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NEW BUILD KOREA HYDRO & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Doosan Enerbility signed a KRW2,900bn ($2.3bn) component supply agreement construction of units 3&4 at the Shin-Hanul NPP in Uljin, North Gyeongsang, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry& Energy. Construction of the two units was suspended in 2017 as part of the nuclear phase out policy, which is now reversed. Construction of the units is expected to begin next year.
UNIT 2 OF the Belarus NPP has been brought to minimum controllable power level as part of the final stage of its physical start, according to the Belarus Ministry of Energy. A neutron flux was registered for the first time and a controlled self-sustained nuclear reactor began. The unit has been is set to a minimum controlled power level of 1% enabling the final tests of physical start-up stage to proceed.
UNIT 3 OF China’s Fangchenggang NPP in the southern Guangxi Autonomous Region has begun commercial operation. China General Nuclear (CGN) said reactor had completed a 168-hour trial test run “officially meeting the conditions for commercial operation”. Fangchenggang 3 achieved first criticality in December 2022 and was connected to the grid in January.
UPGRADES CREWS AT BRUCE Power have completed the defueling of unit 3, 18 days ahead of schedule. The unit was shut down in early March in order to begin its Major Component Replacement (MCR) outage. The refurbished unit is scheduled to come back online in 2026. During the 27-day defuelling programme, 5,748 fuel bundles were removed from the reactor core.
REGULATION AND LAW THE US NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission (NRC) has directed the staff to create a regulatory framework for fusion energy systems, based on its curent process for licensing the use of by-product materials. NRC Chair Christopher T Hanson said this “will protect public health and safety with a technology- neutral, scalable regulatory approach”.
THE US NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed a $70,000 civil penalty for Urenco USA for two violations of agency requirements related to improperly implementing safety controls at its Eunice, New Mexico, enrichment plant.
begins operations Olkiluoto 3
ready to make the appropriate decisions about receiving the unit and starting commercial use. Construction of OL3 began in 2005 and
Above: Olkiluoto 3 is now operating after construction began in 2005
The EPR reactor at unit 3 of Olkiluoto NPP (OL3) has begun electricity production following the completion of trial operation. Finland’s Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said that about 30% of Finland’s electricity will be produced from the Olkiluoto NPP, with OL3 accounting for 14%. TVO added that OL3 makes Finland almost self-sufficient in electricity. The unit will operate for at least the next 60 years. The first annual maintenance will be carried out in March 2024. An Areva-Siemens consortium constructed OL3 under a fixed-price turnkey contract and is responsible until the end of the unit’s warranty period. TVO said the OL3 project ends contractually when the analyses of the latest trial operation phase are completed and TVO is
China Fusion record set The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), at the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) in Hefei, has set a new record by running for 403 seconds in a steady-state high-confinement long plasma operation. The HT-7U reactor is a tokamak that controls a high- temperature plasma with electromagnets. This broke its previous record set in May 2021 with a run of 101 seconds at a temperature at 120m degrees Celsius and an earlier run of 20 seconds at 160m degrees Celsius. The latest results came after 120,000 previous attempts and will provide critical data for ITER, under construction in France. In December 2021, under a different
experiment, EAST set a record maintaining a stable plasma at 70m degrees Celsius for 1056 seconds (17.6 minutes). Although the run duration of the reactor was shorter in the most recent experiment, its significance lies in the fact that the reactor was run in high confinement mode. Song Yuntao, ASIPP director, told Xinhua that, in this mode, the temperature and density of the particles are greatly increased, which is an important step toward achieving higher operational efficiency of fusion power plants in the future.
8 | May 2023 |
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various setbacks and delays mean the plant is some 14 years behind the original schedule and significantly over budget. OL3’s final price tag is put at some EUR11bn ($12bn), three times the initial estimate. OL3 attained first criticality in December 2021 and was connected to the grid in March 2022. The 1600 MWe EPR was operated at full capacity for the first time in late September 2022. However, cracks were identified in the impellers of the feedwater pumps. Tests at full power were continued after
extensive investigations with two cracked impellers and two spare impellers. To avoid the recurrence of similar damage, impellers with more robust measurements were designed for OL3. The new impellers were installed in all four feedwater pumps during a recent scheduled outage and the plant supplier carried out inspections in preparation for resumed trial operation. The reactor was briefly back in test mode in late December and early January before being closed again for maintenance. TVO CEO Jarmo Tanhua said production at
OL3 “stabilises the price of electricity and is an important part of Finland’s green transition”. ■
United States Clean-up progress The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site has begun converting radioactive sodium-bearing liquid waste stored in underground tanks to a more stable, granular solid. The waste was generated during decontamination activities following used nuclear fuel reprocessing that ended in 1992. Workers constructed the IWTU from 2007 to
2011 to convert 900,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste to a granular solid resembling coarse sand using steam-reforming technology. In 2012 three demonstration runs identified a number of chemical and equipment challenges. As a result, from 2012 to 2023, IWTU underwent testing with non-radioactive simulated waste, or simulant. EM also completed some 50 major modifications to the facility’s primary reaction vessel, off-gas treatment vessel, process filters and canister fill cells to address these challenges. Initially, the IWTU will treat a blend that is 10% sodium-bearing waste (SBW) and 90% simulant. The blend will later contain 50% waste and 50% simulant before it eventually becomes 100% sodium-bearing waste based on the plant’s operating conditions. Following
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