On February 24 the operators noticed trend of increase of the temperature of the axial bearing of the motor of the Reactor Coolant Pump #2 as indicated by one of the two temperature sensors. On February 25 morning the trend increased so the decision was brought to start manual shutdown of the plant to prevent the temperature of the bearing to go above 90 degrees C which is a limit set by the pump motor producer. The starting shutdown rate of 10 MW/min was later increased to 20MW/min but at 28% of the reactor power at 2:09 hours the reactor was manually tripped to keep the temperature limit. The trip sequence went in accordance with the design. The pressure transient on the secondary side caused a 7.6-mm pipe of the extraction steam to open and the leak damaged a local fire protection installation. The investigation of the event concluded that the cause of the high temperature indication was a deteriorated temperature sensor and not actual increase of the temperature.
EPZ, the operator of the Borssele nuclear power plant, has long claimed that it recycles "95 percent" of its nuclear fuel, and that only "5 percent" remains as nuclear waste. Following a complaint by Laka, the Board of Appeals of the Dutch Advertising Authority, ruled yesterday that these are misleading environmental advertisement claims. In its […]
(Nederlandse versie) On Sunday, September 11, the Mikhail Dudin arrives in the port of Rotterdam; a ship carrying Russian uranium. There it will be transferred to trucks that will then transport it across the Netherlands on Monday to Lingen, Germany, where the uranium will be processed into fuel rods. This was announced this morning by […]
(Nederlandse versie) Laka sometimes gets the question that if nuclear power plants in France can be used flexibly, can nuclear power not be used as a intermittent source of electricity, complementing wind and solar? The short answer then is, that if nuclear power plants can be used flexibly, it does not mean that in France […]
New brochure focusing on the uranium enrichment consortium Urenco. The Treaty of Almelo was signed on 4 March 1970 ‒ an agreement between the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and West Germany on setting up a company with the aim of enriching uranium: Urenco. The origin of uranium enrichment is military and until then enrichment was […]
Despite its triumphant press release of the contrary, two years ago, NRG, the operator of the High Flux Reactor in the Netherlands, this week confirmed Laka’s suspicion that NRG is still using weapons-grade highly enriched uranium in its reactor. Therefore, the Netherlands is currently in breach of its agreement with Obama, reached at the Nuclear […]
