Russian Nuclear Deals: News

Licence issued for Russia's first land-based SMR
24 April 2023

Nuclear regulator Rostekhnadzor has granted a licence to build the country's first land-based small modular reactor (SMR), in the Republic of Sakha (also known as Yakutia) in Russia's Arctic north.

Rosatom's SMR is a water-cooled RITM-200N reactor that has been adapted from the RITM-200 series used to power the latest fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers.

The licence is to build the SMR in the Ust-Yansky district of Yakutia and Rosatom noted that the reactors had already proven their ability in Arctic conditions on the icebreakers.

Alexei Likhachev, director general of Rosatom, said the licence decision was "meaningful for the global nuclear industry ... this is permission to construct the first modern land-based SMR in harsh Arctic conditions".

He said that pre-construction work was already under way, with more than 2000 tonnes of cargo delivered to the site, "there are now about 80 workers and 38 pieces of operating equipment there. The scope of work is increasing day by day. The world's first land-based SMR with RITM-200N is planned to be commissioned in 2028".

Rosatom said that the design met "all post-Fukushima safety requirements for the modern NPP design - this is a compact modular nuclear power plant, featuring reduced construction time compared with large nuclear power plants".

Last week, Rosatom and the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic signed a cooperation agreement relating to the construction of the plant, saying "the project will provide a clean, cost-effective and stable source of energy to the remote Arctic territories of Yakutia with a decentralised energy supply. The electric power of the station will be at least 55 MW, the service life of non-replaceable equipment will be up to 60 years".

The plan outlined was for a "significant part" of the planned output to be used "to develop one of Russia's largest gold ore deposits, Kyuchus, nearby Deputatskoye and Tirekhtyakh tin deposits, and municipalities in Yakutia. This will create a powerful industrial cluster in the region with new jobs and professions".

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Licence-issued-for-Russia-s-first-land-based-SMR

The West still makes naval nuclear reactors. So that is quite likely where the experience for the SMRs will be coming from.
In fact you could say there is more expertise in the West in naval reactors than regular ones. Because the amount of regular reactors built in the West is pitiful.

Burevestnik probably uses new reactor technologies not used anywhere else in the world. It is an aviation grade nuclear reactor. The aviation nuclear reactor projects in the early Cold War, like Project Pluto, all required new materials and reactor types. Because a regular liquid water reactor is too heavy to put into an aircraft. None of the Cold War projects were developed enough to enter service.

Spriter
@Spriter99880
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9h
French companies will participate in the construction of two reactors at the Hungarian Paks-2 nuclear power plant, together with the Russian Rosatom, the Le Monde newspaper reports.

The approval was given by the Ministry of Energy Transition of France.

Sprinter
@Sprinter99800
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6h
Hungary will switch the operation of the Paks nuclear power plant from Russian to French fuel

Hungary plans to switch the operation of the Paks nuclear power plant (NPP) from Russian to French nuclear fuel. This was stated by Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a meeting with participants of the Hungarian Civil Forum.

Thus, Hungary wants to reduce its energy dependence on Russia. According to Orbán, achieving energy self-sufficiency, which would include running the Paks nuclear power plant on French fuel instead of Russian, is among the Hungarian government's goals for the coming years

That is hilarious because now that Niger is not cooperating with France regarding Uranium theft a lot of the fuel France and the US use comes from guess where...

lancelot wrote:The West still makes naval nuclear reactors. So that is quite likely where the experience for the SMRs will be coming from.
In fact you could say there is more expertise in the West in naval reactors than regular ones. Because the amount of regular reactors built in the West is pitiful.

Naval reactors are not a good design for SMR's. The ones in the USA AFIK use highly enriched Uranium, which is why they can last the life ofthe ship without refueling. If they were to go to typical 5% purity its different design AFIK.

The ones the French use run on regular enriched uranium.

None of the Cold War projects were developed enough to enter service.

Actually I seem to remember that Pluto was a working system, but spewed out nuclear waste as it flew at very low altitude at mach 3 where the shockwave of it flying past could actually damage buildings and kill people on the ground...

Not just the missile itself but the fact that the Soviets would make something similar led to them cancelling the project is what I read.

Or it didn't work reliably or at all, but they say it was morals that killed the design... which I find suspect.

Russia and the Soviets had all sorts of nuclear power sources for satellites and potential use where solar panels are not useful...

For instance on a moon or mars base a nuclear reactor can work in the very cold places that does not get much sun in the hope that their might be more frozen water in those locations. Digging into the rock would provide protection from solar radiation and radiation from space and a nuclear reactor will generate power but in the process generate heat to heat the facility without using up some of the electricity it generates.

I seem to remember one reactor they had that was 1 metre by 1 metre square and 4 metres long. I don't remember the level of electrical power generation but I seem to remember it was designed to operate for up to 13 years before needing fuel replacement.

The levels of power it generated would be relatively significant and as I said it would not be required for heating as the system used to cool the reactor could be used to distribute heat through the inhabited area of the base for free. On a moon or mars there would be no need for fans to circulate air as convection could be used.

In space in a space ship gravity does not apply so a cosmonaut would quickly suffocate because the air does not naturally circulate like it does on earth.... after breathing in the oxygen near his body and filling the area near his body with carbon dioxide over time the person will find it harder and harder to breath. Blowing hard would result in the person being moved around the inside of the ship but as you move around pockets of CO2 would be like a minefield and remaining in one place for a long period would be fatal. The solution of course is to mount fans all over the place to blow air around to circulate it and get it to go through CO2 scrubbers to remove excess CO2 so it does not build up.

On a moon or mars base there is an up and a down and removing CO2 and introducing fresh clean air into the system becomes much easier.

A fuel cell with an electrical current applied can convert water into oxygen for breathing and the hydrogen can be captured to be put back through the fuel cell to create electricity and also water if required.

A lot of US military projects got cancelled with military expenditure cuts due to the Vietnam war.

There were further government changes when lots of programs passed from the Atomic Energy Commission to the DOE in the 1970s. Which also led to the termination of a lot of nuclear projects.

Putting on the pressure in another energy

Dagny Taggart
@DagnyTaggart963
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1h
Important :

Russia stopped uranium exports to the US due to lack of insurance coverage - Rosatom

Rosatom denies reports about suspension of uranium exports from Russia
Meanwhile, according to the American Statistical Office, in the first half of this year, the United States increased uranium imports from Russia by 2.2 times year-on-year up to 416 tons

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. Information about the suspension of uranium exports from Russia is not true, a representative of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom told TASS.

"Rosatom state corporation fulfills its obligations under the concluded contracts to foreign customers in full," he said.

Earlier, a number of media outlets disseminated information about the alleged suspension of uranium exports from the ports of St. Petersburg to the United States due to lack of insurance coverage.
...

https://tass.com/economy/1681883

One of the outlets it came from. It has to be said that Russia always fulfills its contracts.

So it stopped shipping from one port rather than they stopped supplying Uranium.

Perhaps this was an attempt to put into the public the double standard of the US where the EU can't buy Russian gas and oil and has to buy US gas and oil but it is OK for the US to buy Russian Uranium fuel...

Russia is building the BREST-300 4th generation lead cooled fast reactor.

Yes.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx

The US is definitely not husbanding its resources. It does not have them.