18.04.2011
During a working visit to the USA General Director of State Corporation "Rosatom", Sergey Kiriyenko, has met Secretary of Energy of the USA, Steven Chu, and the day before this event he had carried out the negotiations with Deputy Secretary of Energy of the USA, Daniel Poneman, with whom he jointly is in charge of the nuclear technology working group, within the framework of the bilateral commission under the leadership of RF President, Dmitry Medvedev, and President of the USA, Barack Obama.
On March, 24th there was a meeting between Sergey Kiriyenko with the representatives of business circles of the nuclear industry of the USA and representatives of the leading American Mass-Media companies in the RF Embassy in the USA, where the basic problems facing the world atomic energy, were, in particular, identified.
Answering the question «concerning the lessons of Fukushima», Sergey Kiriyenko has noted: «On the first hand, it is necessary to render every possible assistance to our Japanese colleagues. Secondly, what lessons should bear the global atomic energy from the events ? This lesson, in our opinion, is that the basic condition of development of the global atomic energy are the absolute openness of this process and absolute guarantees of safety of the population at any coincidence of circumstances. Such solutions cannot be characterized by individual measures. Atomic energy is a global market, and the safety conditions shall have a global character as well.
Answers to the occurred events in NPP "Fukushima" shall be given in three time horizons.
The first one - short-term and immediate measures. Both in the USA, and in Russia the resolution on carrying out stress-tests of reliability of all the NPPs has been accepted, and we have agreed regarding interaction in this matter. Such cooperation can also concern the approval of the requirements, regarding which the reliability of nuclear power plants will be inspected, with the mutual participation of experts and specialists in joint inspections.
In the medium term it is necessary to answer a question, what requirements should be presented for newly constructed NPPs.
On the basis of the lessons of the accident in Chernobyl NPP the main conclusion has been made - to exclude the human error factor - and the multiple duplication of safety systems in the NPPs has appeared, there are passive safety systems. The lesson of the accident in NPP “Fukushima " is that we should change the logic of the probabilistic approach. Such situations as the combined earthquake and tsunami impact can occur. It will require corresponding technical and economic solutions. It will require corresponding legal and normative solutions, unified regulations and norms of openness and transparency.
And in the long-term horizon – the requirements which should be presented to the new generation of technologies in the atomic energy. We should pass the way to a new technological platform more quickly. Taking into account that Agreement 123 had come into force recently, a great space of opportunities is opening now for us. It is not only delivery of services, materials and raw materials, but also cooperation in Research and Development, in production of new generation of reactors, and also in the matters concerning safety assurance, ecology, radioactive waste management . Such cooperation should exist both on the level of the states, and on the level of the companies. In this connection we are very interested in the teamwork with the American companies - developers of new nuclear reactors».
Answering the question concerning new requirements to the safety systems in nuclear power units, Sergey Kiriyenko said: «I would formulate three requirements which the world market will present to the reactors of the next generation. The first one - natural safety. The current generation of reactors is safe enough, except for one problem: after the reactor is at the shut down level, it is necessary to have some more time for withdrawal of heat gain. Though taking into account the behavior of the reactors in NPP “Fukushima” in this accident, we can say that even such an old reactor , and it was designed even earlier than Chernobyl one, evidently in the process of its designing the underestimation of possible simultaneous impact of earthquake and a tsunami have been made, and this reactor has got an unprecedented combination of natural factors. There is actually nothing created by people that could withstand such an impact. Nevertheless, if we assess it from the technical point of view, we should admit that the reactor has withstood this impact. Its automatic equipment was operating in the design mode. It came to the shut down level itself after the earthquake. And if in the short run after that the Japanese experts had provided electric power supply, even such terrible coincidence of circumstances would not have resulted in such consequences.
Nevertheless, the conclusion is the following - the new generation of reactors shall provide safety, even if the personnel does not have an opportunity to take appropriate measures.
The second requirement is guarantees of the non-proliferation mode. "For this purpose it is desirable not to have a requirement of uranium enrichment. That is to work with natural uranium. And not to allow emission of plutonium in the process of operation with spent fuel.
And the third requirement is waste minimization.
In our opinion, fast reactors comply to the maximum extent with these three requirements.
They can have a stable active zone, operate with natural uranium and can be used as afterburners not only of their own spent fuel, but also of spent fuel from thermal reactors. Therefore, here, in Russia, we have accepted the resolutions that speaking about a new technological platform, we place our stake, first of all, on fast reactors". In this matter great opportunities for cooperation (with the USA) can be opened. Primarily, I would name cooperation on construction of a multifunction fast research reactor. It is required to carry out Research and Development and, the most important, a lot of tests. We are currently proceeding to construction of such essentially new reactor and have suggested our American colleagues to take part in this project in Russia. And we have a great experience in this work, and in the USA, as far as I know, up to 1990 the fast research reactor was operating.
The second direction - speaking about a new generation of reactors, we should design not only a reactor, we should design the complete fuel cycle. And the key issue is fuel processing.
We are producing an experimental demonstration facility in Zheleznogorsk for optimization of several available ways in this technology. And we are working today to do it together. Both Russian, and American experts have a good experience. But, first, it is necessary for us to obtain the result quickly. And this result will be presented at the global market. And if it is not a separate decision of the country, but a joint product, it will be the best solution.
And as far as the technologies, which are highly developed in the USA, I think, in the nearest future we shall be interested in the experience of container dry storage of SF. I think that based on the results of those tests, which we are being carried out today under the existing projects, one of the conclusions is to replace the plant wet storage facilities (SF) by dry ones. And we even now are starting the work with the American companies with the purpose of using such containers, including the way of establishment of the joint venture.
One more direction is the teamwork aiming at decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Decision-making on speeding up decommissioning of the facilities of old generation is one of the lessons of the accident in NPP "Fukushima". It will require serious work on technologies of such decommissioning, disinfection of the territory, waste processing.
And the final subject is low-power and medium-power reactors. This is that requirement which is claimed today by a number of the countries that are only in the beginning of the road to atomic energy. They do not need high power. Here there is a number of solutions, in this case great number of structures is possible here. Very interesting projects are being developed by a number of American companies, in particular, by Hyperion, TerraPower, General Atomic and by others.
I consider the following principle as the basic one: the market of the world nuclear energy is a global one. And the more open and multilateral the cooperation is, the better it is. Another question that in «fast reactors » not all the countries have sufficient experience. But I think that in the course of works the circle of these countries will be extending. Besides, in the matters of non-proliferation open international solutions give very good results. Such center as the organized Angarsk International Center on enrichment of uranium, which is open for participation for any country in the world. These are also warranty fuel reserve. We have mutually supported projects. Russia has already formed a warranty reserve of low enriched uranium under supervision of IAEA in Angarsk. And it is important, when the project was in the process of approval with IAEA, the USA supported it actively. And Russia actively supports the American project for forming such reserve. Such open global systems, in our opinion, are good solutions for forming a global safety system».
Answering the question concerning imbalance of molybdenum-99 in the world, Sergey Kiriyenko emphasized: «Two years ago the world faced the global imbalance of molybdenum-99. Till present time the imbalance has been estimated at the rate of 10-15 % of the market. Also it is necessary to understand that these are not simply boring interests. Behind these figures there are millions of people, who cannot get diagnostics or perform an operation, on which their life depends. In such situation there was a task to provide the imbalance coverage, as quickly as possible. And this problem has not been finally solved yet. But the measures taken by the international community allow to solve it. Thus, almost all countries-manufacturers, except for Argentina (and now one more new project is to be started by the RSA) make the targets with highly enriched uranium. You can get more output. It is obvious to us that all manufacturers are required to implement the program on transfer of targets to low enriched uranium. When we organized manufacturing in Ulyanovsk, we specially used the technology, which allowed to produce molybdenum-99, with the low enriched uranium inclusive. We are ready to it from the technological point of view. The only question is that it is required to coordinate the terms. It is hardly can be done within a day. Technologically it can be done. We shall be able to do it tomorrow. But if all manufacturers do it simultaneously, it will result in reduction of deliveries and in four-fivefold price increase. In this case a very balanced approach is required. But the fact that it is necessary to transfer to low enriched uranium can not give rise to any doubts. I can guarantee for sure that Russia will do it together with everybody within the jointly agreed periods of time».
Answering the question concerning the report on plutonium utilization (PUR), Sergey Kiriyenko has noted that «the main event has happened - the Government of Russia has approved and introduced this document in parliament. In the nearest future we are expecting its ratification. We have already proceeded to the technological work. We are starting utilization in operating reactor BN-600 and BN-800, which will be commissioned in 2014. We have done the technical work, carried out modification in order it would be possible to carry out their utilization, on condition of observance of the PUR requirements. We have already received the technical approval from the American experts».
Regarding the question concerning safety of the operating reactors, Sergey Kiriyenko answered that «the key issue is the issue of guaranteed heat removal. Certainly, there are short-term solutions concerning the existing projects - additional stocks of water, independent power supply and etc. But the system solution is, more likely, in transition to an infinite or unlimited ultimate heat absorber. Air can be the only one. In our current designs the system of passive heat removal is envisaged. It allows to keep the core from melting for an unlimited period of time. But if it suddenly occurred – the availability of the molten core catcher. For the time being, thank God, it is not a lesson of "Fukushima" yet, and I hope it will not come to it, but we can’t guarantee it. There were such risks, and they have not disappeared to the present day. But if we are speaking about future generations, - these are, for example, fast reactors with a heavy metal coolant - in that case we should come to the safety level, when all these additional measures will not be required».
Answering the question of using MOX fuel, Sergey Kiriyenko said that «we have not worked with MOX fuel till present day. With those prices for uranium, which were and are existing today, it has not had any economic expediency. But the events in the third Unit of NPP "Fukushima", where there are MOX-fuel assemblies, show that it is not only an economic matter. I think that now the matter of MOX fuel using will give rise to other questions as well. And meanwhile there are no obvious answers to them».
