Angra-1 had been experiencing some small fuel rods leakage since 4 months with primary water coolant activity indicating some percentage of Tech. Spec. limits. In 93.03.05 during a normal operation at 50% rated power a routine surveillance of reactor coolant activity detected values greater than the corresponding limiting conditions for operation. According to required actions the plant was immediately shut down following normal procedures. Preliminary estimations pointed out that around 100 fuel rods had failed. The utility is preparing defueling the core and inestigating the causes. Basis for rating the event: 1) Event without an initiator (as per Table 1); 2) safety function challenged confining the radioactive material; 3) safety system operability (barrier - passive): less than minimum required by OL&C; 4) then safety function availability: adequate. rate selected: 1.
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
