Russia has developed a new technology for treatment of Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF), which is much safer, environment friendly and cost effective than the existing technology.
Russian company Mining and Chemical Combine (MCC), a division of Russian nuclear fuel company- TVEL, which is a sister concern of Russia’s state nuclear corporation-Rosatom shared the new technology with the participants of a recently held IAEA international workshop. The workshop on “ensuring environmental safety of SNF treatment” was held in Krasnoyarsk of Russia recently.Commenting on the new technology, German expert on radiation safety Olaf Nietzsche said, “The unique feature is that the facilities for production, storage, regeneration and fabrication of nuclear fuel are compactly concentrated in one place. The technology of radiochemical reprocessing of spent fuel without liquid wastes by MCC is a new concept, and much better than the existing, used in France and UK.”
“Dry” storage facility for spent nuclear fuel by MCC is the first of its kind in the world, where SNF is cooled by air. At the end of current year MCC plans to launch the world’s most modern pilot demonstration center, where the latest technologies for spent nuclear fuel treatment required for nuclear fuel cycle closure will be tested. The main feature of the technology is complete absence of liquid low-level radioactive waste.
Thus, MCC will have a unique opportunity to prove in practice that the processing of nuclear materials is possible without environmental damage.
MCC is a leading Rosatom’s enterprise having full fledged technological complex in the field of nuclear power reactors’ SNF treatment and nuclear fuel cycle closure. MCC is the first company to successfully concentrate various facilities like spent nuclear fuel storage, its recycling and production of new nuclear MOX (mixed oxide) fuel for fast-neutron reactors at one place. – Truine Group press release
