On 10th April 2003 during the annual refueling outage of unit the fuel assemblies cleaning were in progress. At 22:30 normal dosimetry systems of the exhaust stack showed a sudden increase in released noble gas activity (max. 4,14*10e13 Bq/10 min), at the same time, radiation monitors for noble gas activity in the reactor hall indicated alarm level. As a result of conducted technical actions the releases were reduced below the autorized limit. On 16th April 2003 at 20:00 after removal of the cleaning container head the video inspection revealed that most of fuel assemlies (perhaps all of them) inside the container had been damaged. After analysing of situation further actions were undertaken in order to maintain the safe cooling of the fuel assemblies. After container head removal no changes in noble gas release happened.
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, […]
