§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what information Her Majesty's Government possess on the current safety of the Chernobyl nuclear plant; and if he will make a statement. [28603]
§ Mr. PageThe safety of the Chernobyl nuclear plant is the responsibility of the relevant Ukrainian authorities. Only they would be able to provide detailed information on the current safety situation at the plant.
§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) how much contaminated debris is estimated to he present inside the concrete sarcophagus built around the remains of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor number 4; [28604]
(2) what is his latest estimate of the time necessary to clean up the Chernobyl nuclear plant. [28605]
§ Mr. PageA recent interim report from an on-going EU funded study estimated that 500,000 cu m of short-lived radioactive waste and 40,000 cu m of long-lived high level waste, including over 200 tonnes of the reactor's original fuel, lie inside the sarcophagus built over the destroyed unit 4 at Chernobyl.
While no precise estimate of the time necessary to clean up Chernobyl has been made, the same report indicated that it could take up to 100 years to complete the segregation, treatment, conditioning, storage and ultimate disposal of all the radioactive arisings from the remains of unit 4. Copies of the executive summary of this report—"Stabilisation of the existing shelter and the containment 68W of both the existing shelter and the damaged remains of reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant"—have been placed in the Library of the House.