CARL BRO GROUP FIREPROOFS CHERNOBYL	13/06/2006
	The task of designing fire protection at the damaged reactor at Chernobyl has gone to Carl Bro Group in Sweden. In total, around forty people will be involved in the task. The work will commence during the summer and will be carried out in partnership with the Ukrainian company ADI. Carl Bro Group’s consultants have many years’ experience of fire safety at nuclear power plants. “Carl Bro Sweden has been given the task in competition with companies from the USA, Russia, France and Ukraine. This is, without doubt, one of the most important fire protection projects in the world right now,” comments Ulf Palmblad, CEO of Carl Bro Sweden. Following the Chernobyl disaster 20 years ago, a concrete sarcophagus was constructed over the damaged reactor within a few months in order to prevent further radioactivity from leaking out. The work was performed rapidly, under extremely difficult conditions, and was never intended to be a permanent solution. Despite the protection over the reactor being continuously strengthened, it has been gradually deteriorating in quality. “A new superstructure now needs to be built. This has been a huge project involving the evaluation of hundreds of proposals for technical solutions. What will now be built is an enormous steel structure, which will cover all of the old sarcophagus. Due to the continued high radiation level in the area, this is very complicated work,” explains Jonas Svensson, fire protection engineer at Carl Bro’s Malmö office. Mr Svensson continues: “Inside the new superstructure there are buildings that will be used as work premises for the people who will work long-term to remove all the remaining fuel to a safer storage place. Well-functioning fire protection is needed here - both to minimise the risks for people working there and to prevent radioactivity from leaking out in case of fire. Work on the new superstructure and the associated work premises will be costly, and the costs will be borne, in the main, by the G8 countries. The largest individual contributor is the USA. So far, the so-called ‘Chernobyl Shelter Fund’ (CSF) has received more than EUR 650 million, and a further 150 million has been promised from various contributor countries. The work is being administered by EBRD (The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). “Carl Bro Group’s task is to design in detail the fire protection for those parts of the original buildings that will be used in future. Designing the fire protection for Chernobyl is a task with very particular requirements. For example, water cannot be used to extinguish any fire, as it would become contaminated and spread radioactivity. Neither can any smoke be ventilated out into the open, as is normal with fires. The technical solutions we produce must be customised for this particular project. They will be entirely unique, as nothing similar has ever been done under conditions even vaguely similar to the situation at the damaged reactor at Chernobyl,” concludes Palmblad. Carl Bro Group has long experience of fire protection at Swedish nuclear power plants and intermediate storage for spent nuclear fuel. Carl Bro Group is also active in SKI’s (the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate) efforts to improve fire protection for the Russian reactors on the Kola peninsula, and for many years has worked to improve the safety culture at them. For more information, please contact: Ulf Palmblad, CEO of Carl Bro Sweden, +46 736 20 87 75 Jonas Svensson, fire protectione engineer, Carl Bro Malmö, +46 705 29 59 38