On March 10, 2004, Kakrapar-1 a 220MWe PHWR was operating at a power level of 73% full power. While carrying out certain maintenance work, power supply to all the adjuster rods of the Reactor Regulating System (RRS) failed and the rods became inoperable. Reactor power started rising slowly due to the presence of slight positive reactivity at that instant. Further, the automatic liquid poison injection system was inhibited at this time to prevent addition of boron to moderator, that would take place if there was any slight disturbance to core reactivity during on power refueling. With this the slow rise in reactor power could not be arrested by RRS and the reactor tripped on high differential temperature across steam generators. The reactor tripped at a power level of 98% FP as the trip settings had not been changed corresponding to the reduced operating power level. The fuel bundle power of the maximum rated channels crossed the Technical Specification limit but was within the safety limits. There was no failure of fuel and no increase in iodine activity in Primary Heat Transport system was observed during and after the event. The event is rated at level 2 on INES.
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 […]
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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, […]
