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round up
NEW BUILD THE PROJECT FOR district heating from the Chinese Hongyanhe NPP in Liaoning Province is 95% complete. The station consists of six units commissioned in 2013-2022. CPR-1000 reactors are installed at the first four units, and ACPR-1000 reactors at units 5&6.
UNIT 1 OF the Akkuyu NPP in Türkiye, will be launched on time, by the 100th anniversary of the republic, Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He added that officials and companies are implementing all the plans including investment and construction.
US GEORGIA POWER said fuel loading at unit 3 of the Vogtle NPP marked “a milestone toward start-up and commercial operation of the first new nuclear units to be built in the US in more than three decades”. This came after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission affirmed that the new unit would be operated in conformance with the Combined Licence and NRC regulations.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF Russia’s lead-cooled Brest-300 fast neutron reactor is seven months ahead of schedule, according to Gennady Sakharov. Director of Rosatom’s Industry Centre for Capital Construction. The reactor is under construction at the Siberian Chemical Plant in Seversk as part of the Experimental Demonstration Energy Complex.
A GROUND-BREAKING ceremony has been held at the IAEA’s laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria, to mark the start of construction on its planned new nuclear applications laboratories building. The event marks a crucial milestone in the completing the second phase of the Renovation of the Nuclear Applications Laboratories initiative, known as ReNuAL2.
ROSATOM HAS COMPLETED the installation of the fourth tier of the internal containment at unit 2 of the Kursk-II NPP. The builders assembled 10 armoured blocks 6.45 metres high and weighing about 50 tons each in 10 days. The installation of the tier raised the constructive of the unit to the level of 43.1 metres.
Above: The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production will be located at the West Burton power station site in the UK’s East Midlands
The UK government has announced that the West Burton power station site in Nottinghamshire has been selected to host STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), the UK’s prototype fusion energy plant which is planned to be built by 2040. The government is providing £220m ($249m) of funding for the first phase, which will see the UKAEA produce a concept design by 2024. The aim is to have a fully evolved design and approval to build by 2032, so that construction can begin. UKAEA’s MAST Upgrade experiment has helped pave the way for STEP. In December 2020, the government called on
communities across the UK to apply to host the STEP plant. Communities had to demonstrate that their area had the right mix of social, commercial and technical conditions. A total of 15 potential sites were initially selected before West Burton was chosen. West Burton houses two power plants: West
Burton A (a coal-fired power plant owned and operated by EDF Energy, commissioned in 1966) and West Burton B (a combined cycle gas turbine power plant owned and operated by EIG, commissioned in 2013). “The choice of West Burton, the site of coal
and gas power generation for decades, is seen as an iconic symbol of the pathway from fossil fuels to fusion power and a compelling catalyst for economic growth and social mobility,” the Midlands Engine partnership and Energy Research Accelerator said in a joint statement. “The West Burton site benefits from connections to nearby manufacturing and construction firms, as well as the world-renowned research capabilities of regional universities, supported by the Energy Research Accelerator.” The technical objectives of STEP are: to deliver predictable net electricity greater than
6 | November 2022 |
www.neimagazine.com
UK selects site for STEP fusion plant
100 MW; to innovate to exploit fusion energy beyond electricity production; to ensure tritium self-sufficiency; to qualify materials and components under appropriate fusion conditions; and to develop a viable path to affordable lifecycle costs. Meanwhile, UKAEA) and Tokamak Energy have signed a framework agreement to enable closer collaboration on developing spherical tokamaks as a route to commercial fusion. The five-year agreement will take the form of joint technology development, shared utilisation of equipment and facilities and associated secondment of staff between the two organisations. The collaboration will focus on areas including materials development and testing, power generation, fuel cycle, diagnostics and remote handling. Both organisations have operational spherical tokamak devices, with Tokamak Energy’s ST40 recently achieving a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, the threshold required for commercial fusion energy. Tokamak Energy will soon be unveiling its
next device, which will be the world’s first high field spherical tokamak to demonstrate the full potential of high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets, due to be commissioned in the mid-2020s. It will also demonstrate multiple advanced technologies required for fusion energy and inform the design of the company’s first commercial fusion power pilot plant, which aims to demonstrate the capability to deliver net electricity to the grid. UKAEA recently completed a £10m ($11.2m)
extension of its Materials Research Facility (MRF) at Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire. Specialist materials that can withstand extreme conditions are a critical part of delivering fusion energy as a safe, sustainable, low carbon energy supply. They are also essential in the development of STEP. The new investment has doubled the MRF
size, providing an additional 12 shielded research rooms, used to hold high-end analytical instrumentation, as well as extensive new active chemical laboratory space, for scientists and engineers to develop more neutron tolerant materials. “Developing novel materials for resilience to
fusion’s triple whammy of tritium permeation, transmutation and atomic displacement effects is one of the grand challenges in delivering fusion power to the grid by mid-century,” UKAEA said. “Also, by co-locating experimentalists and modellers, we hope to incubate new approaches to materials qualification for fusion.” The MRF is supported by the UK government’s
National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF) and Fusion Foundations programme. ■
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