CHERNOBYL25

New Safe Confinement
1. Key technical facts
Arch span: 257m
Height: 105m (equivalent to a 30 storey-building or big enough to house the Statue of Liberty)
Length covered: 150m (almost two football pitches)
Metal framework: 29,000 t (almost three times the weight of the Eiffel Tower)
Life expectancy of the confinement: 100 years
Contractor: Novarka
 
The arch frame is a huge lattice construction of tubular steel members built on two longitudinal
concrete beams.
 
In order to reduce radiological exposure to the workforce, the arch will be assembled 250
metres to the west of the destroyed reactor and eventually slid into position over the existing
sarcophagus.
 
Inside, the New Safe Confinement will be equipped with fully-automated cranes and other
equipment for deconstruction and other weight lifting and displacing operations.
 
2. Cost
The final cost of the Shelter Implementation Plan is currently estimated at €1.54 billion
(including contingency and escalation). The New Safe Confinement will cost about two thirds of
the total cost of the Shelter Implementation Plan.
 
3. Finalisation
According to the last review the project should be completed by mid-2014.
 
Spent Fuel Storage Facility
1. Key technical facts
The facility will provide dry storage for the more than 20,000 spent fuel assemblies from the
operation of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant for a period of at least 100 years.
 
The project will use existing concrete storage modules and a building for the processing of the
assemblies.
 
Processing will include cutting, drying and fitting of spent fuel into storage containers.
 
Contractor: Holtec International
 
2. Cost
€250 million
 
3. Finalisation
The project will be completed in 2014/2015, though the delivery of casks for the spent fuel
storage will continue for two to three years after that, since they are not all required at the same
time.
 
Shelter Implementation Plan
 
Designed by international and Ukrainian experts in 1997, the Shelter Implementation
Plan (SIP) devises a step by step strategy to convert the site of the 1986 accident and the
increasingly unstable sarcophagus over reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant into an
environmentally safe and secure condition.
 
The SIP includes a technical strategy and conceptual design definition with an associated
schedule and planning budget. The plan outlines a course of action to accomplish five objectives
and identified 22 primary tasks which were further divided into 297 activities. The core and
biggest single project is the New Safe Confinement.
 
The SIP was endorsed by Ukraine, the EU and the G7 in 1997. Subsequently, the Chernobyl
Shelter Fund under administration of the EBRD was set up and charged with the implementation