home << newsletters << May 2002 index << Economic Cooperation with Chornobyl
 

Newsletter:  May 2002/ Issue 2
Economic Cooperation with Chornobyl

PNNL and the city of Slavutych, Ukraine, which was built to replace the city of Prypiat following the 1986 Chornobyl accident, are collaborating to identify a path forward for Slavutych in addressing its economic challenges. PNNL’s involvement with Chornobyl began nearly a decade ago in support of the US Department of Energy’s International Nuclear Safety Program. The Program was created to reduce the operational and safety risks of Soviet-designed nuclear power plants, which became the responsibility of Newly Independent States after the dissolution of the USSR.

Challenges for the new nations stemmed from the fact that, previously, plants had been centrally maintained and operated by the Soviet Union. The experience and expertise in maintaining these facilities mainly resided in the ethnic Russians who left the newly formed states and returned in waves to what is now Russia, after the Soviet Union broke up. This resulted in a large, technological void. In addition, many of the plants are older models and have been found to have design configuration safety deficiencies that make their operation potentially unsafe. The international community became concerned with these flaws after the 1986 Chornobyl accident, which sent clouds of radioactive contamination throughout neighboring countries.

PNNL’s involvement with the Chornobyl site began in 1992, shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It began with initial radiological assessments for the site and support for operational safety activities like repair of the crumbling reactor ventilation stack shared by Units 3 and 4. Involvement expanded to include a permanent Lab presence at the site, with staff working to improve plant safety, build a heat plant and build a permanent shelter around the crumbling Unit 4 to contain radiation leakage. Today all four of Chornobyl’s reactors have been shut down—the last operating reactor was closed in December 2000— but the actual decommissioning of the reactors continues, as does the project to construct a permanent encasement over the damaged Reactor 4 to contain radiation.

The closure of the plant is cause for great concern in Slavutych, where citizens have relied on the plant for energy, heat and employment. Now that the decommissioning process is under way, employment opportunities and the economic future of Slavutych are uncertain.

In response to the economic challenges facing Slavutych, PNNL and its Chornobyl colleagues have expanded their cooperation on nuclear safety to include tackling economic recovery and diversification. At the moment, there are 10 PNNL staff members living with their families in Slavutych and contributing to plant safety and economic development.

Cooperation between PNNL and the City of Slavutych has included sharing economic development strategies, supporting a WSU-TriCities led US/Ukraine Foundation grant related to economic development, and hosting Slavutych and Chornobyl officials at PNNL’s main campus in Richland, Washington. The most recent visit occurred in October 2001 when PNNL hosted Vitaliy Tolstonogov, former director of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP); Irina Mitichkina, Chornobyl’s deputy director of Human Resources and Social Issues; Andriy Bilyk, deputy chief engineer at the Chornobyl plant; and Anotoliy Nosovksyy, director of the Slavutych Laboratory for International Research and Technology, a research facility located in Slavutych.

The delegation met with PNNL director Lura Powell and various staff members, and toured several Lab facilities. They met with Richland City officials and discussed the similarities between Hanford and Chornobyl and lessons learned from the transformation of Richland, which is the city near the Hanford nuclear site, from nuclear production to environmental remediation. The delegation and Lab staff also discussed PNNL’s approach to economic development in the Tri-Cities area, and commercial applications of nuclear expertise. After visiting PNNL’s main campus in Richland, the delegation traveled to Washington, DC to meet with DC Office Lab employees and US officials.

According to Kevin Whattam, of PNNL, who has provided support to CNPP with management, business infrastructure and safety efforts, cooperation between PNNL and Slavutych has also extended to other activities. In 1996, a student exchange between the Hanford and Slavutych Junior High Schools was organized in which students shared their perspectives on living in nuclear communities. The exchange resulted in a book, “Nuclear Legacy: A Tale of Two Cities.” Also, there are three students from Slavutych studying at Whitworth University in Spokane under a PNNL-sponsored education program.

However, despite cooperative activities and the similarities between Hanford and Slavutych, the challenges of Slavutych are somewhat greater: Slavutych severely lacks infrastructure, the city’s chief source of income, the Chornobyl site, is dependent on the country’s small budget, and Ukraine is new to the concepts of capitalism and the open market.

In spite of these obstacles, the Chornobyl delegation expressed high hopes and claimed that it finds collaboration with PNNL to be helpful.

“We have very good relations,” said Nosovskyy, of the PNNL-CNPP relationship to one Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business journalist. “We are in constant contact… (and) the information we get from PNNL will continue to help us… We think the future of Ukraine is very promising.”