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3 June 2010
| Russia mid way through major reactor uprate program Rosenergoatom has announced progress with its program to uprate most of its 27 main power reactors by 4% or 5%. So far an extra 311 MWe has been added to eight rectors for about US$ 200 per kilowatt (compared with $2400/kW to build Rostov 2). The uprating by 4% of all but one of the VVER-1000 reactors will be accomplished by the end of the year, and the uprating of all but one of the RBMK reactors will be done by 2013. In each case the oldest unit will not be uprated. Balakovo-4 will be used as a pilot plant to assess the feasibility of uprating VVER-1000 units further to 107% or 110% of original capacity. This could then be extended to other Balakovo units, then Rostov and Kalinin. The cost of further uprates is expected to be up to $570/kW, depending on what needs to be replaced - the turbine generators being the main items. Nuclear.Ru 26/5/10, 17/2/10. Nuclear Power in Russia NPT 5-yearly review does little to advance non-proliferation While many saw the fact of a consensus statement as a positive outcome from the 4-week gathering of NPT parties, it did not say very much. A positive feature was that it affirmed the IAEA Additional Protocol as a "significant confidence-building measure" and encouraged countries to adopt it (about 100 already have), but there was no call to make it mandatory to supplement traditional safeguards, which are unlikely to detect undeclared nuclear activities. Developing countries did not register their own national security interest in having a strong non-proliferation regime internationally, but tended to see that as simply a preoccupation of the "north". Much of the discussion concerned disarmament by the five recognized weapons states, and the final statement called upon Israel to disarm, while being soft on Iran's continued defiance of the UN. There was no language to discourage the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies such as enrichment and reprocessing, nor curtailing the use of high-enriched uranium in research reactors, rather the contrary - regardless even of whether countries concerned had an Additional Protocol is in place. There was no progress on specifying penalties for withdrawing from the NPT, as North Korea has done. Safeguards to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation Brazil ready to start construction of new reactor Brazil's National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) has granted a construction licence for the 1405 MWe Angra 3 nuclear power reactor, and concrete work is expected to start immediately - some site work is already under way. The plant is due to commence operation at the end of 2015 at a cost of $4.94 billion. Work originally started on the project, a twin of Angra 2, in 1984 but did not proceed, and the main equipment from Germany has been is storage ever since. Areva is contracted to build the plant. CNEN 31/5/10. Nuclear Power in Brazil Gulf of Mexico challenge Recent news reports have speculated about a nuclear explosion being used to seal the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Certainly in 1966, a special 30-kiloton nuclear charge was detonated 1500 metres underground at Urtabulak gas field in Southern Uzbekistan to extinguish a gas well fire that had been burning for almost three years despite numerous attempts at control. The details are in the WNA information paper on Peaceful Nuclear Explosions, along with mention that there is a bilateral US-Russian treaty on Peaceful Nuclear Explosions . No such tests or operations have been undertaken since 1989, and they will be banned under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty when it comes into force. Other papers updated on the WNA Information Service (see WNA web site): Reactor table Country papers: France , Iran , Namibia , Ukraine World Nuclear Association, www.world-nuclear.org - UK ISSN 1326-4907 |
