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Canada General Fusion and TRIUMF cooperate Canada’s particle accelerator centre, TRIUMF and General Fusion, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for scientific and technical collaboration. General Fusion in August announced plans to build a new Magnetised Target Fusion (MTF) machine at the company’s new Richmond headquarters. This machine, Lawson Machine 26 (LM26), is designed to achieve fusion conditions of over 100m degrees Celsius by 2025, and to progress toward scientific breakeven by 2026. TRIUMF and General Fusion will collaborate


on projects in areas including neutron diagnostics and an ion temperature diagnostic for LM26. The information will be critical in verifying that LM26 achieves fusion conditions, reaching temperatures of more than 100m degrees Celsius, or 10 keV. General Fusion says it will also provide important inputs into confirming the costs and size of a commercial scale machine, putting the company on course to supply fusion energy by early to mid-2030s. LM26 will integrate General Fusion’s existing


operational plasma injector (PI3) with a new lithium liner compression system. PI3 is the culmination of 24 predecessor prototypes and over 200,000 plasma experiments. The plasma injector has already achieved the temperature and energy confinement times required by LM26. It is one of the world’s largest and most powerful operational plasma injectors, having already demonstrated plasma temperatures of 5m degrees Celsius, along with 10 millisecond self-sustaining energy confinement time. The results from LM26 will validate the


company’s ability to compress magnetized plasmas in a repeatable manner and achieve fusion conditions without requiring expensive superconducting magnets, or high-powered lasers. The data gathered will then be incorporated into the design of the planned commercial scale demonstration in the UK.


South Africa Koeberg 1 back online South Africa’s power utility Eskom said unit 1 at Koeberg NPP has been synchronised to the grid after almost a year, and the longest outage in the plant’s history. During the outage, the original three steam generators were replaced by three new steam generators. Unit 2 continued to generating electricity to the grid while the work took place and will continue to do so until the start of its next outage which will see its original three steam generators also replaced. The outage at unit 2 will start as soon as unit 1 is stable and all the required commissioning tests are complete, Eskom stated Although the unit 2 outage will be similar in terms of the scope, the lessons learnt from unit 1 will reduce the time needed. The replacement of steam generators at


Koeberg has been identified by Eskom as a prerequisite for extending the operating licence of the plant beyond its original design life of


40 years. Eskom has already submitted a licence application to the National Nuclear Regulator for an operating life extension of 20 years, which is now being assessed. The two 930 MWe (net) pressurised water


reactors at Koeberg, built by Framatome, began commercial operation in 1984 and 1985. They generate about 5% of the South Africa’s electricity. In 2014, Eskom signed a ZAR4.4bn ($240m) contract with Areva (now Orano) to design, manufacture and install the replacement steam generators. They were made in China under subcontract by Shanghai Electric Power Equipment Company UK.


Europe Nuclear included in Net Zero Act Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have voted to include 17 technologies in the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), including nuclear energy. The MEPs led by the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), the liberal Renew group, and the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) voted 376 in favour, 139 against with 116 abstentions. EU member states will now discuss the issue in the Council of Ministers before it is finalised in December. They are expected to reduce the list. German MEP Christian Ehler, who is


Parliament’s lead speaker on the issue for the EPP group, welcomed the vote. “This is good news for the climate and the European economy, and it is a very clear response to the Americans and their IRA [Inflation Reduction Act],” he said.


When the NZIA was initially presented to the


European Commission (EC) in March it included 10 technologies with two separate priority lists – one considered “strategic” and the other secondary. The Parliament’s industry committee adopted a single list reinstating nuclear power and including future technologies such as small modular reactors, as well as traditional reactors, both of which were initially excluded. The 17 technologies in the Parliament’s text include renewable energy (wind and solar), nuclear energy (fission, fusion, fuel cycle), and energy storage among others. Pascal Canfin (Renew), Chairman of the


Parliament’s Environment Committee told reporters that “It’s become a bit like a shopping list or a Christmas wish list.” Christophe Grudler, who spoke on the issue for the Renew group, explained that the aim was to permit every EU country to develop the technologies that suited their national needs and capacities. Both Grudler and Canfin note nuclear power


is a red line that should not be questioned. However, heated discussions are expected to reduce the list during negotiations in the Council. “The nuclear issue will inevitably come up again,” Canfin said, anticipating discussions in the Council between France and Germany. “I won’t prejudge the final outcome, but I hope that collectively we will be wise enough not to repeat the battle we’ve had already. The first negotiations are expected in December.


round up


NUCLEAR FUEL THE BN-800 sodium-cooled fast reactor at unit 4 of Russia’s Beloyarsk NPP has registered a year of reliable and safe operation using an almost full load of uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (mox) fuel. Russia says this proves the readiness of the closed nuclear fuel cycle technology for implementation on an industrial scale.


US-BASED BECHTEL has been selected by European enrichment services and fuel cycle company Urenco to support the expansion of its Tails Management Facility at the Capenhurst site in the UK. The facility stores low concentration uranium tails for further use, or conversion to a chemically stable form for disposal.


USED FUEL ORANO USA HAS completed the first loading of used fuel into the first three upper modules of the two-tiered NUHOMS MATRIXTM horizontal dry storage system installed at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation site in Kansas. Orano and Wolf Creek collaborated to complete the three loadings, which were achieved with no safety events.


SOUTH KOREA’S DOOSAN Enerbility has signed a contract with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) to carry out the overall design of a used nuclear fuel dry storage system. The contract was awarded following an international tender. Doosan Enerbility will be completing the design work and obtaining certification by 2027..


SCIENTISTS AT THE Urals Federal University (UrFU) in Russia have discovered that the use of gallium and indium can reduce the cost of the process of pyrochemical reprocessing of nuclear fuel, while maintaining its efficiency. The technology involves the use of molten salts and liquid gallium to separate components of used nuclear fuel.


RADWASTE NUCLEAR WASTE SERVICES (NWS), part of the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), has begun work on the final capping of historic trenches and vaults which are now full and ready for permanent closure at the UK’s low-level radioactive waste repository near Drigg.


MOLTEX ENERGY CANADA has announced a significant breakthrough in its waste recycling programme, following “rigorous experiments” at its uranium- licensed laboratory. Moltex says it has substantially de-risked its WAste To Stable Salt (WATSS) process with the experiments used simfuel (simulated fuel) made of uranium dioxide and cerium oxide proportional to used nuclear fuel.


www.neimagazine.com | December 2023 | 11


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