In what could be a $150 million contract, Chornobyl’s Exclusion Zone Agency is launching a tender for construction of a facility to store vitrified high level nuclear waste for 100 years

. In the aftermath of the 1986 nuclear disaster, a French consortium, Novarka, built the €1.5 billion New Safe Confinement. An American company, Holtec International, built the first stage of what is to be a $1.3 billion dry storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. The new facility is to store 260 cubic meters of reprocessed fuel returned from Russia. The tender closes Sept. 13, the ProZorro auction is to be Oct. 19, and construction is to be completed by Dec. 2023.