Second stage of reprocessing centre in Zheleznogorsk launched
The centre, at the Mining and Chemical Combine in Zheleznogorsk in Krasnoyarsk Krai, is an industrial module and will become the world's first plant for reprocessing fuel without generating liquid radioactive waste, Rosatom said. In addition to reprocessing used nuclear fuel its objective is to obtain data and test equipment to help with the design of a future larger-scale reprocessing plant.
Alexey Likhachev, Rosatom Director General, said: "The launch of the second stage of the Experimental and Demonstration Centre is an important part of our large-scale work to create an entire cluster in the Krasnoyarsk Territory that will participate in closing the nuclear fuel cycle ... for the first time in the world, we are closing the nuclear fuel cycle on an industrial scale by significantly reducing the share of natural uranium and reusing the products of used nuclear fuel processing. In the coming decades, the Experimental and Demonstration Centre at the Mining and Chemical Combine will become one of the key links for the entire nuclear industry in the process of transition to fourth-generation nuclear energy technologies.
“After the second stage of the Experimental and Demonstration Centre reaches its design capacity, the plant will be able to process about 200 tonnes of used nuclear fuel per year."
He said that, together with other developments, it will “allow Russia to ensure the start of fourth-generation energy systems in the next 15 years”.
Rostom says that “the mission of the Mining and Chemical Combine today is to create a complete technological complex in the field of handling spent nuclear fuel from power reactors and closing the nuclear fuel cycle in order to make nuclear energy even safer and almost waste-free".
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