NEWS |
round up
RADWASTE CANADA’S MUNICIPALITY OF South Bruce Council has endorsed the Hosting Agreement between the Municipality and the Nuclear Waste Management Organisation (NWMO). The area is one of two potential host sites for a deep geologic repository selected in a process launched by the NWMO in 2010. The Township of Ignace signed a hosting agreement with the NWMO in March.
D&D
SOUTH KOREA’S NOW-retired Kori NPP unit 1 in Busan is now undergoing a decontamination process in the run up to dismantling. After some 40 years of service starting April 1978, Kori 1 South Korea’s oldest reactor, was permanently closed in June 2017. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power said it had begun the chemical decontamination process to remove radioactive materials from the reactor.
HYDROGEN FORTUM PLANS TO build a hydrogen production pilot plant in Loviisa. The plant will be located in the Källa area near Fortum’s Loviisa NPP on land owned by Fortum. The construction of the plant will begin in summer 2024 and it is planned to be commissioned by the end of 2025.
UNIPER-OWNED OKG has signed a contract to supply Hynion’s hydrogen gas stations. The hydrogen gas comes from OKG’s hydrogen plant, which was established as early as 1992 to be used to cool generators at units 1-3 of Sweden’s Oskarshamn NPP to reduce the risk of stress corrosion cracking of the reactor piping by reducing the amount of free oxygen in the coolant.
SMRs
POLAND’S MINISTRY OF Climate & Environment has issued a Decision in Principle approving Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology. Poland’s Environment Minister, Paulina Hennig-Kloska said she believes the investment would be in the public interest and in line with the country’s energy and climate policies.
KOREA HYDRO & Nuclear Power, Canada-based ARC Clean Technology and New Brunswick Power (NB Power) have signed a non-binding trilateral Collaboration Agreement to further cooperation with the goal of establishing teaming agreements for global small modular reactor (SMR) fleet deployment. The agreement was signed at the Reuters SMR and Advanced Reactor 2024 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
United States ORNL examines GE Vernova fuel US Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) recently started examining several new fuel rods developed by GE Vernova’s Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF). The rods were shipped to the lab from a commercial NPP after completing six years of irradiation. The results from the experiments will be used to support the commercial deployment of high burn-up fuels before the end of the decade.
Higher burn-up fuel is designed to remain in
the reactor core for longer periods before being removed for long-term storage. Its use would lead to fewer refuelling outages, increased power output for better economics, and less used fuel generated over the lifetime of the reactor.
The fuel rods were manufactured at GNF’s
fabrication facility in Wilmington, North Carolina, with support from the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) programme. They were later inserted into a commercial reactor for testing, where they completed three full cycles of operation. ORNL will examine the fuel and verify its safety and performance. The post-irradiation experiments will continue for several years. The results will be used to support the development, engineering, and licensing efforts of GNF’s fuel. “This fuel shipment to Oak Ridge National
Laboratory is an important step in GNF’s efforts to commercialise their high burn-up fuel,” said Frank Goldner, a nuclear engineer within DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. “High burn-up fuels are expected to enhance the performance of today’s reactors and will help us on our path to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.” GE Vernova’s Nuclear energy business,
through its global alliance with Hitachi, provides nuclear fuel bundles, services, and advanced nuclear reactor designs. Technologies include boiling water reactors and small modular reactors, such as the BWRX-300. GE Vernova’s Nuclear fuel business, GNF, supplies boiling water reactor fuel and fuel-related engineering services. GNF is a GE Vernova-led joint venture with Hitachi and operates primarily through Global Nuclear Fuel-Americas in Wilmington and Global Nuclear Fuel-Japan Co in Kurihama, Japan.
Ghana Plans for new NPP move forward Ghana will select a company to build its first NPP by December from possible suppliers including France’s EDF, US-based NuScale Power and Regnum Technology Group, and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), Reuters reported, citing Robert Sogbadji, deputy director for power in charge of nuclear and alternative energy. Other contenders include South Korea’s Kepco and its subsidiary Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) as well as Russia’s Rosatom. Sogbadji told Reuters, the cabinet will
approve the final choice. “It can be one vendor 12 | June 2024 |
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or two nations; it will depend on the financial model and the technical details.” Sogbadji said 16 countries and companies had responded to the government’s request for vendors, but a technical team of state agencies led by the energy ministry narrowed it down to the current five nations. Ghana aims to add about 1,000 MWe of power from nuclear to its electricity mix by 2034. Sogbadji said the government has already secured a site with capacity to accommodate up to five reactors. He added that it would prefer a “build, own, operate and transfer” arrangement with room for local equity holding. In April, Nuclear Power Ghana (NPG) and CNNC Overseas Limited signed a cooperation and framework agreement on the margins of the 26th World Energy Congress in Rotterdam for the construction of a HPR-1000 (Hualong One) Nuclear Power Project and the upgrade of Ghana’s grid. Ghana restructured its nuclear programme in
2008 to meet the expected increase in energy demand. Nuclear Power Ghana was established in 2018 as the Owner/Operator of Ghana’s first proposed NPP.
Turkiye
New simulator for Akkuyu NPP The All Russian Scientific & Research Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Operation (JSC VNIIAES) – part of Rosenergoatom is shipping a special simulator to the Akkuyu NPP in Türkiye after completing comprehensive tests. The electrical equipment simulator of the NKU-RU 0.4 kV electric workshop systems is intended for the practical training in technical maintenance and repair of electrical equipment. “The special feature of this simulator is that
it was created using real cells of the electrical equipment of the power unit,” noted Alexander Molev the principal expert at VNIIAES. “All control circuits – operating current chains – operate according to the standard scheme in the power unit. The difference is that in the power circuits of the cell simulators, the voltage safe for personnel – 48 volts – while the equipment works in real time and the trainees are protected against electric shocks.” All signals are displayed on the instructor’s
computer, which, in turn, can give various commands, enter fault data, control and record the actions of students. Four people work in one shift at the electrical shop. The simulator makes it possible to analyse all potential mistakes by personnel allowing them to practise their actions until they become automatic in conditions that are as close as possible to real ones, without danger to people and equipment. “Currently, work is underway on the second
stage of the simulator project,” said Andrei Druzhayev Deputy Director of VNIIAES-NTP, Director of the Department of Mathematical Modelling & Engineering. Cells of 10 kV will be added to existing equipment, which will significantly expand the training opportunities for electric workshop personnel.
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