Toshiba and AtomEnergoProm move forward
20 March 2009
Toshiba and AtomEnergoProm (AEP) could set up a joint venture in the area of nuclear fuel, as well as cooperate to advance power plant design and construction.
An agreement yesterday builds on a framework deal the companies made at this time last year. The two will "consider establishing a joint venture which will be engaged in deliveries of nuclear fuel and its components."
"The parties will strive to maximum use of their existing potential," said an AEP release, which continued that they would work on the issue of "establishing guarantee stockpiles of low-enriched uranium at the sites of nuclear fuel fabrication." Detailed studies are to be made of a potential joint project to construct a uranium enrichment plant using Russian technology in Japan or another country. Such a venture would be the first major cooperation between Japan and Russia in the nuclear fuel cycle, the only other significant deal being AEP's 2007 contract to enrich 6400 tonnes of uranium recovered from reprocessed Japanese fuel.
Both Toshiba and AEP are involved in reactor design and construction. Toshiba has supplied most of Japan's boiling water reactors and currently offers a version of the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR). Toshiba is also the majority owner of US-based reactor technology firm Westinghouse. That company offers the AP1000 pressurized water reactor, which is set to be the first to be built in a modular fashion, and is also a major supplier of nuclear fuel. AEP is an umbrella firm that contains enterprises responsible for Russia's VVER pressurized water reactors, in use in Europe, China and India as well as Russia.
Reactor fuel comes in alloy-clad assemblies specific to each reactor design, so the new joint venture would be expected to provide those. The fuel itself is composed of low-enriched uranium oxide pellets and the production of these involves intermediate forms such as uranium hexafluoride (UF6), which is also traded in both enriched and unenriched forms.
The companies are also to study ways to improve Russian nuclear power plant design, they said, focusing on design process and construction technology. The aim would be to shorten build times.