FAST REACTORS | THE STORY OF BREST
operate in an industrial format. This is both an inspiring and a highly obligatory event.” Following the production of pilot assemblies in
accordance with the current Rostechnadzor licence, production of assemblies with mixed uranium-plutonium nitride fuel (SNUP – Smeshannoe Nitridnoi Uran- Plutonievoe) will begin once the regulator approves the technology for handling plutonium at the ODEK site. More than 200 assemblies are required for the initial load. After the first fuel campaign, the refabrication of fresh fuel from recycled irradiated fuel will begin. To confirm the performance of the SNUP fuel, SKhK
produced a batch of experimental fuel assemblies that were tested in the BOR-60 research reactor at the Scientific Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (NIIAR – Nauchno Issledovatelskii Institut Atomnikh Reaktorov) in Dimitrovgrad as well as in the BN-600 fast reactor at the Beloyarsk NPP. Alexander Ugryumov, Vice President for Scientific &
Above: The 176-tonne base plate for Brest was delivered to site in two halves in January 2022 and was installed in the reactor shaft in January 2024.
were needed. “We drew up three main regulatory
documents supported by 20 technical standards related to this type of reactor. Specialist teams from Rosatom and Rostechnadzor worked on these documents. The last document was finalised two months ago.” First concrete for Brest was poured in June 2021. In
October 2022, SkhK completed a system for preparing lead coolant to test the pumping unit for the reactor. The 176-tonne base plate for Brest – a unique component – was delivered to the construction site in two halves in January 2022 and was installed into the reactor shaft in January 2024. Testing of the analytical simulator for Brest took place in June 2025 at the site of the All-Russian Research Institute for the Operation of Nuclear Power Plants (VNIIAES), where it had been developed since December 2022.
Above: Evgeny Adamov – the father of Brest
Fuel fabrication unit begins operation On 25 December 2024, the fuel fabrication-refabrication module MFR at ODEK was put into trial and commercial operation. The first pilot fuel cassettes for the Brest- OD-300 core with depleted uranium nitride fuel pellets have already been manufactured at the fully-automated production facility. All production sections of the new plant have passed comprehensive testing. In total, four technological lines are in place for: the carbo-thermal synthesis of mixed uranium and plutonium nitrides, the production of fuel pellets, the production of fuel elements, and the assembly of complete fuel cassettes. Speaking at the launch of the facility, Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev said that 2024 was a year filled with events that were crucial for Russia’s nuclear energy sector and for the global nuclear family. “It began with the launch of the carbon-thermal synthesis technology, and ends with the commissioning of the entire nuclear fuel fabrication- refabrication module for the first Generation IV nuclear power plant on the planet to
46 | WNE Special Edition |
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Technical Activities and Quality Rosatom’s Fuel Division, TVEL, said the peculiarity of the Brest-OD-300 lead reactor project is that it is the first plant designed to operate on SNUP fuel. “Its difference from the mixed oxide (mox) fuel, which is produced for the BN-800 sodium-cooled fast reactor, is in greater density.” He added: “Work is underway to create second-
generation fuel elements with a higher level of uranium burn-up. These will be used when the production of SNUP fuel transitions to the refabrication stage, utilising the recycled SNUP fuel from the first load that has undergone a reactor irradiation cycle.”
Future plans In the future, Rosatom intends to scale up the Brest- OD-300 reactor unit to the BR-1200 with a capacity of 1,200 MWe. According to Russia’s plans for power generation facilities to 2042, eight units with BR-1200 reactors are to be built at new sites – two at the Reftinskaya NPP (Sverdlovsk Region), two at the Yuzhnouralskaya NPP (Chelyabinsk Region), two at the Severskaya NPP, and two at the Siberian NPP (Irkutsk Region). In addition, around 2035, Rosatom expects to prepare an export version of these Gen IV power complexes. In an interview with Construction in the Nuclear Industry (Stroitelstvo v Atomnoi Otrasli) in March 2023, Adamov said: “The main objective of the Brest-OD-300 power unit is to carry out a set of R&D activities that would be impractical or impossible without its creation, and which should confirm the possibility of using all of its innovations for industrial power units. This includes the integral design of the reactor, which eliminates the possibility of a loss of coolant accident (Three Mile, Fukushima), the equilibrium core, which eliminates the possibility of reactivity accidents (Chornobyl), SNUP, and the use of lead as a coolant.” Adamov added that Brest is an integral part of ODEK, which includes both fuel production and used nuclear fuel reprocessing, closing the nuclear the fuel cycle. He concluded: “This task has been approached many times, but it has not yet been implemented industrially. However, only with a closed fuel cycle based on fast neutron reactors can we achieve all the benefits of nuclear energy and overcome the challenges that have arisen during its early development”. ■
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