KIEV, February 25 (RIA Novosti, Olga Bernatskaya) - Ukraine will not build any storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel, not even for its own needs, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament said Saturday.
"There will not be a single nuclear waste site," Volodymyr Lytvyn said.
Lytvyn said it was inappropriate to talk about any benefits from building such a facility in Ukraine which was still suffering from the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
In December 2005, Ukraine's National Nuclear Power Generating Company Energoatom and Holtec International, a U.S. corporation involved in some nuclear waste disposal projects in Ukraine, signed a contract for the construction of a dry nuclear waste storage facility in Ukraine. Energoatom spends $40-80 million a year to send spent nuclear fuel to Russia.
Its own waste storage facility would enable the country to save an estimated $1 billion on the operation.
