NEWS |
round up
NEW BUILD ENGINEERING COMPANY ASSYSTEM has been awarded a three-year framework contract by Hungary’s MVM ERBE Energetika for the delivery of engineering services for two new units at the Paks II.
FINNISH POWER COMPANY Teollisuuden Voima Oy has applied to Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) for permission to go critical with the Olkiluoto 3 EPR reactor and begin lower-power testing.
GEORGIA POWER’S NEWBUILD project at the Vogtle NPP is facing another delay, according to an independent expert testimony filed with the state Public Service Commission. Recently discovered “construction quality” issues mean Vogtle 3 may not be completed before February 2023.
RUSSIA’S STATE DUMA has ratified a five-year extension of the €10bn ($11.3bn) Hungarian state loan for the construction of the Paks II. The Duma ratified the protocol amending the 2014 agreement between the governments of the Russian Federation and Hungary on the provision the loan.
EDF HAS COMPLETED a major lift at Hinkley Point C in the UK, using Big Carl, the world’s biggest crane, to install the first ring of HPC 2’s reactor building. The work was done 25% faster than the same procedure for unit 1.
ROSATOM HAS INSTALLED the 120t liner structure for the VVER-1200 reactor shaft at unit 3 of the Xudabao NPP under construction in China. The liner acts as a permanent formwork during concreting for the further installation of the melt containment device and the reactor vessel.
UPGRADES ONTARIO POWER GENERATION said refurbishment Canada’s Darlington 3 has entered a new phase after the refurbishment team completed the world’s first combined Pressure and Calandria Tube removal on a CANDU reactor.
THE US NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission has approved a request by Dominion Energy to increase the reactor capacity of Millstone 3 by around 1.6%, increasing the PWR’s generating capacity by 20MWe. Dominion intends to implement the uprate by spring 2022.
SMR race hots up
US-based TerraPower announced in November that Kemmerer, Wyoming, is the preferred site for the Natrium reactor demonstration project — a 345MW sodium- cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. TerraPower selected the Kemmerer location
GE Hitachi BWRX-300 SMR Photo credit: GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy
Small and advanced modular reactor projects are moving ahead supported by government and private investment. In December, Canada’s Ontario Power
Generation (OPG) said it will work together with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy to deploy a small modular reactor (SMR) at the Darlington site. The GE Hitachi BWRX-300 was one of three SMR designs under consideration for deployment at Darlington. The others were Terrestrial Energy’s Integrated Molten Salt Reactor and X-energy’s Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. OPG said it will now work with GE Hitachi
on the SMR engineering, design, planning, preparing the licensing and permitting materials, and performing site preparation activities. The companies are targeting a “mutual goal of constructing Canada’s first commercial, grid-scale SMR, projected to be completed as early as 2028.” The Darlington New Nuclear Project is
the only site in Canada with an approved Environmental Assessment and regulatory licence for new nuclear. OPG said it will apply to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for a licence to construct the SMR by the end of 2022. According to OPG’s indicative schedule, CNSC is expected to issue a licence to build by 2024 and a licence to operate by 2027. The BWRX-300 is the 10th evolution of GE’s
BWR technology. It is currently undergoing a CNSC pre-licensing Vendor Design Review. Just before OPG’s decision, one of the other
contenders for the Darlington site, Canada’s Terrestrial Energy, signed a contract with Siemens Energy Canada for manufacture and supply of steam turbines and other balance-of- plant equipment for its Generation IV Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR).
US developments In the US, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed into law in November, providing almost $2.5bn through fiscal year 2025 for the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) contribution to the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which selected X-energy and TerraPower to demonstrate their advanced nuclear reactors before the end of the decade.
4 | January 2022 |
www.neimagazine.com
near Naughton, where two coal units are scheduled to retire in 2025, following an extensive evaluation process and meetings with community members and leaders. It anticipates submitting the demonstration plant’s construction permit application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in mid- 2023. The plant is expected to be operational in the next seven years, aligning with the ARDP schedule mandated by Congress. US Southern Company also established a
cooperative agreement with the DOE to design, construct and operate the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment. The reactor, also selected for funding under DOE’s ARDP, will be the first fast-spectrum, salt-fuelled nuclear fission reactor to go critical, according to Southern. Through a public-private partnership in 2015, Southern Company and TerraPower were awarded approximately $40 million from DOE to build integrated infrastructure to support early development of MCFR technology. “Our past work with Southern Company has
led to important experimental milestones and to the establishment of unique test facilities necessary to validate molten salt reactor technology,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower’s president and CEO. “Southern Company’s leadership and experience in reactor licensing and operation has been essential. The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment will continue this important work in a critical reactor experiment, leading to the successful development of low- cost, clean energy for the future.” Meanwhile, US-based NuScale Power has named its small modular reactor ‘VOYGR’. The scalable power plant design now dubbed VOYGR-12 can accommodate up to 12 NuScale power modules, resulting in a total gross output of 924MWe. NuScale also offers smaller scalable solutions, the four-module VOYGR-4 (308MWe) and six-module VOYGR-6 (462MWe). NuScale says it will be ready to deliver the
first VOYGR plant to the Carbon Free Power Project, an initiative spearheaded by the public power consortium Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems by the end of the decade. In Europe there were two key developments.
In France EDF announced it has established the International Nuward Advisory Board. Nuward is a 340MWe European pressurised water SMR, comprising two 170MWe reactors. In the UK, Rolls-Royce has asked the UK government for clearance to begin the 4-5 year process of seeking regulatory approval for its SMR through the Generic Design Assessment process. ■
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
