The nuclear fuel production division is a Corporation
TVEL, the main enterprises of which are OJSC Mashi-
no-building plant “(Elektrostal, Moscow region) and OJSC
“Novosibirsk plant of chemical concentrates” (Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk-
sky region). Uranium dioxide powder for tablet pressing
are used in the same factories. Zirconium for the manufacture of fuel rods
haunted at JSC “Chepetsk Mechanical Plant” (Glazov, Udmurt
Republic) is the only one in Russia and one of the three largest in
the world of manufacturers of products from zirconium and its alloys.
TVEL Corporation is a monopoly supplier of nuclear
fuel for all Russian nuclear power plants, as well as for all transport, industrial
research and development reactors in our country. At the same time TVEL products are widely known abroad – fuel
from a Russian manufacturer is supplied to 76 nuclear reactors in
14 countries of the world, the geography of which is constantly expanding. So, TVEL is the only supplier of fresh nuclear fuel for
NPPs in Bulgaria, Hungary, Ukraine and Slovakia, and also supplies it
to all European countries where nuclear power plants were built, operating on
tori of Russian design. Today TVEL Corporation leaves
to the world market with a new type of fuel assemblies intended
for servicing nuclear power plants of western design. Annual export volume
of the company exceeds $ 1 billion, the share of the global nuclear fuel market is
VA – 17%, it is planned to increase it to 25-30%.
In addition to finished fuel assemblies, TVEL Corporation ex-
also ports nuclear fuel components – for example, fuel
pills. In addition, TVEL is working to create a fundamental
but a new type of mixed uranium-plutonium fuel (the so-called
mogo “MOX-fuel”), which would significantly simplify
the problem of providing the nuclear industry with raw materials and significantly reducing
the amount of waste in the industry.
Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC is a sales division
production of electricity at nuclear power plants and combines
all 10 Russian nuclear power plants, as well as the directorates of plants under construction. Hedgehog
annually Russian nuclear power plants produce about 158 billion.
kWh of electricity (16% of the country’s electricity production). When
this is the annual unloading of spent nuclear fuel from domestic
n power plants is only 850 tons.
The plans for the development of nuclear power in Russia are detailed in
corresponding chapter.
SNF storage and / or reprocessing facilities – FSUE “Proiz-
water association “Mayak” (Ozersk, Chelyabinsk region) and
Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Mining and Chemical Combine” (Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk
region) – are not part of JSC Atomenergoprom. PA Mayak is
reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and at the Mining and Chemical
the plant is completing the construction of a new “dry” storage for
SNF. The development of nuclear energy in our country, apparently,
entails an increase in the scale of enterprises dealing with
Spent nuclear fuel, especially since the development strategies of the nuclear power
th complex of Russia imply the implementation of a closed nuclear
fuel cycle using purified uranium and plutonium,
divided from irradiated fuel.
To date, SNF reprocessing plants operate only in four countries of the world – Russia, France, Great Britain and Japan.
The only operating plant in Russia – RT-1 at PA Mayak – has
has a design capacity of 400 tons of spent nuclear fuel per year, although now its
loading does not exceed 150 tons per year; plant RT-2 (1500 tons per year) at
The Mining and Chemical Combine is at the stage of frozen construction
bodies. There are currently two such plants in operation in France (UP-2
and UP-3 at Cape La Hue) with a total capacity of 1,600 tonnes per year.
By the way, these factories process not only French fuel
nuclear power plants, multibillion-dollar contracts for its processing
ku with energy companies in Germany, Japan, Switzerland and other countries.
The UK has a Thorp plant with a capacity of 1200
tons per year. In Japan, there is a plant located in
Rokkase-Mura, with a capacity of 800 tons of spent nuclear fuel per year; There are also
pilot plant in Tokai-Mura (90 tons per year).
Thus, the world’s leading nuclear powers adhere to
the idea of ”closing” the nuclear fuel cycle, which is gradually becoming
becomes economically profitable in the face of rising prices for uranium mining,
associated with the transition to the development of less rich deposits with
low uranium content in the ore.
Conclusion
You may have noticed that in this chapter we did not touch
issues of production and processing of nuclear fuel research
tel reactors, as well as reactors installed on nuclear sub-
water boats and surface vessels. Our entire discussion was devoted to
for nuclear fuel used in nuclear power plants.
However, this was not done by accident. The fact is that the principled
significant differences between the sequence of fuel production for
Nuclear power plants and, for example, nuclear submarines are simply absent. End-
but, there may be deviations in technology associated with the specifics of the
power and research reactors. For example, the first ones should be
small in size and, at the same time, quite powerful (half-
not a natural requirement for an icebreaker and, moreover, a maneuverable
nuclear submarine). This can be achieved by increasing the enrichment
uranium, i.e. increasing the concentration of fissile nuclei. This is exactly how it was
pyat – the degree of enrichment of uranium used as fuel
ship reactors is several tens of percent. In research in development reactors, a common requirement is to achieve
the maximum power of the neutron flux, and the number of neutrons in the
actor is also directly related to the number of fissile nuclei. Therefore in
reactors intended for scientific research are also used
highly enriched uranium. But the enrichment technology from this does not
is changing.
The design of the reactor can determine the chemical composition of the fuel and
material from which the fuel element is made. Currently, the main
The chemical form of the fuel is uranium dioxide UO 2 . Concerning
fuel rods, then they are mainly zirconium, but, for example, for
torus on fast neutrons BN-600 produce fuel rods from stainless
become. This is due to the use of liquid sodium in BN reactors
as a coolant in which zirconium is destroyed (corroded
swells) faster than stainless steel. However, the essence of the process
the fabrication of nuclear fuel remains the same – from enriched hexa-
uranium safluoride UF 6 synthesize uranium dioxide powder UO 2 , which
ry is pressed into tablets and sintered, tablets are placed in fuel rods, fuel rods
collected in fuel assemblies.
Moreover, if we consider nuclear fuel cycles
different countries, it turns out, for example, that in Russia uranium oxides
fluorinated with molecular fluorine directly, and abroad firstly
work with hydrofluoric acid and only then with fluorine. The difference is
can be found in the chemical composition of leaching agents and
extractants used for fuel processing, parameters of
conducting processes, etc. But the scheme of the nuclear fuel cycle from this
does not change. The fundamental difference lies only between its
covered (open) and closed versions: in the first case, we
one hundred we isolate the fuel from the environment in a deep repository, and
in the latter, we process it with the extraction of valuable components
(Fig. 3.11).
Figure 3.11 – Simplified diagram of the nuclear fuel cycle