NEWS |
round up
COMPANY NEWS THE UK GOVERNMENT has raised national security concerns related to the French state-owned EDF’s deal to buy US General Electric’s nuclear turbine business. The purchase agreement was signed in November 2022 and the UK antitrust regulator approved it in May 2023 after an initial investigation. However, the UK Cabinet Office in London has now issued a statement expressing concern over the agreement and setting out a list of conditions.
NUCLEAR FUEL BULGARIA’S NUCLEAR REGULATORY Agency (BNRA) says the management of the Kozloduy NPP has failed to provide all the required documents needed to justify replacing Russian nuclear fuel with fuel from US-based Westinghouse. The agency gave the NPP management until mid-October to provide the missing documents.
RUSSIA’S ELECTROCHEMICAL PLANT (ECP – part of the Rosatom Fuel Company TVEL) has begun installation of second plant (W2-ECP) for the processing of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUHF) in Zelenogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory. The plant converts DUHF into the more stable uranium oxide, which is also a raw material for the production mixed oxide (MOX) and dense nitride fuel.
ROSATOM’S FUEL COMPANY TVEL and the South African Atomic Energy Corporation (Necsa) have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in the manufacture of nuclear fuel and its components. Both companies aim to combine existing competencies in this area and to further interaction to develop relevant capabilities.
USED FUEL JAPAN’S CHUGOKU ELECTRIC Power Company has won approval from the municipal government of Kaminoseki town in Yamaguchi Prefecture to study the possible construction of an interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel on Nagashima island. Kaminoseki Mayor Tetsuo Nishi said: “We’ve decided to accept the firm’s proposal. The survey and the construction are separate issues.”
Iran
Five new NPPs planned Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has said Iran should become self-sufficient in designing and building nuclear reactors. He made the suggestion during a working group meeting arranged to draw up plans for producing 20,000 MWe of nuclear power by 2041. Mohammad Eslami, director of the Atomic
Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI), said studies have been carried out to identify construction sites. “New nuclear power plants will be established in five coastal provinces: Khuzestan, Bushehr, Hormuzgan, Sistan and Baluchestan (in the south and east) and Golestan province (in the north of Iran),” he said. He added that in some cases initial steps have been taken and agreements had been signed with contractors to launch the projects. Currently, the only operating NPP in Iran
is the first stage of the Bushehr NPP, built with Russian assistance. Rosatom is currently building the second stage of the power plant (Units 2&3) with a total capacity of 2,100 MW. Iran also has a small, ageing research reactor – the 5MWt Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) supplied by the US in 1967. However, in 2022, Iran said it had begun work on a domestic nuclear power plant with a capacity of 360 MWe in Darkhovin. Eslami said: “Previously it was assumed that the power plant would be built with the help of foreign states. However, we have revised this approach and set the task of building a completely Iranian NPP in order to become one of the countries with such industries.” Iran has also begun construction of a 10 MW pool-type light water reactor nuclear research reactor of its own design in Isfahan. The reactor is designed for 20% enriched fuel and will be used to test nuclear fuel and materials, for the production of medical isotopes, as well as for research using neutron beams. “The design and construction of this reactor is entirely the work of our nuclear scientists,” said Eslami, In the 1980s Iran had started construction of a 40 MWt indigenously designed natural uranium heavy water research reactor at Arak. The IR-40 reactor was 63% complete in 2009 and the reactor vessel was installed in 2013. However, Iran agreed to restructure it under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached between Iran and major world states in 2015. The redesign was intended to reduce the amount of plutonium the heavy water reactor could produce. In 2019, former AEOI head Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran had purchased spares to replace the core, and in September 2021, Eslami, said the IR-40 should be made operational “as soon as possible”. Iran has also begun constructing a mining
complex in the northwestern province of West Azarbaijan, which Eslami described as a “hub” for producing raw materials needed for nuclear power production. The project was launched in the Jang-e Sar region in Khoy, following the discovery of radioactive materials and
12 | September 2023 |
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rare-earth elements there. Eslami told at the launch ceremony that the complex can play a “significant role” in accelerating Iran’s plan for nuclear electricity generation. Eslami said the project would be completed within two and a half years, and that completing the first phase of the project would require around IRR10tr ($20m). Eslami has also announced that Iran has
managed to produce derivatives of heavy water. He described it as a cutting-edge achievement making Iran one of very few countries to have made the breakthrough. Iran was ready to also export the derivatives which can be used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer instead of the current high-risk methods and chemotherapy.
Canada Bruce 6 achieves criticality Unit 6 at Canada’s Bruce NPP has achieved a sustained fission chain reaction following completion of its Major Component Replacement (MCR) Project. This followed Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) approval to begin releasing the unit from a Guaranteed Shutdown State which enabled the many commissioning activities to be completed on the newly installed systems to verify everything was working as expected. The 817 MWe (net) pressurised heavy water
reactor was shut down in 2020 and is scheduled to resume commercial operation later this year. “This is great progress, made possible by
years of planning, preparation and execution by Bruce Power and our partners,” said Bruce Power President & CEO Mike Rencheck. “We are now in the final stages of returning unit 6 to service and we’re applying all of our learnings, innovation and experience from unit 6 to future MCRs to ensure our strong performance continues and improves.” The MCR project began in January 2020. The eight pressurised heavy-water Candu reactor units at the Bruce site in Ontario (Bruce A – units 1-4, and Bruce B – units 4-8) began commercial operation between 1977 and 1987. Bruce Power’s C$13bn (US$10bn) Life Extension Programme, which includes Asset Management and MCR, began in 2016. The MCR, which began with unit 6 and also includes units 3-8, will extend the life of the site until 2064. Units 1&2 have already been refurbished and were returned to service in 2012. Work began on unit 3 in March. The unit 6 MCR remains on track despite challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, while work on the unit 3 MCR outage is also progressing on track. The MCR project and Life-Extension
Programme is a privately-funded investment. It will extend the operational life of each reactor by 30-35 years. The work is also being coordinated with the Project 2030 programme, which aims to leverage innovation and new more efficient technology to increase site capacity to over 7,000 MWe of net peak output by the early 2030s.
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