Russia, South Korea Constructing New Wave of Nuclear Reactors

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Implementation of project plans for the new wave and next generations of nuclear power reactors is underway worldwide. Russia and South Korea are in the forefront of project construction plans and the implementation of technological developments.

Russia’s AtomEnergProm has announced that a federal task program would facilitate funding for 17 1,200-megawatt (MW) reactors, which would go online between 2013 and 2020 across the country. Construction has begun on Units 1 and 2 of Novovoronezh Phase 11, and site preparation has begun for Units 1 and 2 of Leningrad Phase 11. The AES-2006 VVER pressurized water reactors at these sites have been developed from the V-30 reactor design. More units are planned to follow the 17 sites plus units in Tsentralnaya near Vladivostok in east Russia. Beginning in 2016, older units at the sites will start to be retired, WNN reported.

Six new VK-300 boiling water reactors (BERs) will also be placed in the far east. These 300-MW units would be the smallest light-water reactors available in the next decade and would pitch between South Africa’s 165-MW PBMR and China’s 200-MW unit below the mainstream light water reactors of 700 to 1,650 MW.

In South Korea, the government has approved the construction of the first two APR-1400 reactors. Sites for the Shin-Kori 3 and four 1,350 MW reactors have been prepared, and construction will start in October. The reactors are scheduled for commercial operation in 2013 and 2014 and have an operational design life of 60 years. A consortium led by Hyundai will construct the power units in the $5 billion project. Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) ordered $1.2 billion of components in 2006 from Doosan Heavy Industries, which then contracted $300 million of the work to Westinghouse.

Two more units, Shin-Kori 1 and 2, are half constructed using OPR-1000 reactors. Shin-Wolsong 1 and 2 are also under construction using OPR-1000 reactors.

On the leading edge of nuclear research and technology, South Korea’s KSTAR superconducting tokamak fusion rector has been completed. The $3 billion advanced test bed reactor was unveiled in mid-September by the National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) at Daejon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul. The Korea Atomic Research Institute (Kaeri) and Pohang University of Science and Technology also played a part in the project.

The fusion research reactor took 12 years to build and is the first in the world to feature a fully superconducting magnet system with a central solenoid with toroidal field coils. The fusion power process involves the maintenance of steady plasma, which has proven very difficult. KSTAR has targeted maintaining a steady-state plasma for up to 300 seconds. Results will contribute to the ITER project in France where a 500-MW tokomak will be the test bed for a prototype fusion nuclear generator which could begin construction in 2025.

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