloduy nuclear power plant’s four VVER 440-230 units as a condition of entry into the EU.
Units 1 and 2 were shut down in 2002 and units 3 and 4 in 2006. Kozloduy-5 and -6 are newer VVER-1000 units and provide just over one third of the country’s electrical power production.
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