In view of the renewed interest and initiatives in nuclear energy in numerous countries in Europe and around the world, the members of the European Technical Safety Organisations Network (ETSON) – a grouping of 17 EU TSOs and their associated members in Japan, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom – have started a network-wide reflection on its future strategy.

The current energy debate could do with more facts and less gut feeling – argue Thomas J. Schmidt, renewables expert and head of the PSI Energy and Environment Research Division, and Andreas Pautz, nuclear energy specialist and head of the PSI Nuclear Energy and Safety Research Division. In this joint interview, they set out the challenges that science needs to address in connection with the Swiss government’s Energy Strategy 2050 and why nuclear energy and renewables experts must work closely together.

Lithuanian Energy Institute contributes to the analysis of temperature influence on clay-based material behaviour

International Workshop to share knowledge about innovative systems and technologies related to the safety of future and current reactors, supporting the technology transfer from research to industry in the field. 

From October 2017, the Consortium Westinghouse Electric Spain, Westinghouse Electric Sweden and VUJE is implementing the Project: “D4.2 Dismantling of Reactor Coolant System Large Components” being a crucial part of V1 Nuclear Power Plant (two units with VVER– 440 reactors located in Jaslovské Bohunice site in Slovakia) decommissioning process managed by Slovak company Jadrová a vyraďovacia spoločnosť (JAVYS) and co-funded by the European Union through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

In order to establish the Nuclear Safety Requirements Document (NSRD) for the post-operational phase (POP) of the Belgian NPPs, the licensee (Electrabel) applied an efficient Integrated Safety Approach (ISA) based on Bel V recommandations.

Light Water Reactors (LWRs) such as the ones operating in Switzerland work at relatively high temperatures and pressures. As a consequence, thermal-hydraulics experiments investigating relevant LWRs phenomena at prototypical conditions require test sections with relatively thick steel walls. This poses significant challenges for the implementation of suitable instrumentation to capture phenomena of interest, such as the flow regimes during transition from liquid to steam. The characterization of flow regimes in the presence of boiling is rather complex, and their better understanding would allow to develop mathematical modeling tools that can be used to optimize equipment and better assess safety margins. To perform in-situ measurements of the boiling process under high-pressure conditions, the team of authors from PSI, ETH, and the University of Michigan has developed a new high-fidelity and high-speed imaging system based on x-ray radiography, which provides high-resolution details on the boiling process while being non-intrusive. Since the instrumentation is located outside of the test section, it has also the advantage that can be easily moved to take measurements in different region of the test sections.

During the internship the phenomena of High Burnup Structure (HBS) formation was investigated. Working with locally developed mechanistic fission product release code called MFPR-F researcher participated in the code coupling effort, where MFPR code was integrated into TRANSURANUS fuel performance code.

An IAEA Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on Forced to natural circulation transition in the Heavy liquid metal loop NACIE-UP is currently ongoing. A numerical benchmark will assess the capabilty of numerical codes to reproduce experimental data.

VUJE has delivered a manipulator for remote controlled plugging of VVER-1000 steam generator heat exchanging tubes for Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Following South Ukraine NPP, Khmelnitsky NPP and Rivne NPP , Zaporizhzhia is the fourth nuclear power plant in Ukraine which will be using this unique device manufactured by VUJE, a.s.