Waste from NPP in Kazakhstan to be stored at former Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test SiteRadioactive waste from the nuclear power plant (NPP) planned for construction in Kazakhstan will be stored on the territory of the former Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (SNTS), said Gumar Sergazin, deputy chairman of the republic's atomic energy agency."About 50 cubic meters of radioactive waste will be generated from the two reactors. And the draft law regulates that there will be burial points. It will be created in the Semipalatinsk nuclear safety zone, which is already a contaminated area today," Sergazin said during the presentation of the draft law "On Radioactive Waste Management" in Astana on Tuesday.He clarified that the area of the former Semipalatinsk test site is more than 18,000 square kilometers, of which 8,300 square kilometers are contaminated zones. The National Nuclear Center will begin field work to create a burial site in 2026."We were recently in Finland. They bury high-level radioactive waste at a depth of 400 meters. We will develop burial rules, and they will include all the requirements: what kind of cement to use, and so on, to prevent radioactive releases," the deputy chairman of the agency said.The first NPP in Kazakhstan will be built by Rosatom near the village of Ulken. The Russian company signed a roadmap with Kazakhstan for the construction of two VVER-1200 nuclear power units. The construction of the NPP will take approximately 11 years and may be completed in 2035-2036.From 1949 to 1989, the world's largest Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site operated on the territory of Kazakhstan, where about 500 nuclear weapons tests were conducted over a 40-year period. The SNTS was officially closed on August 29, 1991. (ICE ALMATY)

Fonte notizia: INTERFAX