Prague, Oct 23 (CTK) – A permanent radioactive waste repository would be best located right at the nuclear power plant, whether in Dukovany, south Moravia, or Temelin, south Bohemia, Dana Drabova, chairwoman of the State Office for Nuclear Safety (SUJB), said on Czech Television (CT) yesterday.
The Czech Republic should build the facility by 2065. The costs are estimated at 112 billion crowns. There are currently 24 billion crowns on its account. Every entity which produces the waste sends 50 crowns to the account per megawatt-hour of generated power.
At present, nuclear waste is deposited in temporary stores within the two power plants’ compounds.
Drabova said the building of the repositories at the nuclear power plants “would help resolve the deadlock” caused by the opposition of the municipalities chosen by the state as possible sites of the disposal facilities.
Drabova said some municipalities in the vicinity of Dukovany have already shown interest in geological exploration. They might agree if they got certain compensation, she added.
When the nuclear power plants were being built, it was supposed that the nuclear waste will be transferred to the territory of the Soviet Union, but the situation changed when it disintegrated in the early 1990s and the waste started to be transported to temporary stores, whose lifespan is at least 50 years.
Drabova said it seems now that it will be longer. She said that the control results after ten years of existence were excellent. Now, the waste is stored there for about 20 years.
At the end of 2011, the government chose seven localities where exploration was to start, but the mayors of five municipalities have filed a complaint against the Environment Ministry.
Drabova said neither of the two remaining localities may be suitable.
She said 20 years ago, the state chose about 25 localities and eventually narrowed the number to seven. Since then, however, the level of knowledge has changed so much that a suitable locality might be found among those eliminated 20 years ago.
Drabova said she would agree with building a single European repository which has been spoken about for some time.
She said this would cut expenditures. But she said she cannot imagine a politician telling his citizens that they will have a large European repository in their country.
($1=24.820 crowns)
