| NEWS Argentina


New support for CAREM SMR Argentina’s National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA - Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica) and Nucleoeléctrica Argentina SA (NA-SA) have signed a new framework agreement for technical assistance to expedite development of the CAREM small modular reactor (SMR). The new agreement was signed by CNEA


President Adriana Serquis and NA-SA President José Luis Antúnez. “This agreement enhances the capabilities of the CAREM project, because it adds the capabilities of NA-SA,” Serquis explained. The two-year framework is extendable by mutual agreement. CAREM (Central ARgentina de Elementos


Modulares) is Argentina’s domestically-designed and developed 32 MWe nuclear unit. Its entire primary coolant system is contained within the single self-pressurised vessel and it uses free convection to circulate. This eliminates the need for pumps within the primary circuit and decreases the extent and complexity of the piping system required, as well as reducing the possibility of a loss of coolant accident. Before work was suspended, it was in line


to be the world’s first operating SMR. The government licensed it as a prototype in 2009. Development started in 1980 by CNEA and technology company INVAP and it was launched in 1984. Progress slowed in the early 2000s but a 2006 government decree made the CAREM25 programme a national priority. A 2008 executive order made the project directly responsible to the President of Argentina. Initially, CAREM25 was expected to start up in


2017, but this was put back to 2020. There were further delays in 2019 when contractor Techint Engineering & Construction stopped work alleging late payment, design changes and late delivery of technical documentation. In 2020, it was announced that construction was to resume and a “transition” contract was signed. In mid- 2021, another contract was signed whereby NA-SA resumed execution of construction, under the direction of CNEA. This specified 36 months to complete the reactor building re-establishing NA-SA as a contractor for CNEA, a role it had previously played from 2014 to 2017. Immediately after the new framework


was agreed, Antúnez and the Area Manager of the CAREM Project, Sol Pedre, signed the first contract for the provision of “technical assistance services in engineering to support the forecasts of design, construction, commissioning operation, operation and maintenance of CAREM Nuclear Power Plants. The launch of CAREM is now scheduled for the end of 2027. The overall project is 62% complete (78% for the civil works). Today about 1,400 people are working on the project, including CNEA staff and suppliers. There are 160 contracts in force, mostly with Argentine companies, both private and public, including NA-SA and Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona SA, which produces the largest components. and which was nationalised in 2021.


United States Centrus delivers first HALEU Centrus Energy Corp has made its first delivery of High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) to the US Department of Energy, (DOE). This completes Phase One of its contract with DOE by demonstrating its HALEU production process. Phase Two will now begin, which requires a full year of HALEU production at the rate of 900 kilograms a year using its American Centrifuge Plant (ACO) in Piketon, Ohio. Phase One included a 50% cost share requirement for Centrus, with DOE and Centrus each contributing about $30m of the $60m overall cost. In Phase Two, DOE will pay Centrus on a cost-plus incentive fee basis for the HALEU. HALEU fuel contains uranium enriched to


5-20% uranium-235 (higher than the 3-5% typically used in light water reactors). It is required by most of the advanced reactor designs being developed under DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). It will be used to help fuel the initial cores of two demonstration reactors awarded under the ARDP and to support fuel qualification and the testing of new reactor designs. Currently there is no commercial HALEU


supply chain, which prompted DOE to launch a programme to develop one. Under the competitively-awarded, cost-share contract signed DOE in 2022, Centrus was required to produce 20 kg of HALEU by the end of 2023. Centrus began enrichment operation at


Piketon in October 2023, two months ahead of schedule. ACO completed its operational readiness reviews in June with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRC) and received approval to use uranium at the facility. It then conducted final systems tests and other preparations to begin enriching limited quantities of uranium hexafluoride gas into HALEU. Centrus President & CEO Daniel B Poneman


said this milestone is essential to meeting DOE’s near-term HALEU needs, “while laying the groundwork for the full restoration of America’s lost domestic uranium enrichment capacity”. We are committed to working with the Department and industry to build a public-private partnership so that we can scale up production in the coming years to meet the full range of commercial and national security requirements for enriched uranium.” The capacity of ACO’s current 16-centrifuge


cascade is modest but with sufficient funding and offtake commitments, Centrus says it could significantly expand production. A full-scale HALEU cascade of 120 centrifuge machines, with a combined capacity to produce approximately 6,000 kg of HALEU a year could operating within 42 months after securing the necessary funding. DOE is also supporting several other efforts


to provide more access to HALEU. Current activities include recycling used nuclear fuel from government-owned research reactors and acquiring HALEU through purchase agreements with domestic industry partners.


www.neimagazine.com | December 2023 | 9


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POLICY HUNGARY’S MINISTER OF Foreign Affairs & Trade, Péter Szijjártó, has signed key agreements with Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja that will allow Hungary to continue to rely on Romania’s cooperation in guaranteeing energy security. Burduja assured Szijjártó that Hungary could continue to transport Russian nuclear fuel for its Paks NPP through Romania.


EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR Energy Kadri Simson says the European Commission (EC) is to establish an Industrial Alliance focusing on small modular reactors (SMRs) in early 2024. In June, the EC set up a European SMR pre-Partnership to identify enabling conditions and constraints for the safe design, construction and operation of SMRs in Europe in the next decade and beyond.


THE US DEPARTMENT of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has concluded the first-ever US Africa Nuclear Energy Summit in Accra, Ghana. The summit was organised in partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Energy and the Nuclear Power Institute of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. The Summit brought together participants from across Africa, various international institutions, the US, the UK, South Korea and Japan, industry, academia, and civil society organisations.


SWITZERLAND PLANS TO use its nuclear plants longer than previously expected in face of possible electricity shortages, Bloomberg reported. In 2017 Switzerland had decided to phase out nuclear power but without setting a date. The Mühleberg NPP was closed in 2019 and is undergoing decommissioning. Its four remaining nuclear plants are the two unit Beznau NPP, the single unit Gösgen NPP and the single unit Leibstadt NPP.


SAFETY & SECURITY FRENCH NUCLEAR SAFETY regulator Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), has agreed to give EDF more time to complete safety upgrades at its 32 900 MWe nuclear power reactors in operation at the Blayais, Bugey, Chinon, Cruas-Meysse, Dampierre, Gravelines, Saint-Laurent and Tricastin NPPs These include France’s oldest nuclear units, which began operation between 1977 and 1988.


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