Germany-based GNS (Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service) has delivered one year ahead of schedule the final container for spent nuclear fuel to the Ignalina nuclear power station, which is being decommissioned in Lithuania.

Ignalina said in a statement that 190 Constor RBMK 1500-M2 casks containing spent nuclear fuel will be stored by the end of 2022 at an onsite storage facility. One cask will be kept aside as reserve in the event of fuel reloading becoming necessary.

According to the statement, during its entire operating period the two-unit Ignalina plant had accumulated almost 22,000 assemblies with spent nuclear fuel, 6,016 of which had already been placed in an interim storage facility built in 1999.

To date, 13,347 spent fuel assemblies in 142 casks have already been placed in a new facility onsite, funded by the European Union.

The two 1,300-MW Soviet era RBMK units were shut down at Ignalina in line with requirements for Lithuania’s membership of the EU. Ignalina-1 was shut down in December 2004 and Ignalina-2 in December 2009.

Date: Saturday, 29 February 2020
Original article: nucnet.org/news/lithuanian-decommissioning-project-receives-final-spent-fuel-cask-2-5-2020