11 November 2020
| REGULATION & SAFETY: Local consent clears way for restart of Onagawa 2 |
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Tohoku
Electric Power Company today received approval from Murai Yoshihiro, the governor
of Miyagi Prefecture, to restart unit 2 of its Onagawa nuclear plant in the northeastern
Japan prefecture. The utility aims to restart the 796 MWe boiling water reactor
(BWR) in fiscal 2022 at the earliest.
Murai announced his decision
after meeting with Hiroshi Kameyama, mayor of the city of Ishinomaki, and Yoshiaki
Suda, mayor of the town of Onagawa. The two municipalities host the Onagawa nuclear
plant. At a 9 November meeting, the leaders of most of Miyagi's 35 municipalities
agreed to support the decisions of Onagawa and Ishinomaki. The prefectural council approved the restart in October.
"I have decided to understand the government policy to promote the restart of
nuclear power plants," Murai was quoted as saying by Nikkei news agency.
"The operation is expected to create employment and have an economic spillover
effect due to orders from local companies."
The Onagawa plant was the closest
nuclear power plant to the epicentre of the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March,
2011, but sustained far less damage than expected. The earthquake knocked out
four of the plant's five external power lines, but the remaining line provided
sufficient power for its three BWRs to be brought to cold shutdown. Onagawa 1
briefly suffered a fire in the non-nuclear turbine building. The plant was largely
unaffected by the tsunami as it sits on an elevated embankment more than 14m above
sea level, but the basement floors of unit 2 were flooded.
A mission from
the International Atomic Energy Agency in August 2012 concluded that the structural
elements of the nuclear power station were "remarkably undamaged, given the magnitude
of ground motion experienced and the duration and size of this great earthquake".
Tohoku applied to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) in December 2013 for
a safety assessment of Onagawa 2 to verify countermeasures applied at the plant
meet new safety standards. In late November 2019, the NRA approved a draft screening
document that concluded the upgraded plant will meet revised safety standards,
introduced in January 2013. On 26 February this year, the NRA approved the final
screening report, clearing the way for the unit to resume operation. The utility
is still required to complete the countermeasure upgrades before it will be able to restart Onagawa 2.
Tohoku expects to spend about JPY340 billion (USD3.2 billion) on the countermeasures,
which include seismic reinforcement of Onagawa 2 and construction of a 29-metre
high and 800m long sea wall to protect the plant from tsunamis. It had originally
planned to complete this construction work by April 2017, but the schedule has
been pushed back a number of times. It now expects this work to be completed in FY2022 (ending March 2023).
Onagawa 2 will become the first Japanese BWR - the same type as used at the
damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant - to be restarted. BWRs at Tokyo Electric Power
Company's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture and unit 2 of Japan Atomic
Power Company's Tokai plant in Ibaraki Prefecture have already received NRA approval
to restart, but have yet to obtain local consent.
Tohoku has already decided
to decommission Onagawa unit 1 and is considering applying to restart unit 3. |
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| NEW NUCLEAR: Rosatom delivers RPV to Akkuyu plant site |
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The
reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for unit 1 of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in
Turkey was delivered to the site yesterday, Rosatom has announced. The equipment
was transported 3000 km over 20 days from the Atommash quay at the Tsimlyanskoye
reservoir in Volgodonsk, Russia to the Eastern Cargo Terminal at the Akkuyu plant
site, which is in Mersin province. Atommash is a subsidiary of Russia's AEM Technology.
The RPV weighs 330 tonnes, has a 4.5 m diameter and is 12 m high. Its manufacture
took nearly three years and involved more than 750 production processes. It passed
more than 300 quality control tests at various stages of its manufacture.
"Construction and installation works at the Akkuyu site are progressing at a
very good pace," Sergey Butckikh, first deputy CEO and director of NPP construction
at at Akkuyu Nükleer AŞ, said. Arrival of the RPV follows delivery in late
September of four steam generators for the unit.
The 4800 MWe plant will
comprise four VVER1200 reactors and is expected to meet about 10% of Turkey's
electricity needs. Turkey aims to bring unit 1 online in 2023, the centenary of its foundation as a republic. |
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| NEW NUCLEAR: NuScale announces SMR power uprate |
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NuScale
Power has announced a 25% increase in power output for its NuScale Power Module
small modular reactor, which it says will lead to significant cost savings. It
has also announced options for smaller four-module and six-module plant sizes
in addition to its flagship 12-module plant.
The NuScale Power Module
is a pressurised water reactor with all the components for steam generation and
heat exchange incorporated into a single integrated unit. The company said yesterday
that, following value engineering efforts using advanced testing and modelling
tools, it has now concluded that the unit can generate 77 MWe (gross) per module,
or about 924 MWe for a 12-module power plant. The increased power output comes
without any major changes to the NPM technology.
The increase in generating
capacity lowers the overnight capital cost of a 12-module facility from an expected
USD3600 per kilowatt to about USD2850, the company said. "Furthermore, the scalable,
12-module power plant will now approach a size that makes it a true competitor
for the gigawatt-size market," it added.
The smaller four and six-module
power plant solutions will give customers more options in terms of size, power
output, operational flexibility and cost, NuScale said, with a smaller footprint
and a focus on simplifying construction, reducing construction duration and lowering
costs. "This new solution allows NuScale to support a larger cross-section of
customer needs including power for small grids such as for island nations; remote
off-grid communities; industrial and government facilities; and coal power replacements
that require less power and help customers meet clean air mandates."
The
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in September issued a standard design approval
for a 50 MWe-per-module version of NuScale's SMR, allowing that design to be referenced
in applications for construction, operating and manufacturing licences and permits
in the USA. NuScale had previously indicated plans to apply for standard design
approval of a 60 MWe version, requiring additional NRC review. It has now said
the power uprate will be reviewed by the NRC as part of that application, which it expects to submit in 2022. |
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| NEW NUCLEAR: Detailed testing of IMSR fuel salt starts |
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Terrestrial
Energy and the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) have
begun detailed testing of the fuel salt for Terrestrial's Integral Molten Salt
Reactor (IMSR). The IMSR uses two molten salt streams - a fuel salt that contains
the uranium and another salt to transfer heat from the reactor to the electricity generation system.
ANL will use an extensive array of characterisation techniques and advanced
laboratory equipment to determine thermo-physical properties of the IMSR fuel
salt to regulatory standards. ANL will prepare and test fuel salt mixtures that
replicate the fuel salt composition over the full IMSR operating cycle. The laboratory
investigations will include melting point determinations, density, viscosity,
heat capacity and thermal diffusivity measurements.
Terrestrial said this
fuel salt testing programme is part of a broader ongoing confirmatory testing
programme for fuel, components and systems used in the IMSR power plant. It said
the results of these tests will support licensing applications as first commercial
deployment of the IMSR power plants advance.
Terrestrial began working
with ANL in 2016 after receiving an award from the US Department of Energy's Gateway
for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) programme, which directs support
to the nuclear community commercialising innovative nuclear technologies.
"Our first GAIN award catalysed what is now a full-scope commercial engagement
with the lab," said Simon Irish, CEO of Terrestrial Energy USA. "Our strategy
is to continue working with world-class laboratories offering expertise in relevant
areas, rather than building that testing capability in-house. This strategy keeps
our engineering resources focused on the IMSR power plant, rather than developing
lab-based R&D capabilities, and is essential to meet our early deployment schedule."
Molten salt reactors use fuel dissolved in a molten fluoride or chloride salt,
which functions as both the fuel (producing the heat) and the coolant (transporting
the heat away, and ultimately to, the electricity generating equipment). Terrestrial's
IMSR builds on 50 years of experience at the USA's Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
and integrates the primary reactor components, including the graphite moderator,
into a sealed and replaceable reactor core unit with an operating lifetime of seven years. |
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| NEW NUCLEAR: Rosatom plans first land-based SMR for Russian Far East |
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Rosatom
plans to build a nuclear power plant equipped with an RITM-200 small modular reactor
in the village of Ust-Kuyga, in Yakutia, which is in Far Eastern Russia. The land-based
small nuclear plant will be able to supply electricity to isolated power systems
or remote areas and consumers.
The latest RITM-200 design is the
result of 400 reactor-years’ worth of combined experience operating small reactors
on ships in Russia’s fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, Rosatom said. To
date, six reactors of the RITM series have already been manufactured and installed
on three new universal icebreakers. The lead icebreaker, Arktika, completed trial operations on 21 October.
"Over the course of pre-design fieldwork, Rosatom specialists carried out various
engineering surveys to evaluate the suitability of the chosen site, including
a hydrometeorological survey, an environmental survey, a geodetic survey, and
a geological survey, amongst others," Rosatom said. "In particular, these surveys
included soil and core sampling by drilling wells, water sampling, reconnaissance
studies, and the creation of a reference geodetic network, amongst others. Subsequent
steps include the laboratory evaluation of collected samples, the preparation
of a final report on the results of pre-design surveys for the selection of a construction location."
The LK-60 icebreakers Arktika, Sibir and Ural are
dual-draught (8.55 or 10.5m) wide-beam (34m) ships of 25,450 dwt or 33,540 dwt
with ballast, able to handle 3m of ice. They each have two RITM-200 reactors of
175 MWt each, delivering 60 MWe at the propellers via twin turbine-generators
and three motors. Arktika enters operation this year, Sibir in 2021 and Ural in 2022. |
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| REGULATION & SAFETY: Modernised safety management rule streamlines processes |
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A
modernised nuclear safety management rule due to come into effect in the USA focuses
on safety while minimising unnecessary administrative burden. The Final Rule focuses
on improved clarity of requirements and will allow more attention to be paid to
safety hazard challenges and less time on redundant efforts or administrative
tasks, according to Garrett Smith, director of the Office of Nuclear Safety at
the US Department of Energy (DOE).
The DOE's overarching nuclear
safety requirements are governed by rule 10 CFR part 830, Nuclear Safety Management,
first published in 2001. This governs the conduct of DOE personnel and contractors
who carry out activities that affect, or may affect, the safety of DOE nuclear
facilities. However, since the rule was published, the department and its contract
workers "adhered to what are sometimes duplicative and unnecessary administrative
tasks that do little to enhance safety", Smith said in an article published by the Office of Nuclear Safety.
The DOE in 2017 began work to modernise and update those requirements to increase
efficiency and effectiveness without "sacrificing" safety, in an effort undertaken
as part of the US Administration's broader regulatory reform agenda. A working
group led by the DOE Office of Nuclear Safety initiated the effort to pursue a
rulemaking based on a list of proposed internal reforms recommended by then-Deputy
Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, with the intent of achieving significant improvements
in efficiency while also maintaining contractor performance standards. The working
group also incorporated input from nuclear safety subject matter experts from
the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Environmental Management,
Office of Nuclear Energy, and Office of Science.
A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
containing proposed changes was issued for public comment by the DOE in August
2018 and, following a "thorough, transparent, and deliberative process" including
four public meetings, a final rulemaking decision was issued in October 2020.
"The final rule, which incorporates nearly 20 years of contractor operational
experience and public feedback, focuses on improved clarity of requirements and
modest process changes that reduce unnecessary burden to make DOE nuclear safety
management operations more efficient. This allows DOE to pay more attention to
higher hazard safety challenges and less time on redundant efforts or administrative tasks," Smith said.
Specific enhancements to 10 CFR part 830 include: streamlining the process by
which newly identified safety concerns, referred to as unreviewed safety questions,
are defined; elimination of duplicative DOE approvals of safety documentation;
modification and clarification of definitions of new and existing nuclear facilities;
and updates for added clarity, including references to DOE guidance and policy.
The Final Rule will be effective from 18 November, Smith said. | |
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11 November 2020 |
