The European Union has made a €19 million contribution to the Nuclear Safety Account (NSA), one of the nuclear safety funds managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The respective contribution agreement was signed on 6 July in London and will support the Chornobyl Spent Nuclear Fuel Facility project, known as ISF-2. According to the EBRD, the facility has been built and is currently being tested, with an ambitious schedule to start retrieving spent fuel from the old dilapidated storage pond by the end of this year. The operation of retrieving, processing and ensuring the safe storage of more than 20,000 spent fuel assemblies accumulated during the activity of three nuclear reactors at Chornobyl will take approximately seven years. The facility will be handed over to the Chornobyl operators in 2018, said the EBRD in a press release. The EU has been by far the largest donor to the EBRD-managed nuclear safety funds. The latest contribution brings the total EU donor funding for all nuclear safety funds to €2.437 billion, said the EBRD. The NSA was established by the EBRD at the request of the G7 in 1993 to fund operations to ensure the safety and security of Soviet-designed nuclear power plants. It currently finances the Interim Storage Facility 2 and the Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant of the decommissioned Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
