NEWS |
round up
COMPANY NEWS CANDU ENERGY HAS won a contract from Eclipse Automation to design the structures and foundations for 12 shielded hot cells at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ new Advanced Nuclear Materials Research Centre.
UK-BASED SHEFFIELD Forgemasters has joined the Sizewell C Consortium of businesses with the aim to supply large-scale nuclear projects across the UK, starting with Sizewell C.
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC COMPANY has stepped up its long-term partnership with Tecnatom after receiving all regulatory approvals for the 50% acquisition of shares previously owned by Iberdrola and Naturgy.
US-BASED CONSTELLATION, formerly part of Exelon is collaborating with Microsoft to develop an energy technology solution that allows customers to fully achieve their zero emissions goals.
NUCLEAR FUEL INDÚSTRIAS NUCLEARES DO Brasil has signed a contract with Eletronuclear to supply of fuel elements for five reloads each at Angra 1 and at Angra 2. INB’s previous nuclear fuel supply contract with Eletronuclear was signed in 2011.
THE US NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission has approved a licence amendment allowing Framatome’s shipping containers to transport fresh nuclear fuel assemblies with U-235 enrichments above the industry standard of 5 weight% to US customers.
RADWASTE A CONSIGNMENT OF intermediate-level waste has been delivered to the interim waste store at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s Lucas Heights facility in Australia. The flask contained waste radiologically equivalent to used fuel received by the UK from Australia in 1996.
ORANO FEDERAL SERVICES has been selected to receive $2.2 million in project funding from the US Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy as part of the Optimising Nuclear Waste and Advanced Reactor Disposal Systems (ONWARDS) programme.
ITALY’S SOGIN HAS submitted to the Ministry of Ecological Transition its proposal for the National Charter of Eligible Areas to host a national repository for radioactive waste and a technological park.
V Punjab, and Karachi. In 2017 CNNC signed a cooperation agreement with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission for construction of a Hualong One as a fifth unit at Chashma.
United Kingdom Rolls-Royce SMR enters UK regulatory assessment Rolls-Royce says its 470MW small modular reactor (SMR) is entering the UK’s Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process with regulators – the Office for Nuclear Regulation, the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales. Rolls-Royce asked the UK government for
clearance to begin the process of seeking regulatory approval for its SMR design in November. ONR said the assessment will begin once the necessary arrangements around timescales and resources have been put in place. The three-step GDA process is expected to take at least four years to complete. “Entering the GDA assessment process is another major milestone as we head at pace towards our goal of deploying a fleet of SMRs which will produce affordable, low carbon electricity – helping meet future energy demands and reach our net zero targets,” said Tom Samson, Rolls-Royce SMR CEO. UK regulators have previously carried out
GDAs for EDF-Areva’s UK EPR, completed in December 2012; Westinghouse’s AP1000, completed in March 2017; Hitachi-GE’s Advanced Boiling Water reactor, completed in December 2017; and China General Nuclear’s UK HPR1000, completed in February 2022.
United States X-energy to produce fuel for space programme US-based X-energy said its TRISO-X team has won a tender to produce fuel for Idaho National Lab’s Space Nuclear Programme. X-energy said its coated particle fuel
fabrication demonstration will help show that kernels of a given chemistry and coatings can be successfully produced at commercial scale and within manufacturing specifications. “This INL/NASA Space Fuel work dovetails well with our on-going space nuclear work under our existing DARPA DRACO fuel fabrication activities and complements our work on stationary power fuel, such as spherical pebbles for the Xe-100 high-temperature gas- cooled reactor (HTGR),” said Pete Pappano, president of TRISO-X. In 2021, the US Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a Track A contract to General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems for the first phase of the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) programme. The DRACO programme will develop an agile nuclear thermal propulsion system for cislunar operations, targeting a full-scale, on-orbit demonstration in 2025. X-energy’s proprietary TRi-structural
8 | April 2022 |
www.neimagazine.com
ISOtropic particle fuel (TRISO-X) consists of thousands of kernels of high-assay low- enriched uranium, each the size of a poppy seed and wrapped in alternating layers of pyrolytic carbon and either silicon carbide or zirconium carbide
Finland Electricity production begins at OL3 Finnish EPR Olkiluoto 3 was connected to the national grid on 12 March, after commissioning began in December 2021. It was delayed by an unplanned reactor shutdown on 14 January. Plant operator and owner Teollisuuden
Voima Oyj (TVO) said that power would be raise to 1600MWe in several steps over four months. “This is a large production volume, about 3-4TWh during the trial period, which corresponds to about 10% of Finland’s electricity needs, TVO said. “The start of electricity production has
been carefully prepared and this is a great demonstration of our expertise. OL3 is a significant addition to domestic clean electricity production, which accounts for more than 90%. At the same time, the need for electricity imports will be reduced by less than half,” said production director Marjo Mustonen. After July 2022 Olkiluoto 3 will account
for about 14% of Finland’s total electricity consumption. The supplier consortium — including
Areva GmbH, Areva NP SAS and Siemens AG — constructed the plant under a fixed-price turnkey contract. The consortium of plant suppliers are jointly and severally liable for the obligations under the plant supply contract until the end of the plant unit’s warranty period. Construction began in 2005.
China
District heating to be launched at Hongyanhe China’s State Power Investment Northeast Electric Power Company and Liaoning Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Company (LHNPC) have signed a cooperation agreement on construction, operation and maintenance of a nuclear heating demonstration project at Hongyanhe, Chinese media reported. LHNPC is a joint venture between China
General Nuclear (CGN) and State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), with the Dalian Municipal Construction Investment Company holding the remaining 10%. Hongyanhe has six units — four CPR-1000
PWRs which began operation between 2009 and 2016, and two ACPR-1000s. Hongyanhe 5 began commercial operation in July 2021 and unit 6 is scheduled to start operating in H1 2022. The project is designed to provide heating
for nearly 20,000 local people. It is planned to begin construction in June for completion before the 2022/23 winter heating period. It is viewed as a nuclear energy heating demonstration project for Northeast China. Two nuclear district heating projects are already U
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