€50m spent annually to keep Chernobyl plant safe
12:41, 28 April 2011
MINSK. April 27. KAZINFORM About €50million is spent every year to keep the Chernobyl nuclear plant safe, head of the exclusion zone administration Sergei Parashin, who ran the plant in 1994-1998, told a BelTA-Ukrinform teleconference, Chernobyl: 25 Years of Overcoming, on 27 April; Kazinform refers to BelTA.
"The maintenance and gradual decommissioning of the plant costs €50million annually. The complete decommissioning of the plant will take from 10 to 15 years, while the new covering will be completed by 2015," Sergei Parashin said.
"The implementation of the projects (the Shelter and a special project to decommission the plant) goes a bit slowly. Sometimes western contractors failed to meet their obligations in time," he said.
Despite the Chernobyl disaster, nuclear energy is safe, Sergei Parashin says. He spoke in favor of the construction of a nuclear plant in Belarus.