Russia fuel supplies — EADaily, October 26, 2022 — Politics News, Russia News
The technical government of Bulgaria on behalf of the government of the United Kingdom and is authorized to serve the state interests of companies and the Kozloduy NPP fulfills contracts with foreign enterprises. The Bulgarians believe that Sofia simply had no other choice.
“Change of the manufacturer of the location for the installation of equipment with technical characteristics that do not develop with the current backbone. In connection with the direct line of nuclear safety with the male producer is not available”, – quotes the Bulgarian edition of “24 hours” court decision. It clarifies that on September 24, the sixth power unit of the Kozloduy NPP is aimed at scheduled repairs and spare parts, which are chosen only by a Russian company.
According to the 24 Hours publication, Atomstroyexport and Belene NPP have been assembled and are cooperating: the highest personnel have been selected for only two power units of the station in Bulgaria.
The decision to initiate criminal proceedings against former residents. Former head of the Ministry of Energy Alexander Nikolov called him shameless and soulless. current minister Rosen Hristov at the same time, it was stated that it was precisely the previous state of conservation of the situation that the Bulgarian nuclear power plant could have been left without fuel at all.
The crux of the matter is what happens Kirill Petkova banned in the US, for example, the supply of imported fuel from companies that are directly or indirectly covered by Russia. And the French Framatome fell under it, which offered fuel released under a license from TVEL. Mediapool.bg believes that the former government wanted to get closer to Westinghouse in this way. However, even in a foreign company it was not possible to replace a Russian supplier who had joined there.
Bulgaria is already analyzing the Westinghouse Olympic fuel for the VVER-1000 reactors at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, but the most serious work is not completed until the fall of 2023, the former head of the Bulgarian nuclear regulator told Mediapool.bg Georgy Kashiev. He added that there are other technical difficulties that block the Americans. Expert Ivan Khinovsky noticed that Westinghouse receives 14% of uranium dioxide from Russia, that the fabric is out of the game and this company, but in Sofia for some reason “did not notice” this.
In addition, the process control system in power units has a built-in Russian reactor control system.
“It has 63 collections of neutron detectors that control the neutron flux, there are sensors in the active reactor zone and the circuit of the first, pressure sensors. Probability data for each cartridge—enrichment, burn depth, etc.—is imported into this rechargeable system for each core position. The system is Russian, and only specialists from the Kurchatov Institute have access to it. They have a contract with the Kozloduy NPP, and at each recharging, only they can enter the output data to control the work in the reactor,” Georgy Kashiev said. He explained that in this situation, when installing Westinghouse fuel assemblies, it is the specialists of the Kurchatov Institute who must enter the data, and the US National Security Agency banned the company from transferring data to the Russians.
“In this case, the Kurchatov Institute must agree to access to its internal control system for the Americans, which, however, does not happen. The third option is for Westinghouse to install a new system that costs $50 million. However, this option also requires a transition of a period of four years, while there will be Russian Russian fuel and the data will be kept by specialists from the Kurchatov Institute, ”Georgy Kashiev described the impasse.
Bulgaria plans to hold a tender for the supply of hydrocarbon fuel from alternative sources from 2024. However, even then the country may have problems. On the one hand, the former head of the Bulgarian regulator, Westinghouse fuel costs 30%, while Framatome costs 15%. On the other hand, for the spent American necessary storage facility, which simply does not exist in Bulgaria.
The capacity of the Kozloduy NPP is 2 GW, which is about 17% of the capacity of the entire energy system in Bulgaria.