SEVERODVINSK. Aug 23 (Interfax-Northwest) - The opening ceremony of a coastal facility designed to unload spent nuclear fuel from decommissioned nuclear submarines took place at the Zvyozdochka plant in the town of Severodvinsk on Friday.
"Unloading spent nuclear fuel is the most complex issue facing the plant's disposal efforts. Once the coastal facility is operational, it will not only provide a solution to this problem but also will play a key role in operations with spent nuclear fuel," the plant's press secretary Nadezhda Shcherbinina told Interfax.
The creation of the new facility became possible thanks to the implementation of U.S. Congress' Cooperative Threat Reduction program (CTR). Senator Richard Lugar, one of the program's initiators, attended the opening ceremony.
The new facility will enable the plant to unload spent nuclear fuel from reactors of four Delta and two Typhoon nuclear submarines each year.