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"An honour guard attends a ceremony marking the 21st anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 2007. Thirteen years after Canada and other nations pledged $768-million to render the destroyed nuclear reactor safe, the cost has ballooned to $2-billion and the job still isn't done Kiev - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Feb. 02, 2010 10:17PM EST Last updated on Friday, Feb. 05, 2010 3:19AM EST Almost a quarter-century after its explosion killed hundreds and shocked the world, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor still sits crumbling amid an uninhabitable wasteland in northern Ukraine, still emits surprising amounts of radiation, and still absorbs vast amounts of money. Much of that money, at least $71-million of it, has come from Canadian taxpayers, intended to pay for a project launched in 1997 under a pledge from leaders of the G-7 countries to enclose the reactor in a permanent, sealed sarcophagus."

Russia will provide $17 million to help improve safety at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster, and fully decommission it, a top Russian nuclear official said on Monday. Three reactors of the Chernobyl plant continued to operate for several years after reactor number four exploded in 1986, the last reactor shutting down in 2000. The reactors still contain nuclear fuel rods, and require constant monitoring. The fourth reactor is housed in a Soviet-era sarcophagus set to be replaced by a $1.4 bln metal structure.

"Polyester tents will be placed over Japan's stricken nuclear reactors in a bid to try and contain the escape of radioactive substances into the atmosphere. Next month Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) will start work on installing the first cover at the No.1 reactor in Fukishima, which has been the focus of recent stabilization efforts. The Japanese government plans to erect a steel framework and place a giant polyester tent-like cover around the reactor building - similar covers will be placed around units 3 and 4. "

Encasing reactors at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in concrete would present much more of a challenge than Chernobyl, according to an executive of the firm whose pumps are helping cooling efforts there. "In Chernobyl, where a single reactor was encased, 11 trucks were in action for a number of months. In Fukushima we're talking about four reactors," Gerald Karch, chief executive of the technical business of unlisted machinery maker Putzmeister, said in an interview with Reuters. He said that while no decision had been made in Japan, concrete encasing would be the most sensible solution once the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant has cooled down. "In my opinion, when a closed-circuit cooling system has been developed and successfully set up, there will be no other option but to encase the reactors in concrete," he said.