Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage

Interim spent nuclear fuel storage is used for long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel from WWER units since 1987. After being removed from the reactor, spent fuel is stored in an NPP in a storage pool right at the site of the power plant’s unit (at least three years). After this period, the fuel is transported from the NPP to the interim spent nuclear fuel facility in Jaslovské Bohunice. A so/called wet storage interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility had been built in Jaslovské Bohunice. This interim storage facility is of Russian design and utilizes the wet storage principle, with four basins — three operational and one backup.

Fuel cartridges are stored in compact magazines in pools filled with water. Currently, fuel from the V1 and V2 power plants of Jaslovské Bohunice and from units 1 and 2 from the Mochovce power plant is being stored in the interim storage facility. The maximum capacity of the interim storage facility is 14,112 pieces of cartridges and, assuming the current rate of spent fuel production in Slovakia remaining constant, while considering the production from the soon-to-be-started units 3 and 4 of Mochovce, this capacity will be sufficient until 2021.

An Interesting Fact from the History of the Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility

Between 1989 and 1992 SNF had been hauled from the Dukovany NPP to the Jaslovské Bohunice interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility. After 1993, when Czechoslovakia split into the Czech and Slovak republics, the problem of this SNF had to be solved. At the time, the interim storage facility was already quite filled-up and there was a risk that there will be nowhere to put the SNF from the spent fuel pools of the V1 and V2 NPPs, thus endangering the periodic refueling of these power plants. At the Dukovany NPP site, they however managed to quickly build and commission a dry cask interim SNF storage facility, allowing the Czech fuel to be gradually transported back, in 1995–1997, storing the fuel in CASTOR type transport and storage containers.