ARGENTINA | PAVILION MEET ARGENTINA’S NUCLEAR SECTOR AT WNE2021
First power Argentina’s first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1974.
NUCLEAR SITES Argentina has three nuclear reactors generating about 5% of its electricity. Atucha I and 2 are in the Zárate district. In April 2018 the operating licence for Atucha 1 was extended to 2024 two years after Atucha 2 entered commercial operation in May 2016. Embalse is in the northern province of
Córdoba. A refurbishment completed in 2019 extended the plant’s operational lifetime by 30 years and increased power by 35MWe.
NUCLEAR GENERATORS The national nuclear utility is Nucleoeléctrica Argentina SA, and it is overseen by the Ministry of Economy.
NUCLEAR NEW-BUILD Atucha is expected to be the site for a Chinese-financed 1150MWe Hualong One plant. Site work is expected to begin in 2022. Nucleoeléctrica is also thinking of building a fifth plant, which will be a “national” project supported by Canada. The general lines of that project are said to be a plant with natural uranium and heavy water with a reactor based on Candu technology, which will have local funding.
Russia has also said it intends to provide financial support for two new reactors, one on the Argentine mainland and the other at sea, but that has not been confirmed by Argentina. Argentina is moving to reactivate the heavy
water plant at Arroyito in Neuquén, to produce heavy water for its Candus. Argentina has an interest in SMRs and a
locally-designed power reactor prototype, CAREM25, is under construction. On 2 July a contract was signed by the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) and Nucleoeléctrica Argentina SA for completion of the reactor building. This makes Argentina’s nuclear operating company into a contractor for CNEA in the construction of the building, a role it had played the first stage of that work from 2014 to 2017.
Among the projects that we proposed to (Economy) Minister Martín Guzmán and the government is to
build a floating nuclear power plant, which could be located anywhere in the vast Argentine territory.“
Dmitry Feoktistov, Russia’s Ambassador to Buenos Aires
www.neimagazine.com | WNE Special Edition | 39
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
