Rooppur Power Plant: Tight security planned for nuke fuel transportation

Extensive preparations are being taken to ensure safe delivery of radioactive fuel to Rooppur power plant in Ishwardi of Pabna ahead of the arrival of the first batch of nuclear fuel in late September.

"The fuel consignment will reach Bangladesh by air, and will then be transported to the project site, some 270 kilometers from the airport [in Dhaka], on special vehicles under strict security procedures,"Shawkat Akbar, project director (PD) of the Rooppur plant, told The Daily Star.

The nuclear fuel containers will be loaded into a chartered plane from Russia by Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of  the country's state-owned Rosatom. The plane will land at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport with the uranium rods.

Bangladesh Army will devise a security protocol for transporting the radioactive fuel to the project site by road.

The fuel will be in a special 40-wheel lorry and escorted by vehicles of the armed forces, fire brigade, and health service personnel and ambulances.

"The army will design the security plan and, if needed, engage other departments," an official of the Rooppur project implementation authority the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, told The Daily Star seeking anonymity.

The special lorry has already been hired, the official added.

Contacted about the security arrangements and potential risks, Prof Md Shafiqul Islam of the Nuclear Engineering Department of Dhaka University, said that there are no reported incidents of accidents in transporting unused nuclear fuel.

"According to international standards, transportation companies must use top-tier insurance for such deals,but  in this situation, they have no insurance coverage in Bangladesh," he added.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguard mission has been working in Bangladesh to maintain safety standards and training of human resources in nuclear fuel transport, said an official of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (BAERA).

The IAEA mission conducted a training under the "National Training Course on Safeguard" on August 20-24 at the BAERA head office in the capital, said Satyajit Ghosh, project director of the nuclear regulatory infrastructure development.

"We have already submitted a series of self-assessment reports to the IAEA in this regard. Furthermore, the IAEA team visited Rooppur and was pleased with the precautions we took to ensure the safe transportation and handling  of nuclear fuel," he added.

The first batch of the fuel for unit-1 of the plant was made by TVEL Fuel Company.

The Rooppur nuclear power plant is being built at Ishwardi of Pabna for $12.65 billion. The two units of the plant have a capacity to produce 2,400MW a day.

The unit is likely to be commissioned next year.

A three-member team led by Miharu Kiryuk, director of IAEA's safeguard department, visited the plant on August 28.

Before the commissioning of the plant, IAEA will set up another monitoring cell for supervision, Satyajit informed.