The site of the ISFS is situated next to the plant site of Paks Nuclear Power Plant, connected to the south part thereof. The site is located in Tolna County, at a distance of 118 km south of Budapest, and 5 km south of Paks city, in an area between the Road no. 6 and the Danube.

Functions to be fulfilled

One consequence of the operation of nuclear power plant is that used (spent) nuclear fuels are generated, which shall be managed, treated and disposed. After their removal from the reactor, the fuel assemblies shall be cooled in a water vault, for a certain period. There is no chain reaction in the fuel by this time; the heat generated in the fuel is resulting merely from radioactive decay. The time limit for this decay period depends on the capacity of the vault. The spent fuels shall be removed from the decay vault after a 3 to 5 years decay period.

Three approaches are adopted for the safe management of the spent nuclear fuels. The first one is the open fuel cycle, including the direct disposal of spent nuclear fuels, without reprocessing, in a deep geological repository. The second approach is the closed fuel cycle, with reprocessing the spent fuel, and recycling the recovered plutonium and uranium. Third scenario is the approach called “wait and see” strategy, when the spent nuclear fuels are loaded into interim store for a long term, until decision is made on reprocessing or disposal of the fuels.

The interim store of the spent fuels is an inevitable step irrespective of the applied spent fuel management strategy. Due technical reasons, interim store is always required in the initial phase of work to be performed for the spent fuels. The activity and the decay heat generation rate of the spent fuels significantly decrease during this period, which facilitates the subsequent handling operations.