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round up


TECHNOLOGY


SWEDEN’S STUDSVIK SCANDPOWERON announced a strategic partnership with US-based Blue Wave AI Labs to deliver enhanced diagnostic and predictive capabilities to nuclear energy facilities worldwide. The partnership will create a growing product line for Studsvik Scandpower: Studsvik AI, Powered by Blue Wave AI Labs.


FUSION A CONSORTIUM OF nuclear fusion experts, led by Atkins and Assystem has been appointed by the UK Atomic Energy Authority as a service delivery partner for engineering for its Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) programme.


THE 25TH BATCH of Russian electrical equipment was successfully delivered to the construction site of the Iter project in France, Russia’s Iter Centre reported. The last of 14 trailers with Russian equipment, which started earlier from St Petersburg, has reached its destination in the south of France.


SAFETY AND SECURITY THE US DEPARTMENT of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)has removed 45 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from the Kyoto University Critical Assembly (KUCA) in Japan and returned it to the USA.


FRENCH REGULATOR AUTORITÉ de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) has given EDF formal notice to comply with the provisions of the safety report for reactors 2, 4 and 5 of the Bugey NPP, relating to limiting the risk of the foundation raft piercing the reactor building in the event of a serious accident.


USED FUEL US-BASED DEEP Isolation and Amentum have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to work together to further commercialisation of Deep Isolation’s technology. Initial targets for joint work include countries in Europe and the Pacific that represent a combined addressable market for geologic disposal of used fuel and high-level waste worth more than $30bn.


US-BASED HOLTEC International reported that Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) had placed its first order for used fuel and damaged fuel storage racks for its new reactors away-from- reactor wet storage facility for the Kudankulam NPP (KKNPP) from Holtec subsidiary Holtec Asia.


V Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK and managed by the EBRD. The plant’s two oldest VVER-440 reactors operated for almost 30 years before being shut down in 2006 and 2008 as a condition for Slovakia’s accession to the European Union. Decommissioning began in 2011. Two newer VVER-440 units Bohunice V2) continue to operate but Slovakia has now become a net importer of energy instead of an exporter. This is the first time reactors of this type


have been decommissioned and disassembled directly on site. Work to take apart and process the remaining equipment was scheduled to be completed by 2025. Civil structures and power plant buildings would then be demolished, and the area made safe for redevelopment by 2027.


Canada More SMR developments planned Canada’s Terrestrial Energy and Invest Alberta have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support commercialisation of the Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) Generation IV SMR in Western Canada. Terrestrial Energy’s IMSR has the potential


to supply the cogeneration needs of many industrial activities. Invest Alberta will work on federal and


provincial policies, and industrial incentives. Earlier, X-energy Canada and the


Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association (SIMSA) signed an MOU to support the potential deployment of Xe-100 high temperature gas-cooled reactor SMRs. Under this agreement, the two parties will explore opportunities to build supply chain capacity in Saskatchewan, helping the province capitalise on the potential benefits of the Xe-100 Generation IV nuclear reactor technology. X-energy and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) announced a collaboration to pursue clean energy opportunities. Under the agreement, X-energy and OPG look to deploy Xe-100s in Ontario at industrial sites. X-energy is in the final stages of the Canadian


Nuclear Safety Commission’s Pre-Licensing Vendor Design Review (VDR), an optional process that aims to determine a new nuclear power plant design compatibility with Canadian nuclear regulatory standards and requirements.


United Kingdom New contracts for Sellafield Ansaldo Nuclear has been selected to develop the key ‘tie-in’ connections that will support the flow of effluent treatment streams between the UK Sellafield site’s existing Site Ion Exchange Effluent Plant (SIXEP) facility and the new SIXEP Continuity Plant. Together the two facilities will filter out nuclear material from water before it is safely discharged to sea. Earlier NIS Ltd, Hyde Group, Ansaldo


Nuclear, James Fisher Nuclear, Carr’s Group, West Cumberland Engineering and NWEC Alliance were selected to deliver fabricated and manufactured equipment packages for the


12 | September 2022 | www.neimagazine.com


projects, a framework agreement for an initial three years, worth up to £20m ($24m). Sellafield is in the midst of the


decommissioning process, which is expected to complete in 2140. Meanwhile, the first UK shipment of legacy


waste drums from Magnox Harwell to Sellafield has been completed using the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA’s) Type B Gemini container fleet. Around 800 concrete- lined drums of Intermediate Level Waste will be transferred over the next three years.


Russia


BN1200s set for more Beloyarsk sites The BN-1200 sodium-cooled fast reactor planned for unit 5 of Russia’s Beloyarsk NPP in the Sverdlovsk region could be built on the sites of the decommissioned units 1&2 at Beloyarsk, Ivan Sidorov, director of the Beloyarsk NPP said. Beloyarsk NPP began operating in April 1964.


Beloyarsk 1&2, with thermal neutron AMB-100 and AMB-200 reactors, were stopped after 17 and 22 years of operation – in 1981 and 1989. They are under long-term mothballing with the fuel unloaded from the reactor as part of the first stage of NPP decommissioning. Two units are currently in operation – unit 3 with a BN-600 fast reactor, which began operation in 1980, and unit 4 with a BN-800 fast reactor, which began operation in 2015. These are the world’s only and largest commercial fast neutron reactors. Unit 5’s BN-1200 will be even larger. Meanwhile, Beloyarsk NPP plans to begin


construction of radioactive waste processing facilities this year, Sidorov said.


Sweden Westinghouse/EDF co-operate on ATF Westinghouse Electric Company has announced a partnership with EDF to explore the functionalities of Westinghouse’s EnCore enhanced Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) technology. Westinghouse will study its EnCore fuel in an EDF reactor for potential deployment across the EDF nuclear fleet after 2030. This will be the largest R&D programme on enhanced fuel that Westinghouse has conducted in Europe to date. Westinghouse will deliver assemblies with


Lead Test Rods (LTR) to EDF from its fuel fabrication facility in Västerås, Sweden by 2023. The initiative includes the licensing, qualification, fabrication, delivery and operation of the LTR in an EDF 1300 MWe reactor. Westinghouse also will conduct a post-irradiation exam to verify the enhanced accident tolerance features in EDF’s reactors under operating conditions. Westinghouse, Framatome and GE Hitachi with GNF are all working with the US Department of Energy (DOE) to develop new fuels under its Accident Tolerant Fuel Programme. As part of the programme, lead test rods


containing Westinghouse’s EnCore fuel technology were loaded into unit 2 at Exelon’s Byron NPP in Illinois in the spring of 2019. ■


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