NEWS |
round up
D&D TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER Company Holdings and Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited have signed an agreement on technical cooperation on decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Tepco will receive technical cooperation from JNFL regarding the handling and analysis of alpha nuclides.
IN 2021, IGNALINA NPP dismantled 3429t of equipment and 4200t of concrete waste of which 7000t of radioactive waste have already been processed, removed as non-radioactive waste and will be sold at auctions.
BALFOUR BEATTY KILPATRICK has been awarded the first Programme and Project Partners major project procurement contract which will enable the start of production, manufacturing, design, installation and testing of a key aspect of the Sellafield Product and Residue Store Retreatment plant’s main building.
TEPCO SAID ABOUT four tons of a calcium chloride solution used to maintain the ice wall, constructed to prevent seepage of groundwater into reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi site, had leaked from two storage tanks.
UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD researchers have developed a new simulation of the most dangerous radioactive fuel debris remaining in the nuclear reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
CUMBRIAN FIRM RESPONSIVE, specialists in destructive and non- destructive testing and training, has been awarded a £1.5 million contract to help transport radioactive waste in the UK.
FUSION CANADA’S BRUCE POWER, General Fusion, and the Nuclear Innovation Institute have signed a MOU to collaborate on accelerating the delivery of clean fusion power in Canada. They will evaluate potential deployment of a fusion power plant in Ontario.
NUVIA UK SAID its Consulting and Technical Services business line had been awarded a place on the UKAEA embedded engineering resource framework. The four-year framework will supplement UKAEA project teams, supplying specialist resources to support the fusion mission.
SNC-LAVALIN HAS been awarded three new contracts by the UKAEA to continue work on the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) programme to design and build a commercial-scale fusion energy plant.
V DOE initiated the MARVEL project in 2021 to support development of the technology to provide a robust experimental capability to test microreactor applications, develop regulatory approval processes for designs, evaluate systems for remote monitoring and develop autonomous control technologies. The prototype, which is heated by an external source of electricity, will help to pave the way for a demonstration microreactor to be sited at INL’s Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility. Before the final version of the 100kWt sodium-potassium cooled reactor is built and installed at TREAT, the MARVEL team must verify that it will work as designed. Simulation software is a key component for predicting reactor performance, but it will be supported by a prototype known as the primary-coolant apparatus test. The prototype, built in an INL machine shop,
was fabricated from sturdy type 316 stainless steel and is one of the largest components the shop has ever constructed. Each piece, from the main vessel body to the intermediate heat exchangers to the interface components for the four Stirling engines that will generate electricity, was meticulously crafted by the eight machinists involved in the project before being welded together. The process took nine months, including about 500 hours of weld time. Participating organisations in MARVEL include
Argonne National Laboratory, INL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Walsh Engineering, Creative Engineers, and Qnergy. The reactor is expected to achieve criticality by the end of 2024 and be made available to external researchers soon after.
South Africa Koeberg closed for SG replacement South Africa’s Koeberg 2 – a 920MWe pressurised water reactor – was closed on 17 January for refuelling and modernisation. The work is part of plans to extend its operation for 20 years. Power utility Eskom said Koeberg 2 had
operated without interruption for 450 days and that the outage is expected to last for five months. It will be the unit’s 25th refuelling outage since commissioning in 1985 and will see the replacement of three steam generators. During the outage the reactor pressure vessel head will also be replaced. An outage of a similar duration will follow
later in the year at Koeberg 1 for steam generator replacement. Its reactor pressure vessel head was replaced several years ago. “Replacing the steam generators is a
precautionary safety measure. For the past five years Eskom and the National Nuclear Regulator have been working on its application for extending Koeberg’s operating life,” Eskom said. “The replacement of the reactor pressure vessel head and steam generators has been identified by Eskom as a requirement for life extension. The successful replacement of these components is therefore an important element
10 | March 2022 |
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of the Safety Submission being prepared for submittal to the National Nuclear Regulator in mid-2022, in support of Koeberg’s operation for 20 additional years.”
Sweden Swedish Energy Agency supports lead-cooled reactor The Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) said mid- February that it has granted support to two innovative projects that may have an impact on future energy systems, both nationally and internationally. Swedish Modular Reactors has been granted just over SEK99 million ($10.6m) to support demonstration of a smaller lead-cooled reactor. Solkompaniet Sverige has been granted SEK14.4 million to support demonstrating a smart solar park.
“In the last two years, we have seen how electrification has taken off in earnest. Now we also see an increased interest in investments in fossil-free electricity production that may be necessary for our national transition, but also an opportunity to export solutions to meet the global climate challenge,” said Rémy Kolessar, head of the Swedish Energy Agency’s research, innovation and business development department. In the Solstice project, an electrically heated pilot plant at scale 1:56 of SEALER, a lead-cooled small modular reactor (SMR), will be tested and demonstrated in Oskarshamn.
United Kingdom UK HPR1000 completes GDA The UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency have confirmed that the UK Hualong Pressurised Water Reactor (UK HPR1000) is suitable for construction in the UK, subject to the necessary licensing, planning permission and environmental permits. The announcement follows completion of their in- depth assessment of the nuclear reactor design, which started in January 2017. The UK HPR1000 is based on the Hualong One power plant, designed by China General Nuclear Group (CGN).
The ONR and the Environment Agency,
the regulators who carry out the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) of new reactor designs, are satisfied that the reactor meets regulatory expectations on safety, security and environmental protection at this stage of the regulatory process. ONR has issued a Design Acceptance
Confirmation (DAC) and the Environment Agency has issued a Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA) to China General Nuclear, EDF and General Nuclear International Ltd, the partners in this GDA of the UK HPR1000. Bradwell Power Generation Company Limited — a joint subsidiary of CGN and EDF — is proposing to construct and operate a nuclear power station using twin UK HPR1000s at its site near the existing Magnox power station site at Bradwell in Essex. ■
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