NEWS |
round up
USED FUEL FINLAND’S RADIATION & Nuclear Safety Authority Radiation & Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) has been given another one-year extension to complete its review of Posiva Oy’s operating licence application for what will be the world’s first used nuclear fuel repository. The used fuel encapsulation plant and final disposal facility repository under construction at Olkiluoto is expected to begin operations in the mid-2020s.
CANADA’S NUCLEAR WASTE Management Organisation has formally selected Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation and the Township of Ignace as the host communities for the future site for Canada’s deep geological repository for used nuclear fuel. The proposed repository will be constructed roughly 650-800 metres below ground level and encased in a natural shield of solid rock.
RADWASTE BELGIAN NUCLEAR RESEARCH centre SCK CEN in Mol, Antwerp province, having almost completed dismantling its Belgian Reactor 3 (BR3), is replacing it with a Material Treatment (MaT) building. MaT is will investigate solutions to treat radioactive waste from sustainable dismantling of nuclear reactors which.
ROSATOM REPORTS THAT the last batch of uranium beryllium used nuclear fuel has been removed from the former 574th coastal technical base of the Northern Fleet in Gremikha in the Murmansk region. The fuel was used to power nuclear submarines equipped with liquid metal (lead-bismuth) cooled fast reactors.
THE KOREA RADIOACTIVE Waste Agency (KORAD) has signed memoranda of understanding with Finland’s Posiva Oy and its subsidiary Posiva Solutions as well as with Spain’s Enresa to strengthen cooperation in radioactive waste management. KORAD said the MOUs will strengthen cooperation on issues including: the establishment of radioactive waste management policy and site selection process; and the treatment, transport, storage and disposal of radioactive waste.
D&D ROSATOM’S MINING & Chemical Combine (GKhK – Gorno Khimiheskovo Kombinata) in Zheleznogorsk has begun to decommission the ADE-2 industrial uranium-graphite reactor. To make way for a molten salt research reactor (IZhSR – Issledovatelskovo Zhidko Solevovo Reaktora). The first phase of the work will last two years.
effective in August. However, to ensure
US NPPs do not experience disruptions, DOE introduced a process that allows the authorities to grant a waiver to an importer for specified quantities of Russian LEU under certain circumstances. These waivers will terminate not later than 1 January 2028. In October, UUSA was also one of four
companies selected by DOE to provide enrichment services to help establish a US supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enriched to between 5% and 20% U-235, needed to fuel many of the advanced reactors and small modular reactors under development. UUSA is part of Urenco, with its head office in the UK and enrichment facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK as well as in the USA.
Japan
Shimane 2 restarts after 13 years Japan’s Chugoku Electric Power Company has restarted unit 2 at its Shimane NPP in Matsue in Shimane Prefecture, which has been closed since shortly after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, the company said. The reactor is scheduled to begin commercial operation in early January 2025. The 820 MWe Shimane 2 is the second boiling
water reactor (BWR) in Japan to restart, after the 789 MWe reactor at unit 2 of Tohoku Electric Power’s Onagawa NPP in Miyagi Prefecture restarted in October. This brings the number of Japan’s operational reactors to 14, with a combined capacity of 13,253 MWe. Both Onagawa 2 and Shimane 2 are the same
type as the reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’ Fukushima Daiichi NPP, which suffered a triple meltdown following the Great East Japan Earthquake. Shimane 2 began commercial operations in
1989 and was closed in January 2012 for regular inspections. In June 2021, it became the 17th Japanese reactor (and the fifth BWR) to pass Nuclear Regulation Authority safety screenings to receive approval to restart. Following approvals by the cities of Matsue, Izumo, Yasugi and Unnan, in June 2022 the governor of Shimane prefecture approved restart. Shimane 2 was set to resume operation in August, but this was postponed because of required safety upgrade work. Ahead of the restart, it was pointed out that
there was no effective way for about 450,000 people living within a 30-kilometre radius of the plant to evacuate safely in the event of an accident. Some residents filed for a provisional injunction in May to ban the restart of the unit but the court refused to accept it. Chugoku President and CEO Kengo Nakagawa
said: “We believe that we have reached an important milestone in the restart process. We will continue to put safety first and work with even greater intensity as we steadily proceed with inspections and checks of equipment in preparation for… resuming commercial operations.”
10 | January 2025 |
www.neimagazine.com To date, following the closure of all of Japan’s
reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, 24 have already been decommissioned. Of the 27 that have undergone safety screenings, the restart of 17 has been approved, 13 of which have already resumed operations (12 pressurised water reactors and one BWR). The remaining four are preparing to resume operations after improving safety measures. The screenings of 10 reactors are still ongoing.
China Haiyang district heating expansion China’s Haiyang NPP in Shandong province now provides district heating to an area of nearly 13m square metres – 500,000 square metres more than last year – as it begins its sixth heating season. State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), parent company of Shandong Nuclear Power Company, says that by 2026 it will be able to heat the city of Qingdao with a population of more than 10m. The Haiyang district heating scheme, which
began as a demonstration project, started operations in 2019. Each year it has been expanded, with heating capacity increasing from an initial 31.5 MW to 1,134 MW, and the area covered increasing 20-fold from an initial 700,000 square metres. According to SPIC, safe and stable operation over the five heating seasons “fully verified that the engineering technology is replicable, the business model is promotable, and the cost- effectiveness is sustainable”. It also “provides a good model for large-scale cogeneration of nuclear power, and has led to the follow-up implementation at multiple nuclear power plants”.
Over the past five winters the district heating scheme has provided 9.01m gigajoules of heat, saving 810,000 tonnes of coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.49m tonnes. SPIC says that the air quality during winter in Haiyang “has improved significantly” and the area where the sea temperature is 2 degrees C hotter around the NPP has been reduced by 41 hectares since the heating scheme began. Haiyang NPP currently features two
Westinghouse AP1000 units and SPIC says that with the commissioning of subsequent units – two Chinese-design CAP1000 units currently under construction and with up to four more proposed – the long-term heating capacity will reach 200m square metres. Plant owner Shandong Nuclear Power
Company has cooperated with local thermal company Fengyuan Thermal Power to install a system that extracts non-radioactive steam from the secondary circuit of the two Haiyang AP1000 units. This recovered steam is then fed through a
multi-stage heat exchanger in an on-site heat exchange station. The heat is then transferred to an off-site heat exchange station belonging to Fengyuan Thermal Power, from which heated water flows through municipal heating pipes to consumers.
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
