Moscow and Washington have in principle agreed on possible testing of Russian-made accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) at a US nuclear power plant (NPP), Vice-President for Research and Development of Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom's TVEL Fuel Company Alexander Ugryumov said on Monday
SOCHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2019) Moscow and Washington have in principle agreed on possible testing of Russian-made accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) at a US nuclear power plant (NPP), Vice-President for Research and Development of Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom's TVEL Fuel Company Alexander Ugryumov said on Monday.In January, media reported that US energy company Exelon wanted to test Russian ATF, which is supposed to help prevent Fukushima-like accidents, at its Braidwood power plant in the state of Illinois.
"There is an agreement in principle that such deliveries are possible," Ugryumov told reporters on the sidelines of the Atomexpo 2019 forum in the Russian resort city of Sochi.
According to the vice-president, tests in the United States can be done only after a number of preliminary reactor tests and subsequent licensing of Russian ATF in the United States.
Work to create an ATF has been carried out worldwide since the accident at the Japanese Fukushima-1 NPP in March 2011. A tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake turned off the electricity supply to the Fukushima NPP's units, the supply of cooling water to the active zones of their reactors stopped, and nuclear fuel overheated. As a result, the zirconium shells of fuel elements also overheated, and a so-called zirconium-steam reaction occurred. The accident led to the leakage of radioactive materials and the shutdown of the plant.
Almost immediately after this accident, countries with developed nuclear power industries started working on reactors that would prevent the possibility of steam-zirconium reactions.
