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elements with the design documentation. This means the reactor is ready for the next stage – fuel loading.” The previous week the Council of Turkiye’s
Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NDK) issued permission to commission Akkuyu 1. “Issuing this permit shows that we did everything correctly in line with Turkish regulation and international law. It enables us to proceed to the commissioning stage,” Sezemin noted. Fuel loading will become possible after Akkuyu NPP receives an operating licence. Akkuyu Nukleer has said their specialists are developing the technical documentation required to support the application for this licence. Akkuyu will eventually host four Russian- designed VVER-1200 reactors. The pouring of first concrete for unit 1 took place in April 2018, for unit 2 in June 2020, for unit 3 in March 2021, and for unit 4 in July 2022. Completion of unit 1 is expected in the third quarter of 2023. Rosatom is constructing the reactors according to a build-own-operate model. To date, the project is fully funded by the Russian side. However, Rosatom has the right to sell a share of up to 49% in the project to other investors.
China HTR-PM begins commercial ops The world’s first Generation 4 NPP – China’s HTR-PM demonstration project at Shidaowan in Shandong province – has begun commercial operations, according to the China National Energy Administration and China Huaneng Group. The project is owned by a consortium led by China Huaneng (47.5%) with China National Nuclear Corporation’s subsidiary China Nuclear Engineering Corporation (32.5%) and the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technologies (INET) of Tsinghua University (20%), which is the head of research and development. Construction began in December 2012 and unit 1 achieved criticality in September 2021 followed by unit 2 two months later. Unit 1 was grid connected in December 2021 and both units achieved full power in December 2022. The HTR-PM project involves two small 250 MW high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) that drive a single 210 MW turbine. The HTGR is an advanced reactor that features fourth-generation technology, and is a key development direction for nuclear power, said Zhang Zuoyi, chief designer of the HTGR programme and Dean of INET. The reactors are inherently safe, excluding the possibility of a meltdown or leak of radioactive materials even in the event of a complete loss of cooling capacity, without any intervention, he added. Helium is used as a coolant, and graphite is
used as a moderator. The core of each reactor is loaded with more than 245,000 spherical fuel elements (pebbles), each 60 mm in diameter and containing 7 grammes of fuel enriched to 8.5%. Each micro-pebble has an outer layer of graphite and contains about 12,000 four-layer ceramic-coated fuel particles dispersed in a matrix of graphite powder. The fuel has high
safety characteristics and has been proven to remain intact and continue to contain radioactive contents at temperatures up to 1620°C, much higher than the temperatures that can occur even in extreme emergencies. The HTR-PM project follows China’s HTR- 10, a 10 MW experimental high-temperature gas-cooled reactor at INET, which went online in 2000 and reached full capacity in 2003. In addition to the HTR-PM, China is developing a larger version, the HTR-PM600, with a single 650 MW turbine powered by six small reactors.
France Key ITER component moved for repair Work has been underway since January to address defects identified in two key tokamak components during assembly of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), under construction in France. Defects were identified in the thermal shields and the vacuum vessel sectors and repairs to both are now underway.
Deviations during the welding process of the
vacuum vessel sectors had led to dimensional ‘’non-conformities’’ on the outer shells, affecting the geometry of the field joints where the sectors are to be welded together. “When a finalised component is made of several sections individually machined and welded together, and when it is as tall as a six-storey building like the ITER vacuum vessel, dimensional non- conformities are on par with the component’s size,” ITER said in 2022. In the case of the three vacuum vessel
sectors that had already been delivered, the welding of the component’s four individual segments caused deviations from nominal dimensions that were more substantial than the specified limit in different locations on the component’s outer shell. “These dimensional non-conformities modified the geometry of the field joints where the sectors are to be welded together, thus compromising the access and operation of the bespoke automated welding tools,” ITER said. After spending just about one year in vertical
tooling, vacuum vessel sector 8 has now been returned to a horizontal orientation for removal from the Assembly Hall. In September 2022, the 440-tonne component had been moved into the sector sub-assembly tool that had been left vacant after the installation of sector module 6. However, plans for future installation activities had to be revised when it was reported that major repairs would be required to correct non- conformities in the geometry of the vacuum vessel sectors. Vacuum vessel sector 8 was removed from
the sector sub-assembly tool to an “upending” cradle. And from there it was recently moved to a horizontal platform. The component was carefully wrapped in order to leave the controlled environment of the Assembly Hall for a period of storage in the Cryostat Workshop. Sector 8 is the third of three sectors needing repair, so work will not begin immediately.
round up
SAFETY & SECURITY AN INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC Energy Agency (IAEA) Integrated Review Service for Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel Management, Decommissioning and Remediation (ARTEMIS) team of experts found that Belgium demonstrated commitment to the safe management of its radioactive waste and used fuel.
NUCLEAR FUEL URENCO HAS APPROVED an investment to expand enrichment capacity at its facility in the Netherlands. Multiple new centrifuge cascades will be added to Urenco’s plant in Almelo – the third major investment to be approved under Urenco’s capacity programme to strengthen the nuclear fuel supply chain worldwide.
US FUEL TECHNOLOGY company Lightbridge Corporation has announced a contract to conduct a front-end engineering & design (FEED) study to add a dedicated Lightbridge Pilot Fuel Fabrication Facility (LPFFF) at Centrus’s American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio.
ROSATOM HAS COMPLETED testing equipment for the production of mixed uranium-plutonium nitride fuel intended for the BREST-OD-300 lead-cooled fast reactor under construction at the Siberian Chemical Plant in Seversk. The equipment is installed in the Fabrication/ Refabrication Module (MFR) at the Experimental Demonstration Energy Complex being developed at SCC under the Breakthrough project.
USED FUEL THE CHINA INSTITUTE of Atomic Energy (CIAE) has received a certificate for the design of a transport and packaging container (TPC) for used nuclear fuel from large fast reactors. The container has a multilayer design.
A TEAM OF Russian scientists from several large scientific centres has created an organic compound that helps to more effectively separate components of used fuel during reprocessing, the press service of Lomonosov Moscow State University reported. This supports research to develop the technologies needed for the transition to a closed nuclear fuel cycle.
US-BASED LASER enrichment technology developer LIS Technologies has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Curio Legacy Ventures, a subsidiary of Curio Solutions, to explore possible applications of LIS technology for efficient recovery of usable uranium isotopes from commercial used fuel.
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