MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th December, 2022) Russian nuclear scientists have developed a special nuclear fuel assembly that will be used for closing the nuclear fuel cycle in the future and produced by automated units to address safety concerns, Rosatom's division, the TVEL Fuel Company, said on Tuesday.
The project was presented by TVEL's Senior Vice-President for Research and Development Alexander Ugryumov at a scientific and technical conference in Sochi.
"For the safety of personnel, the industrial production of uranium-plutonium fuel for WWER (water-water energetic reactor) should be fully automated and unmanned, as it is implemented for the production of fuel assemblies for 'fast' reactors. For this purpose, Rosatom has designed a fifth-generation fuel assembly for WWER - TVS-5 (Fuel Assembly 5). The features of this design will allow to completely eliminate manual labor in fuel production as well as make modifications of the assembly for both WWER-1000 and WWER-1200," the statement said.
The strategy of the Russian nuclear industry focuses on creation of two-component nuclear energy with thermal and fast neutron reactors, Ugryumov noted.
In this context, the closing of nuclear fuel cycle should be secured not only for "fast" reactors, which operate on mixed oxide uranium-plutonium fuel and mixed nitride uranium-plutonium fuel, but also for standard thermal neutrons reactors, according to the company.
Ugryumov specified that recycling and re-manufacturing of uranium-plutonium fuel were some of the most dangerous stages in terms of radioactive security in the closed nuclear fuel cycle, thus the task of minimizing risks for personnel was the company's top priority.�
Fuel cassette TVS-5 has withstood a full complex of pre-reactor tests, according to Ugryumov.
"The reliability of the (fuel) assembly and the possibility for its use in WWER-1000/1200 have been confirmed," he said.
If the supervisory institution grants the license, experimental and industrial operation of the fuel will be launched in 2023, the company added. The next step will be pilot operation of several assemblies with uranium-plutonium fuel in one reactor.
The company also plans to reduce natural uranium mining thanks to new fuel technologies. Besides, the most dangerous part of nuclear wastes will be "burnt" in fast neutrons reactors. TVEL's experts said that these developments would allow to eliminate two main issues of nuclear energy - limited uranium deposits and nuclear waste management.
