The Russian government plans to allocate 17.53 billion rubles (US$245 million) for the disposal of waste from the Baikal PPM (Irkutsk region), the recently closed iconic PPM in Russia by 2025,
Part of the funds for the project will be allocated from the payment of a fine from the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company (subsidiary Norilsk Nickel “) as compensation for damage after the accident and fuel spill at CHPP-3 in May 2020.
Previously, the project for the disposal of BPPM wastes was estimated at 5.9 billion rubles. At that time, this amount included measures for cleaning and reclamation of the BPPM waste checks, but it did not include, for example, any works on the industrial site of the former pulp mill. Thus, taking into account the new planned allocations, the cost of the BPPM waste disposal project has almost tripled.
Earlier it was reported that the Russian nuclear monopoly Rosatom expects to develop a project for the disposal of waste from the Baikal PPM by this autumn.
The issue of starting the disposal of BPPM waste and the development of appropriate technology has been actively discussed since 2014, but the implementation of the project has already been postponed several times. Potentially, waste products from the former mill may pose a threat to the Lake Baikal.
In the structure of BPPM waste, the most complex is sludge-lignin – a polymer that, according to scientists, hardly reacts with other substances. According to Rosgeologia’s engineering surveys, the BPPM’s storage checks contain 4.948 million cubic meters of solids (sludge-lignin, ash) and 729 thousand cubic meters of water.
