Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Energy is essential for national development. Nearly every aspect of development – from reducing
poverty and raising living standards to improving health care, industrial and agricultural productivity –
requires reliable access to modern energy resources. Nations may have different reasons for considering
starting a nuclear power project to achieve their national energy needs, such as: lack of available indigenous
energy resources, the desire to reduce dependence upon imported energy, the need to increase the diversity
of energy resources and/or mitigation of carbon emission increases.
The start of a nuclear power plant project involves several complex and interrelated activities with
long duration. Experience shows that it takes about 10 to 15 years between the initial policy decision by a
State to consider nuclear power up to the start of operation of its first nuclear power plant and that before
specific project management can proceed, numerous key infrastructure issues have to be in place.
The proper management of the wide scope of activities to be planned and implemented during
this period represents a major challenge for the involved governmental, utility, regulatory, supplier and
other supportive organizations. The main focus is to ensure that the project is implemented successfully
from a commercial point of view while remaining in accordance with the appropriate engineering and
quality requirements, safety standards and security guides.
The construction of the first nuclear power plant is a major undertaking for any country
developing a nuclear power program. Worldwide experience gained in the last 50 years would be of benefit
to the countries, utilities and other organizations involved in such endeavors (International Atomic Energy
Agency [IAEA], 2007).
A nuclear power plant is similar to a conventional thermal power plant. Each type uses steam to
drive a turbine generator that produces electricity. The heat energy of the steam is converted to mechanical
energy in the turbine, and the generator then converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy, or
electricity. Although the turbine functions equally well no matter where the steam comes from, the origin
of the steam is important for it is here that nuclear and conventional plants differ.
In conventional plants, coal, oil, or gas is burned. The heat from the combustion of these fossil
fuels boils water to create steam. In nuclear plants, on the other hand, no burning or combustion takes place.
Instead, nuclear fission is utilized. The fission reaction generates heat which is transferred, sometimes
indirectly, to the water that produces the steam. Consequently, it can be said that the fission reaction in a
nuclear plant serves the same purpose – the generation of heat – as the burning of a fossil fuel in a
conventional plant (Lyerly & Mitchell, 1967).
 The fission process requires a particular kind of heavy element, such as uranium or plutonium, as
a basic material. Natural uranium is a mixture of three isotopes – atomic forms that are chemically alike but
vary in mass. An atom of one of these isotopes, uranium-235, can readily undergo fission when a free
neutron (an energetic subatomic particle) strikes its heavy central nucleus. The nucleus breaks into two
pieces that fly apart at high speed and two or three new neutrons are released. The kinetic energy of the
flying fission fragments is converted to heat once they collide with surrounding atoms, and the released
neutrons cause a chain reaction by initiating new fissions in other U235 atoms.
It is vital to sustain the chain reaction because more than 30 billion fissions must occur in one
second to release each watt of energy. If the chain reaction is to be useful, the fissions must occur at a
desired rate, and the heat that is generated by the process must be removed. The job of the nuclear reactor
is to provide an environment in which fission reactions can be initiated, sustained, and controlled, and to
make possible recovery of the resultant heat.
There are several components common to most types of reactors:
Fuel – The fuel used in a nuclear power plant contains fissile atoms whose energy is extracted by
fission. Uranium-235 is more than often used as the fuel. Usually pellets of uranium oxide (UO 2) are
arranged in tubes to form fuel rods. The rods are arranged into fuel assemblies in the reactor core. In a 1000
MWe class PWR there might be 51,000 fuel rods with over 18 million pellets.
Moderator – Its role is to slow down the neutrons released during the fission reaction which can
otherwise be too energetic to efficiently provoke other fission reaction. Neutrons are slowed down when
they go through matter that is composed of atoms with light nuclei which does not absorb, like water, heavy
water or graphite. The moderator slows the neutrons down from their initial speed of around 20,000 km/s
to a speed of about 2 km/s.
Control rods – In a nuclear reactor, the chain reaction is constantly managed by means of control
rods which are made from a material capable of absorbing neutrons. These are made with material such as
cadmium, hafnium or boron. These are inserted or withdrawn from the core to control the rate of reaction,
or to halt it. In some PWR reactors, special control rods are used to enable the core to sustain a low level
of power efficiently. In fission, most of the neutrons are released promptly, but some are delayed. These
are crucial in enabling a chain reacting system (or reactor) to be controllable and to be able to be held
precisely critical.
Coolant – The energy released as heat during the fission of uranium-235 nuclei must be
transferred from the reactor core to the systems designed to transform heat into electricity, i.e. the turbine
and alternator. This role is guaranteed by the coolant, the fluid used to remove the heat generated by the
nuclear fuel. The coolant can be water, a liquid metal (sodium or lead) or a gas (carbon dioxide or helium).
The coolant is also used to maintain the fuel temperature at its nominal temperature that is compatible with
the resistance of the materials.
Pressure vessel/tubes – Usually a robust steel vessel containing the reactor core and
moderator/coolant, but it may be a series of tubes holding the fuel and conveying the coolant through the
surrounding moderator (World Nuclear Association, 2018).
Steam generator – A heat exchanger is designed to transfer thermal power from one system to
another. It is part of the cooling system of pressurized water reactors (PWR & PHWR) where the high-
pressure primary coolant bringing heat from the reactor is used to make steam for the turbine, in a secondary
circuit.
Containment - The structure around the reactor and associated steam generators which is designed
to protect it from outside intrusion and to protect those outside from the effects of radiation in case of any
serious malfunction inside like a core meltdown (strong rise in the temperature causing the fuel to melt). It
is typically a meter-thick concrete and steel structure (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy
Commission [CEA], n.d.).
What can be seen for each type of reactor is actually the nuclear steam-supply system — that is,
the components used to produce steam for the power-generating portion of the plant, shown in Figure 1.1.
In this portion, steam passes through the turbine and imparts energy in the form of rotary motion to the

turbine shaft. The shaft turns the generator rotor and produces electric power.
Figure 1.1 The power generating portion of a nuclear power plant
When the "spent" steam leaves the turbine, it enters the condenser, passes over cooling tubes, and
is turned back into water. This water is pumped back to the nuclear steam-supply system, where the cycle
starts all over again with conversion of the water to high-pressure, high-temperature steam. Figure 1.1
shows the most common method of cooling: Pumping cool water through the condenser tubes and back to
the source (river, lake, or some other large body of water).
The basic components of the power-generating portion of a nuclear power plant are the same
regardless of the kind of reactor supplying the heat.
Boiling Water Reactor (PWR) – As shown in Figure 1.2, water enters the reactor and is heated as
it passes up between the elements of nuclear fuel. Soon steam collects in the upper portion of the reactor
and leaves through an outlet pipe. The pipes identified as "steam" and "water" would be connected to those

similarly labeled in Figure 1.1 to form a complete power plant.

Figure 1.2 Nuclear steam-supply components in a Boiling Water Reactor
The water and steam in a typical boiling water reactor are kept at a pressure of 1000 pounds per
square inch (psi). This is equivalent to the pressure at a depth of about one-half mile beneath the surface of
the sea. The pressure raises the boiling point of the reactor water to a high value, so that when steam is
produced, its temperature and pressure are great enough for efficient use in the turbine.
Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) – A pressurized water reactor operates at conditions under
which the water passing through the reactor does not boil. Pressure in the reactor and the piping loop
connected to it (see Figure 1.3) is about 2250 psi, or more than twice that in a boiling water reactor. This
very high pressure permits the water to be heated to 600° F without boiling. The heated water goes to a
steam generator that, as the name implies, makes the steam that drives the turbine. In the steam generator,
the hot reactor water passes through tubes that are surrounded by water from the turbine portion of the
plant; this water is at a pressure well below that of the reactor water system. The tubes containing hot reactor
water heat the surrounding water and make steam, which goes to the turbine at a temperature of about
500°F. The reactor water leaving the steam generator has been cooled by giving up some of its heat, so it
is pumped through the reactor to be heated again and start another cycle.
Figure 1.3 Nuclear steam-supply components in a Pressurized Water Reactor
As seen from the figure above, a nuclear steam supply that uses a pressurized water reactor
consists of two separate water systems that meet in the steam generator. The water in one system does not
mix with that in the other, but heat is transferred from the reactor system to the steam system.
Gas Cooled Reactor – The schematic diagram for a gas cooled reactor in Figure 1.4 bears a strong
resemblance to the diagram for a pressurized water reactor. The principle of operation is the same for both
types: A working fluid transports heat from the reactor to the steam generator, where the heat makes steam
for the turbine.
In a gas cooled reactor, the working fluid is a gas, usually helium or carbon dioxide. The gas, at
a pressure of a few hundred psi, is circulated through the reactor, the piping, and the steam generator by a
blower (fan). The energy required to drive the blowers (there would be several) for the reactor of an
800,000-kilowatt power plant would operate 400,000 20-inch window fans like those used in homes.
 In water cooled reactors, it is not necessary to add solid moderator components because the
cooling water serves this purpose. Gas is not a very good moderator so in gas cooled reactors, a special
material, usually graphite, is built in.
Figure 1.4 Nuclear steam-supply components in a Gas Cooled Reactor

In addition to its high-temperature performance, a gas cooled reactor has the desirable
characteristic of low net fuel consumption; very advanced models, in fact, may be able to produce more
fuel than they consume. But there are disadvantages too. Principal among these is the relatively large-size
reactor needed for a given rate of heat generation. Gas, unfortunately, just doesn't remove heat very well.
Consequently, the rate of heat generation per unit volume of reactor must be fairly low to match the
relatively poor heat removal capability of the gas.
Heavy Water Reactors – In most respects, heavy water (D2O) is like ordinary water (H2O). (In the
formula D2O, the D stands for deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen.) The presence of deuterium instead
of ordinary hydrogen in a reactor has pronounced and desirable nuclear effects.
 Heavy water is usually used in tube type reactors, in which the nuclear fuel is positioned inside
process tubes that penetrate a tank. The tank contains the heavy water, which surrounds the fuel-containing
tubes and acts as a moderator, much as graphite does in gas cooled reactors. The fuel is in a form that does
not occupy all the space in the process tubes, so there is room for a cooling fluid to flow along the fuel
elements and remove the heat that is generated. Figure 1.5 shows the general arrangement of a heavy water
reactor.
Figure 1.5 Nuclear steam-supply components in a Heavy Water Reactor
Any of several cooling fluids – organic compounds, gas, water, or heavy water – can be used in
heavy water reactors, since the heavy water moderator is separated from the cooling fluid by the walls of

the process tubes. Temperatures in heavy water reactors depend upon the kind of cooling fluid used, among
other things, but steam hotter than 700° F can be produced.
In terms of nuclear fuel utilization, the heavy water reactor is an interim type. Its net fuel
consumption is quite low and it can operate on natural uranium, which makes it attractive to use in some
countries during the period in which designs for economical breeder reactors are being developed.
Breeder Reactor – Several reactors have a potential for breeding – that is, for producing more
nuclear fuel than they consume – because of the materials, or combinations of materials, that are used to
build them.
A uranium-235 atom can undergo fission when its nucleus absorbs a neutron. The fission reaction
releases free neutrons that may, in turn, initiate other fissions. All the neutrons released, however, are not
absorbed by fissionable material. Some are absorbed in the structural material of the reactor, the control
elements, or the coolant. Some escape from the reactor and are absorbed by shielding. Some are absorbed
by fertile material. When the nucleus of an atom of fertile material absorbs a neutron, the fertile atom can
be transformed into an atom of a fissionable material – the substance that forms the basis for the nuclear
chain reaction. By careful selection and arrangement of materials in the reactor – including fissionable and
fertile isotopes – the neutrons not needed to sustain the fission chain reaction can fairly effectively convert
fertile material into fissionable material. The breeder reactor improves the efficiency of the neutron process
both by increasing the number of free neutrons released in fission and by decreasing the number of neutrons
wasted, thereby making a larger number available for absorption in fertile material. If, for each atom of
fissionable material that is consumed, more than one atom of fertile material becomes fissionable material,
the reactor is said to be breeding. One fertile material is uranium-238, which is always found in nature with
fissionable uranium-235. When uranium-238 absorbs neutrons it is converted to fissionable plutonium-239.
Another fertile material is thorium-232, which can be converted to fissionable uranium-233.
Some of the reactors that are possible breeders may not prove capable of breeding in actual practice,
but one type has already operated successfully. This is the liquid metal cooled breeder reactor shown in
Figure 1.6.
Figure 1.6 Nuclear steam-supply components in a Liquid Metal Cooled Breeder Reactor

Systems and components for the breeder differ from those for other types of reactors. One item
absent in the diagrams for other reactors is an intermediate heat transfer loop between the reactor coolant
system and the turbine water-steam system. Both the primary reactor coolant system and the intermediate
loop use liquid metal because it has excellent heat transfer and nuclear characteristics. The metal is usually
sodium.
The liquid metal in the reactor is heated to about 1000° F, and then goes to the heat exchanger,
where it transfers its heat to the liquid metal of the intermediate loop. The metal in the intermediate loop
moves to the steam generator, where it heats water to produce steam at about 900° F.
 Similar to other coolants, liquid metal has some desirable and undesirable features. It is good
because it does an excellent job of neutron conservation and of removing heat. It does not have to be used
at high pressure to attain high temperatures. The fuel in a liquid metal cooled breeder reactor can be operated
at very high power densities because the heat can be removed easily. To put it another way, the heat for a
power plant of a given capacity can be supplied by a liquid metal cooled breeder reactor that is much smaller
than any other reactor that could do the job.
An example of the undesirable feature of liquid metal is its tendency to react chemically. There
is a strong reaction whenever liquid metal comes in contact with water or steam, and if a leak occurs in a
steam generator that contains liquid metal an intense reaction occurs. To isolate the reactor from any
possible difficulty, liquid metal cooled reactors are provided with the intermediate heat transfer loop. This
extra loop adds to the cost of the plant.
 Chapter 2

NUCLEAR POWERPLANTS AROUND THE WORLD

A. JAPAN

 17,230 gigawatt-hours supplied by Nuclear electricity

 50 total current reactors
 2.1% of total electricity produced by nuclear
 Prior to the Fukushima disaster, Japan was one of the pre-eminent nuclear energy powers. The
country generated 30% of their electricity from nuclear and had plans to increase that to 40%. The
public now overwhelmingly opposes nuclear power. Many of the country’s plants have been closed
and, several times in the last two years, Japan has gone completely without nuclear-generated
electricity. Navigating Japan’s new energy future has been difficult however, due to intermittent
energy shortages and a heavy reliance on imported energy. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has
recently made a push to adopt a plan that could reopen closed plants and pave the way for the
construction of new ones.
 33 operable nuclear reactors, with a combined net capacity of 31.7 GWe. At the start of 2019, only
nine reactors had been brought back online, with a further 17 in the process of restart approval,
following the Fukushima accident in 2011. In the past, 30% of the country's electricity has come
from nuclear; in 2018, the figure was just 6%.
1. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is a large, modern (housing the world's
first ABWR) nuclear power plant on a 4.2-square-kilometer (1,038 acres) site including land in the towns
of Kashiwazaki and Kariwa in Niigata Prefecture, Japan on the coast of the Sea of Japan, from where it gets
cooling water. The plant is owned and operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

It is the largest nuclear generating station in the

world by net electrical power rating.

It was approximately 19 km (12 mi) from the

epicenter of the second strongest earthquake to ever
occur at a nuclear plant, the Mw 6.6 July 2007
Chūetsu offshore earthquake. This shook the
plant beyond design basis and initiated an extended
shutdown for inspection, which indicated that greater earthquake-proofing was needed before operation
could be resumed. The plant was completely shut down for 21 months following the earthquake. Unit 7
was restarted after seismic upgrades on May 9, 2009, followed later by units 1, 5, and 6. (Units 2, 3, 4 were
not restarted).

2. Higashidōri Nuclear Power Plant

The Higashidōri Nuclear Power is located in the village of Higashidōri in northeastern Aomori Prefecture,
on the Shimokita Peninsula, facing the Pacific Ocean. The plant has not generated electricity since Japan's
2011 nationwide nuclear shutdown in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

The plant is unique in Japan in that it is two adjoining sites, one run by one company, the Tōhoku Electric
Power Company and the other run by the Tokyo Electric Power Company. The reactors are all
of Toshiba design.

Construction of Tohoku Electric's Higashidori Unit 1 began in November 2000 and was completed in
December 2005. The design was based on Tohoku Electric's Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3, with
improvements to the reactor vessel to allow for greater ease in inspection and maintenance. A separate
building, apart from the containment structure, is dedicated specifically for the heat exchanger system based
on seawater to provide primary coolant for the reactor.

3. Takahama Nuclear Power Plant

The Takahama Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power

plant located in the town of Takahama, Ōi District, Fukui
Prefecture. It is owned and operated by the Kansai Electric
Power Company. It is on a site with an area of about 1 km2.
The four pressurized water reactors give the plant a total
gross electric capacity of 3,392 MW and average yearly
production of 22,638 GW·h (averaged on 2006–2010 data).

From 2012 to 2016 the plant was shut down most of the time, with only reactor 3 briefly in operation, due
to technical problems and opposition from local residents. Unit 3 and 4 were eventually restarted in May
and June 2017.
4. Genkai Nuclear Power Plant

The Genkai Nuclear Power is located in the town

of Genkai in the Higashimatsuura District in
the Saga Prefecture in Japan. It is owned and
operated by the Kyūshū Electric Power
Company.

The reactors were all built by Mitsubishi Heavy

Industries and are of the 2 and 4-loop M
type pressurized water reactor. Unit 3 has been
selected as a special Plutonium fuel test case. The
plant is on a site with a total of 0.87 square kilometers. Saga does not lie on a fault line and receives the
fewest earthquakes in Japan.

5. Sendai Nuclear Power Plant

The Sendai Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located in the city
of Satsumasendai in Kagoshima Prefecture. The two 846 MW net reactors are owned and operated by
the Kyūshū Electric Power Company.
The plant, like all other nuclear power
plants in Japan, did not generate
electricity after the nationwide shutdown
in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear disaster in 2011, but was
restarted on August 11, 2015, and began
providing power to nearby towns again.
Sendai is the first of Japan's nuclear
power plants to be restarted.

The plant is on a site of 1.45 km2 (358 acres), employs 277 workers, and indirectly employs 790.

The reactors are of the 3-loop M type pressurized water reactor, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

6. Ikata Nuclear Power Plant

The Ikata Nuclear Power Plant is
a nuclear power plant in the town
of Ikata in the Nishiuwa
District of Ehime Prefecture, Japan. It
is the only nuclear plant on the island
of Shikoku. It is owned and operated
by the Shikoku Electric Power
Company. The plant was shut down
along with all other nuclear plants in
Japan following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Unit 3 was reactivated using plutonium-uranium
mixed oxide fuel on 12 August 2016 and began providing electricity to the grid three days later. On
December 13, 2017, the Hiroshima High Court issued a temporary injunction to halt the operation of the
Ikata 3 nuclear reactor in Japan's Shikoku region until September 2018.

The plant is on a site with an area of 860,000 square metres (210 acres); 47% of the plant site is green, in
comparison the non-nuclear plants Shikoku Electric operates are 13.8, 20.1, 21.2 and 45.5%.

7. Mihama Nuclear Power Plant

The Mihama Nuclear Power Plant is

operated by The Kansai Electric Power
Company, Inc. and is in the town
of Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, about
320 km west of Tokyo. It is on a site that is
520,000 m2 of which 60% is green
space. Mihama - 1 was commissioned in 1970.

8. Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant

The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located on a 1,730,000 m2 (432 acres)
site in Onagawa in the Oshika District and Ishinomaki city, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It is managed by
the Tohoku Electric Power
Company. It was the most
quickly constructed nuclear
power plant in the world.

All the reactors were

constructed by Toshiba. The
Onagawa-3 unit was used as a
prototype for the Higashidori
Nuclear Power Plant.

The plant was shut down after

the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The Onagawa nuclear power plant was the closest nuclear power
plant to the epicenter, and facing the Pacific Ocean on Japan's north-east coast, experienced very high levels
of ground shaking – among the strongest of any plant affected by the earthquake – and some flooding from
the tsunami that followed. All three reactors at the power plant successfully withstood the earthquake and
tsunami without incident.

Following an IAEA inspection in 2012, the agency stated that "The structural elements of the NPS (nuclear
power station) were remarkably undamaged given the magnitude of ground motion experienced and the
duration and size of this great earthquake”. More recently, Tohoku Electric reported that the third floor of
No. 2 reactor building lost about 70% of its structural rigidity and the first floors lost 25%, compared to
when they were built, and was planning to reinforce the structures for increased quake resistance. In 2013
the station operators sent an application request to restart unit 2 at Onagawa to the Japanese Nuclear
Regulatory Agency.

9. Ōi Nuclear Power Plant

The Ōi Nuclear Power Plant, also known as
Oi or Ohi, is a nuclear power plant located in
the town of Ōi, Fukui Prefecture, managed
by the Kansai Electric Power Company. The
site is 1.88 square kilometres (460 acres). Ōi
Units 3 and 4 were taken offline in
September 2013. In December 2017 Kansai
Electric Power announced that it will
decommission reactors no. 1 and 2 because
of their age and the difficulty of making
safety upgrades within their small containment vessels. Unit 3 was restarted on 14 March 2018, and unit 4
was restarted on 9 May 2018.

10. Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant

The Hamaoka Nuclear Power is

a nuclear power plant in the city
of Omaezaki in Shizuoka Prefecture,
on Japan's east coast, 200 km south-west
of Tokyo. It is managed by the Chubu
Electric Power Company. There are five
units contained at a single site with a net
area of 1.6 km2 (395 acres). A sixth unit
began construction on December 22,
2008. On January 30, 2009, Hamaoka-1
and Hamaoka-2 were permanently shut
down.

On 6 May 2011, Prime Minister Naoto Kan requested the plant be shut down as an earthquake of magnitude
8.0 or higher was estimated 87% likely to hit the area within the following 30 years. Kan wanted to avoid
a possible repeat of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. On 9 May 2011, Chubu Electric decided to comply
with the government request. In July 2011, a mayor in Shizuoka Prefecture and a group of residents filed a
lawsuit seeking the decommissioning of the reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant permanently.
11. Ōma Nuclear Power Plant

The Ōma Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear plant under construction in Ōma, Aomori, Japan. It will be
operated by the Electric Power Development Company (J-Power). The reactor would be unique for Japan
in that it would be capable of using a 100% MOX fuel core, as requested by the 1995 decision by
the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission. The fuel would utilize surplus plutonium by blending it with
natural uranium, reducing the total radioactivity of nuclear waste and dramatically reducing the waste's
lifetime.

In 2008, J-Power announced a 2.5-year delay to

allow for additional work to make the plant
resistant to a strong earthquake, making the
operation start date in November
2014. Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster of March 2011 construction at Oma was
suspended for 18 months. Work was resumed on
October 2012. On March 2013, the main reactor
building was at its full height.

In December 2014 J-Power applied for safety checks at the Oma nuclear plant, slated for startup in 2021.

B. UNITED STATES

 The USA is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30% of
worldwide nuclear generation of electricity.
 The country's nuclear reactors produced 807 billion kWh in 2018, about 20% of total electrical
output. There are two reactors under construction.
 Following a 30-year period in which few new reactors were built, it is expected that two more new
units will come online soon after 2020, these resulting from 16 licence applications made since
mid-2007 to build 24 new nuclear reactors.
 Government policy changes since the late 1990s have helped pave the way for significant growth
in nuclear capacity.
  Some states have liberalized wholesale electricity markets, which makes the financing of capital-
intensive power projects difficult, and coupled with lower gas prices since 2009, have put the
economic viability of some existing reactors and proposed projects in doubt.
 The first zero-emission credit programmes have commenced, in New York, Illinois and New
Jersey, with corresponding provision in Connecticut.

1. Palo Verde Generating Station

Palo Verde Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, Arizona, in western Arizona.
It is located about 45 miles (72 km) due west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and it is located near the Gila
River, which is dry save for the rainy season in late summer.

The Palo Verde Generating Station is the largest power plant in the United States by net generation. Its
average electric power production is about 3.3 gigawatts (GW), and this power serves about four million
people. The Arizona Public Service Company (APS) operates and owns 29.1% of the plant. Its other major
owners include the Salt River Project (17.5%), the El Paso Electric Company (15.8%), Southern California
Edison (15.8%), PNM Resources (10.2%), the Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9%), and
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (5.7%).
The Palo Verde Generating Station is located in the Arizona desert, and is the only large nuclear power
plant in the world that is not located near a large body of water. The power plant evaporates the water from
the treated sewage from several nearby cities and towns to provide the cooling of the steam that it produces.

2. Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant

The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant is located on

the Tennessee River near Decatur and Athens,
Alabama, on the north side (right bank) of Wheeler
Lake. The site has three General Electric boiling
water reactor (BWR) nuclear generating units and
is owned entirely by the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA). With a generating capacity of
nearly 3.8 gigawatts, it is the second most powerful
nuclear plant in the United States, behind the Palo
Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, and the most powerful generating station operated by TVA.

3. South Texas Project Electric Generating Station

The South Texas Project Electric Generating Station (also known as STP, STPEGS, South Texas Project),
is a nuclear power station southwest of Bay City, Texas, United States. STP occupies a 12,200-acre
(4,900 ha) site west of the Colorado River about 90 miles (140 km) southwest of Houston. It consists of
two Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactors and is cooled by a 7,000-acre (2,800 ha) reservoir, which
eliminates the need for cooling towers. Only recently did the capacity of Palo Verde Nuclear Generating
Station Unit 2 surpass either of these Texas units.

4. Oconee Nuclear Station

The Oconee Nuclear Station is a nuclear

power station located on Lake
Keowee near Seneca, South Carolina, and
has an energy output capacity of over
2,500 megawatts. It is the second nuclear
power station in the United States to have its
operating license extended for an additional
twenty years by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) (the application for the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Maryland preceded it).

This plant has three Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactors, and is operated by Duke Energy.

Oconee was the first of three nuclear stations built by Duke Energy. According to Duke Energy's web site,
the station has generated more than 500 million megawatt-hours of electricity, and is "the first nuclear
station in the United States to achieve this milestone."

In the summer of 2011 it became the first nuclear power station in the United States to have
its sensors controlled digitally.

Oconee is unique as it is the only nuclear power plant in the United States that does not rely on emergency
diesel generator sets for emergency power. Instead it relies on two hydroelectric units at the nearby Keowee
hydroelectric station. In the event the Keowee units are both out of service emergency power can
alternatively be provided by combustion turbines at the nearby Lee fossil generating station. Both sources
use alternative cables to supply Oconee's emergency systems that are independent of the Oconee switchyard
and transmission lines which are the normal source of power.

5. Susquehanna Steam Electric Station

PPL operated the plant until June 2015 when Talen Energy was formed from PPL's competitive supply
business. The plant has two General Electric boiling water reactors within a Mark II containment building
on a site of 1,075 acres (435 ha), with 1,130 employees working on site and another 180 employees
in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Harrisburg-based Allegheny Electric Cooperative purchased 10% of the plant
in 1977.
Susquehanna produces 63 million kilowatt hours per day. It has been in operation since 1983. The prime
builder was Bechtel Power Corporation of San Francisco, California. In the plant's first emergency, an
electrical fire erupted at a switch box that controls the supply of cooling water to emergency systems. No
injuries were reported following the 1982
incident.

Roughly 10,000 gallons of mildly radioactive

water spilled at the Station's Unit 1 turbine
building after a gasket failed in the filtering
system in 1985. Installed drains collected the
water, which was then processed through the
normal liquid radioactive waste system at the
facility. No radiation was released from the building to the public, and no personnel were contaminated as
a result of this incident.

In November 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended the operation licenses of the
reactors for an additional 20 years.

In 2008, PPL filed an application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build and
operate a new nuclear plant under consideration near Berwick, Pennsylvania. The Bell Bend Nuclear Power
Plant would be built near the company’s existing two-unit Susquehanna nuclear power plant. On August
30, 2016, Talen Energy formally requested the license application be withdrawn, and the NRC officially
accepted the application withdrawal on September 22, 2016, officially cancelling the project.

6. McGuire Nuclear Station

The McGuire Nuclear Station is a nuclear power

plant located about 17 miles (27 km) northwest
of Charlotte, North Carolina, on the state's largest
lake, Lake Norman. It is a 32,500-acre (13,200 ha)
lake created in 1963 by Duke Power for the Cowans
Ford Hydroelectric Station. The McGuire units use
the lake's water for cooling.

This plant has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors and has a capability to produce
2,250 megawatts of net power, with a net generation of 17,514 GW·h in 2005. This represents 44% of the
total nuclear power generation for the state of North Carolina.
7. Watts Bar Nuclear Plant

The Watts Bar Nuclear Plant is a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) nuclear reactor pair used for electric
power generation. It is located on a 1,770-acre (7.2 km²) site in Rhea County, Tennessee, near Spring City,
between the cities of Chattanooga and Knoxville. Watts
Bar supplies enough electricity for about 1,200,000
households in the Tennessee Valley.

The plant, construction of which began in 1973, has

two Westinghouse pressurized water reactor units:
Unit 1, completed in 1996, and Unit 2, completed in 2015.
Unit 1 has a winter net dependable generating capacity of
1,167 megawatts. Unit 2 has a capacity of
1,165 megawatts. Both units are the newest operating civilian reactors to come online in the United States,
and Unit 2 is the first and only new reactor to enter service in the 21st century.

8. Byron Nuclear Generating Station

The Byron Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located in Ogle County, Illinois, 2 miles
(3.2 km) east of the Rock River. The reactor buildings were constructed by Commonwealth Edison and
house two Westinghouse Four-Loop pressurized water reactors, Unit 1 and Unit 2, which first began
operation in September 1985 and August 1987 respectively. The plant is currently owned and operated by
Commonwealth Edison's parent company, Exelon Corporation.

The plant provides electricity to northern Illinois and the city of Chicago. In 2005 it generated on average
about 2,450 MWe, enough power to supply about 2 million average American homes. The station employs
over 600 people, mostly from Ogle and Winnebago counties, and features two prominent 495-foot
(151 m) cooling towers. The Byron plant has been subject to some controversy with respect to a lawsuit in
1981 with concerns over tritium contamination in groundwater. Tritium contamination at Byron and
other Illinois nuclear power plants led the state of Illinois to pass legislation requiring plants to report such
contamination to the state within 24 hours. Plant security was increased after the terrorist attacks on
September 11, 2001.

9. Limerick Generating Station

The Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania is located next to the Schuylkill River in Limerick
Township, Montgomery County, northwest of Philadelphia. The facility has two General Electric boiling
water reactor (BWR) units, cooled by natural draft cooling towers. The two units are capable of producing
over 1,200 megawatts of power, which combined would provide electricity to over 2 million
households. Exelon Corporation owns and operates this facility. With the exception of refueling outages,
Limerick Generating Station always operates at 100% power. The plant is connected to the grid by several
500kv transmission lines.

For critical standby power, Exelon depends on

eight Fairbanks Morse 38 8-1/8 diesel
engine generator sets that each deliver 3000 kilowatts
of power and are capable of achieving rated speed
within ten seconds of start.

The cooling towers for the Limerick Generating

Station can be seen for miles away in parts of
Montgomery, Chester, and Berks counties. On clear
days the cooling towers for the Limerick Generating
Station can be seen from the One Liberty Observation
Deck in Philadelphia.

10. Braidwood Generating Station

Braidwood Generating Station is located in Will County in northeastern Illinois, USA. The nuclear power
plant serves Chicago and northern Illinois with electricity. The plant was originally built
by Commonwealth Edison company, and subsequently transferred to Com Ed's parent company, Exelon
Corporation.

This station has two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors. Unit #1 came online in July 1987. Unit #2
came online in May 1988. The units were licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate until
2026 and 2027, then granted extended licenses until 2046 and 2047.

The power uprates at Braidwood granted in 2001 make it the largest nuclear plant in the state, generating a
net total of 2,389 megawatts. However the three largest Illinois nuclear power plants are nearly equal in
generating capability as LaSalle County Nuclear Generating Station is only 2 MW less in capacity than
Braidwood and Byron Nuclear Generating Station is only 4 MW less than LaSalle.
11. Diablo Canyon Power Plant

The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is an electricity-

generating nuclear power plant near Avila
Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. Since
the permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear
Generating Station in 2013, Diablo Canyon is the
only operational nuclear plant left in the state. The
plant has two Westinghouse-designed 4-
loop pressurized-water nuclear reactors operated
by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).

The facility was the subject of controversy and protests, both during its construction and operations,
including nearly two thousand civil disobedience arrests in a two-week period in 1981.

Diablo Canyon Power Plant is located on about 900 acres (360 ha) west of Avila Beach, California, of
which about 12 acres form the power-producing portion of the plant. Together, the twin 1100 MWe reactors
produce about 18,000 GW·h of electricity annually (8.6% of total California generation and 23% of carbon-
free generation), supplying the electrical needs of more than 3 million people. Though it was built less than
a mile from the Shoreline fault line, which was not known to exist at the time of construction, and is located
less than three miles from the Hosgri fault, a 2016 NRC probabilistic risk assessment of the plant, taking
into account seismic risk, estimated the frequency of core damage at one instance per 7.6 million reactor
years.

The plant is located in Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV. In November 2009, PG&E applied to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 20-year license renewals for both reactors. In June 2016,
PG&E announced that it plans to close the two Diablo Canyon reactors in 2024 and 2025. Full
decommissioning of the plant is estimated to take decades and cost nearly 4 billion dollars.

12. Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, a nuclear power plant, is located 50 miles (80 km) southeast
of Harrisburg in Peach Bottom Township, York County, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River three
miles north of the Maryland border.
The Philadelphia Electric Company (later shortened first to PECO Energy and later to just PECO) became
one of the pioneers in the commercial nuclear industry when it ordered Peach Bottom 1 in 1958. The U.S.'s
first nuclear power plant (the Shippingport Reactor) had gone on line a year earlier. Peach Bottom Unit 1
was an experimental helium-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor. It operated from 1966 to 1974. The other
two units, General Electric boiling water reactors, placed on-line in 1974, are still in operation on the 620-
acre (2.5 km2) site. Both Units 2 and 3,
originally rated at 3,514 megawatts thermal
(MWth), equivalent to about
1,180 megawatts of electricity (MWe) each,
were uprated to 4,016 megawatts thermal
(MWth), equivalent to about
1,382 megawatts net of electricity (MWe)
each in 2018. Their licenses run until 2033
(Unit 2) and 2034 (Unit 3).

Peach Bottom is operated by Exelon and is

jointly owned by Exelon (50%) and Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) Power LLC (50%).

13. Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station is a nuclear power plant with two nuclear reactors located in the town
of Scriba, approximately five miles northeast of Oswego, New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. The
900-acre (360 ha) site is also occupied by the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant.

In April 2011, Exelon of Chicago announced its intention to purchase Constellation Energy, the owner and
operator of Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station. The acquisition was approved by FERC and the companies
officially combined on March 12, 2012 with Constellation Energy taking the Exelon name. Exelon shares
ownership of Unit 1 with Électricité de France (49.99%) and Unit 2 with Électricité de France (40.99%),
and Long Island Power Authority (18%). Exelon is the sole operator of both Units 1 & 2. Both units
are boiling water reactors (BWRs).

14. Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station is a twin reactor nuclear power station located on a 3,300-
acre (1,300 ha) site two miles east of Homestead, Florida, United States, next to Biscayne National
Park located about 25 miles (40 km) south of Miami, Florida near the southernmost edge of Miami-Dade
County. The facility is owned by Florida Power & Light.

Including the two nuclear plants, Turkey Point operates three power-generating units. It comprises two
retired 404 megawatt fuel oil/natural gas/used oil/propane-fired generation units (Units 1 and 2), two
802 MWe Westinghouse pressurized water reactors (Units 3 and 4), and a 1,150 MW combined-cycle gas-
fired Unit 5. It serves the entire southern portion of Florida. With a combined operational capacity of 2754
MW, the site is the third largest generating station in Florida and the sixth largest power plant in the United
States.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized its staff to issue combined licences for Florida
Power and Light to build and operate two Westinghouse
AP1000 reactors at its Turkey Point site.

15. Perry Nuclear Power Plant is located on a 1,100 acres

(450 ha) site on Lake Erie, 40 miles (64 km) northeast
of Cleveland in North Perry, Ohio, US. The nuclear power
plant is owned by First Energy Nuclear Operating
Corporation.

The reactor is a General Electric BWR-6 boiling water

reactor design, with a Mark III containment design. The
original core power level of 3,579 megawatts thermal was increased to 3,758 megawatts thermal in 2000,
making Perry one of the largest BWRs in the United States.

Perry was expected to close in 2021. However, the State of Ohio signed into law in July 2019 to provide
incentives to keep the plant open beyond the closure date.

C. PAKISTAN

 Pakistan has a small nuclear power program,

with 1355 MWe capacity operating and 2300
MWe under construction, with Chinese help.

 Pakistan's nuclear weapons capabilities have

arisen independently of its civil nuclear fuel
cycle, using indigenous uranium.
 Because Pakistan is outside the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, due to its weapons
program, it is largely excluded from trade in
nuclear plant or materials, which hinders its
development of civil nuclear energy. However,
China is positive about nuclear cooperation
with Pakistan.
1. Chashma Nuclear Power Plant

The Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (CHASNUPP)

or Chashma Nuclear Power Complex, near Chashma
Colony and Kundian town, Mianwali
District, Punjab, Pakistan, is a commercial nuclear
power plant consisting of four operating units
(CHASHNUPP-I, CHASHNUPP-II, CHASHNUPP-III
and CHASHNUPP-IV) and one planned unit
(CHASHNUPP-V). Chashma Nuclear Power Plant reactors and other facilities are being built and operated
by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) with Chinese support under the approval and
guidelines of International Atomic Energy Agency.

The IAEA as well as the United States Department of Energy recognised the urgency of Pakistan's energy
needs, which is expected to grow seven to eight times by 2030.

In November 2006, The International Atomic Energy Agency approved an agreement with the Pakistan
Atomic Energy Commission for new nuclear power plants to be built in the country with Chinese assistance.
The 35-member Board of Governors of the IAEA unanimously approved the safeguards agreement for any
future Nuclear Power Plants that Pakistan will be constructing.

2. Karachi Nuclear Power Complex

The Karachi Nuclear Power

Complex or KNPC is located in Paradise
Point, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It consists of
the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP)
and the Pakistan Atomic Energy
Commission's Control & Instrumentation
Analysis Lab (CIAL KARACHI). Two new
nuclear power plants, KANUPP-2 and
KANUPP-3, are also under construction at
the site. When complete, the complex
of civilian nuclear power plants will produce over 2000 MW of electricity. The International Atomic
Energy Agency safeguards and inspects the complex. The plant is under construction by the Pakistan
Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and is financed by the IAEA, the China Guangdong Nuclear Power
Group, the China National Nuclear Corporation, and the China Atomic Energy Authority.

D. INDIA

 India has a largely indigenous nuclear power programme.

 The Indian government is committed to growing its nuclear power capacity as part of its massive
infrastructure development programme.
 The government has set ambitious targets to grow nuclear capacity. At the start of 2018 six reactors
were under construction in India, with a combined capacity of 4.4 GWe.
 Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons programme, it
was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant and materials, which hampered its
development of civil nuclear energy until 2009.
 Due to earlier trade bans and lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a
nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium.
 Since 2010, a fundamental incompatibility between India’s civil liability law and international
conventions limits foreign technology provision.
1. Tarapur Atomic Power Station

The Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) is located near Boiser in the Thane District of Maharashtra.
Begun as India's first atomic power project, the Indian Government decided to utilize boiling water reactors
(BWRs) for the plant. On 8 May 1964, a contract between the governments of India and the United
States was signed for the construction of TAPS. One hundred and twenty Americans were involved in the
project and the BWRs were supplied by the US company General Electric. Construction began in October
1964, and both the Unit-1 and Unit-2 BWRs commenced commercial operations on 28 October 1969.
Although the United States agreed to supply enriched uranium to TAPS for 30 years, this supply was cut
off after the peaceful nuclear explosion at Pokhran in 1974. Since this time France, China, and Russia have
all supplied uranium fuel to TAPS. Imported fuel bound for this facility is currently under
IAEA safeguards.

As of 28 February 2003, TAPS had

generated 62,696 million units (MUs) of
energy since it began commercial operations.
While the Unit-1 BWR accounted for 31,366
MUs, Unit-2 generated 31,330 MUs.
Although both BWRs are over thirty years
old, NPCIL Chairman V.K. Chaturvedi
claims the reactors can operate for another 30
years. This may be due to the BWRs' 300 or
so modifications as of October 2001.
Improvements up to this time included new pumps and piping in addition to safety upgrades to reach
international standards. The Government of India is also constructing two new pressurized heavy water
reactors (PHWRs) at TAPS that will each field a 540MWe capacity. TAPS Unit-4 PHWR is expected to be
commissioned in October 2005 and Unit-3 should follow in July 2006. Construction on the Unit-4 reactor
began earlier than Unit-3 due to site layout considerations.

2. Kakrapar Atomic Power Station

Kakrapar Atomic Power Station is a nuclear power station in India, which lies in the proximity of the
city of Vyara in the state of Gujarat. It consists of two 220 MW pressurised water reactor with heavy
water as moderator (PHWR). KAPS-1 went critical on 3 September 1992 and began commercial electricity
production a few months later on 6 May 1993. KAPS-2 went critical on 8 January 1995 and began
commercial production on 1 September 1995. In January 2003, CANDU Owners Group (COG) declared
KAPS as the best performing pressurised heavy water reactor.

KAPS-2 was shut down after a coolant channel leak in July 2015 and a similar issue forced the shutdown
of KAPS-1 in March 2016. After a replacement of coolant channels and feeder tubes, KAPS-2 attained
criticality in September 2018. Maintenance on KAPS-1 was scheduled to be completed by March 2019.

The construction costs were originally estimated to be 382.52 crore; the plant was finally finished at a price
of 1,335 crore. Construction of units 3 and 4 started in November 2010.

3. Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (or Koodankulam NPP or KKNPP) is the largest nuclear power
station in India, situated in Koodankulam in the Tirunelveli district of the southern Indian state of Tamil
Nadu. Construction on the plant began on 31 March 2002, but faced several delays due to opposition from
local fishermen. KKNPP is scheduled to have six VVER-1000 reactors built in collaboration with
Atomstroyexport, the Russian state company and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL),
with an installed capacity of 6,000 MW of electricity.

Unit 1 was synchronised with the

southern power grid on 22 October
2013 and since then, has been
generating electricity at its
warranted limit of 1,000 MW. The
original cost of the two units
was 13,171 crore, but it was later
revised to 17,270 crore (US$2.6
billion). Russia advanced a credit
of 6,416 crore (US$0.97 billion) for
both the units. Unit 2 attained
criticality on 10 July 2016 and was synchronised with the electricity grid on 29 August.

In 2015, Nuclear Power Corporation Ltd (NPCIL) announced a price of 4.29/kW·h (6.4 ¢/kW·h) for energy
delivered from Kudankulam nuclear power plant.

4. Kaiga Generating Station is a nuclear power generating station situated at Kaiga, near the river Kali,
in Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka, India. The plant has been in operation since March 2000 and is
operated by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India.

It has four units. The fourth unit went critical on 27 November 2010. The two oldest units comprise the
west half of the site and the two newer units are adjoining the east side of the site. All of the four units are
small-sized pressurized heavy water reactors of 220 MW.

5. Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) located at Kalpakkam about 80 kilometres (50 mi) south
of Chennai, India, is a comprehensive nuclear power production, fuel reprocessing, and waste
treatment facility that includes plutonium fuel fabrication for fast breeder reactors (FBRs). It is also India's
first fully indigenously constructed nuclear power station, with two units each generating 220 MW of
electricity. The first and second units of the station went critical in 1983 and 1985 respectively. The station
has reactors housed in a reactor building with double shell containment improving protection also in the
case of a loss-of-coolant accident. An Interim Storage Facility (ISF) is also located in Kalpakkam.
E. FRANCE

 France derives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy, due to a long-standing policy based
on energy security. Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035.
 France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and
gains over €3 billion per year from this.
 The country has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and especially fuel
products and services have been a significant export.
 About 17% of France's electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel.

1. Golfech Nuclear Power Plant

The Golfech Nuclear Power Plant is located in the commune of Golfech (Tarn-et-Garonne), on the border
of Garonne between Agen (30 km downstream) and Toulouse (90 km upstream) on the Garonne River,
from where it gets cooling water, it is
approximately 40 km west
of Montauban.

The station has two operating nuclear

reactors that are both pressurized water
reactors of the French P'4 design. The
plant also has two 178.5-metre-
tall cooling towers[1] that get water from
the Garonne River, only using water to
compensate for evaporation; the cooling
loop is closed and water is never
released back into the river.

In 2002 the plant produced nearly half of the electricity used in the area. It employs nearly 700 full-time
workers.

2. Belleville Nuclear Power Plant

The Belleville Nuclear Power Plant is located in Belleville-sur-Loire near Léré, Cher, along the Loire River
between Nevers upstream) and Orléans downstream). It employs approximately 620 people and consists of
two large 1,300 MW P4 nuclear reactors. Its cooling water comes from the Loire River.

The site spans 170 hectares and is located on a flood-safe, 4.6-meter-high platform. Each year it produces
an average of 19 billion kilowatt hours fed to the electricity grid, and thus covers about four percent of
French electricity production.

3. Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant

The Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant is located at Flamanville, Manche, France on the Cotentin Peninsula.
The power plant houses two pressurized water reactors (PWRs) that produce 1.3 GWe each and came into
service in 1986 and 1987, respectively. It produced 18.9 TWh in 2005, which amounted to 4% of the
electricity production in France. In 2006 this
figure was about 3.3%. At the time, there were
671 workers regularly working at the plant.

A third reactor at the site, an EPR unit, began

construction in 2007 with its commercial
introduction scheduled for 2012. As of 2019 the
project is three times over budget and years
behind schedule. Various safety problems have
been raised, including weakness in the steel used in the reactor. In July 2019, further delays were
announced, pushing back the commercial date to the end 2022.

4. The Tricastin Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant consisting of 4 pressurized water
reactors (PWRs) of CP1 type with 915 MW electrical power output each. The power plant is located in the
south of France (Drôme and Vaucluse Department) at the Canal de Donzère-Mondragon near the Donzère-
Mondragon Dam and the commune Pierrelatte.

The power plant is part of the widespread Tricastin Nuclear Site, which was named after the
historic Tricastin region. Three out of the four reactors on the site had been used until 2012 to power
the Eurodif Uranium enrichment plant, which had been located on the site.
5. Paluel Power Plant

The Nuclear power station Paluel lies within the French town Paluel in Normandy in the
Département Seine-Maritime. The nuclear power station, which consists of four 1330 MWe
class pressurized water reactors, is about 40 kilometers far away from the city of Dieppe and employs
approx. 1,250 full-time workers. The operator is the French company EDF. Water from the English
Channel is used for cooling.

F. RUSSIA

 Russia is moving steadily forward with plans for an expanded role of nuclear energy, including
development of new reactor technology.
 It is committed to closing the fuel cycle, and sees fast reactors as a key to this.
 Exports of nuclear goods and services are a major Russian policy and economic objective. Over 20
nuclear power reactors are confirmed or planned for export construction. Foreign orders totalled
$133 billion in late 2017.
 Russia is a world leader in fast neutron reactor technology and is consolidating this through
its Proryv ('Breakthrough') project.
1. The Kaliningrad Nuclear Power Plant (also referred as Baltic Nuclear Power Plant
(NPP) or Baltiiskaya NPP is a nuclear power plant under construction 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) south-east
of Neman, in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. It is seen as a counter-project to the plan to build the Visaginas
nuclear power plant in Lithuania and is considered not only as an energy, but also as a geopolitical project.
In June 2013 the construction was temporary stopped for the project to be redesigned.
2. Rostov Nuclear Power Plant

Rostov Nuclear Power Plant also known as Volgodonsk Nuclear Power Plant is a Russian nuclear
power plant located on the left bank of the Tsimlyansk reservoir in the lower stream of the Don
River near Volgodonsk, Rostov Oblast.

Construction of Rostov reactor No. 1 began in 1977 and operations began in 2001. Construction of reactor
No. 2 commenced in 1983 and finished in 2010. Unit 3 was connected to the electrical grid for the first time
in December 2015. Unit 4 underwent first criticality on 7 December 2017, and put into commercial
operation on 28 Sertember 2018. Units No. 3 and 4 are of an upgraded VVER-1000/320 subtype.

The post-Soviet Union revival of the nuclear industry of Russia took place at Rostov in the early 2000s,
with the completion of the building of unit 2 in 2010, unit 3 in 2015 and unit 4 in 2017. Unit 4 was the last
VVER-1000/V-320 reactor built.

3. Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant

Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant is situated

by the river Volga, 900 kilometres south
of Moscow. Balakovo was planned to be
the biggest nuclear power plant in the
world with a total of 24 reactors. But,
today only four reactors are in operation. Even though the VVER-1000 reactors are the latest Russian
pressurised-water reactors in operation, they still dont meet western safety demands.

Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant is providing electrical power to the areas surrounding the city Saratov, in
central Russia, together with Kazhakstan and north-Kaukasus. The power plant is the newest in Russia, the
first reactor was put in operation in 1985. The power plant is owned and operated by Rosenergatom, a
subdivision of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom).

4. Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant

Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located in the town of Sosnovy
Bor in Russia's Leningrad Oblast, on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, some 70 kilometres (43 mi)
to the west of the city centre of Saint Petersburg.

As of 2018, the plant has four nuclear reactors of the RBMK-1000 type, where unit one is closed down
(December 2018). These reactors are similar to reactors No. 1 and 2 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Plans are underway to replace the RBMK-reactors with four new reactors of the VVER-1200 type, with the
plant identification "Leningrad II". In October 2018 Leningrad II-1 started commercial operation, and
Leningrad II-2 is scheduled for start of commercial operation during 2020. Leningrad II-3 and II-4 are
planned but construction has not started.

In December 2019 Leningrad II-1 was integrated into the district heating system of Sosnovy Bor and the
local industrial park, replacing the heating capacity of the closed RBMK-1000 units. Thermal output is
3200 MW.

On 25 October 2008, Saint Petersburg Atomenergoproekt began concreting the foundation plate of the
reactor building of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant II, Unit 1. Cost of the project was estimated to be
almost 70 billion Russian ruble (RUR). A construction
license was issued on 22 July 2009.

5. Kalinin Nuclear Power Station

The Kalinin Nuclear Power Station is located about 200

kilometres (120 mi) north west of Moscow, in Tver
Oblast near the town of Udomlya. Owner and operator of the
plant is the state enterprise Rosenergoatom. Kalinin Nuclear
Power Station supplies the majority of electricity in the Tver region and additionally serves Moscow, Saint
Petersburg, and Vladimir. In 2005 the nuclear power station fed 17.3 TWh (62,000 TJ) into the grid. The
station's four 150 metres (490 ft) tall cooling towers are local landmarks. They were manufactured in 96
concrete sections each.

By March 2009 the containment structure of the new Kalinin Unit 4 reactor was nearly complete. The
reactor achieved its first criticality on 8 November 2011.

G. SOUTH KOREA

 24 reactors provide about one-third of South

Korea's electricity from 23 GWe of plant.
 South Korea is among the world's most
prominent nuclear energy countries, and
exports its technology widely. It is currently
involved in the building of four nuclear
reactors in the UAE, under a $20 billion
contract.
 Nuclear energy has been a strategic priority
for South Korea, but the new president elected
in 2017 is aiming to phase it out over some 45
years.

1. The Hanul Nuclear Power Plant is a large nuclear

power station in the Gyeongsangbuk-do province
of South Korea. The facility has six pressurized water reactors (PWRs) with a total installed capacity of
5,881 MW. The first went online in 1988. In the early
2000s it was the third largest operational nuclear power
plant in the world and the second largest in South Korea.
The plant's name was changed from Uljin to Hanul in
2013.

On 4 May 2012, ground was broken for two new reactors,

Shin Uljin-1 and -2 using APR-1400 reactors. The APR-
1400 is a Generation III PWR design with a gross capacity of 1400 MW. It is the first to use Korean-made
components for all critical systems. The reactors are expected to cost about 7 trillion won (US$6 billion),
and to be completed by 2018.

2. The Kori Nuclear Power Plant is a South Korean nuclear power plant located in Kori, a suburban
village in Busan. It is owned and operated by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, a subsidiary of KEPCO. The
first reactor began commercial operation in 1978 and operated until 2017 when it was decommissioned.
Units 2, 3, and 4 started commercial operations in the 1980s, and are all slated to be decommissioned in the
mid-2020's. All reactors on site are pressurized water reactors.

3. The Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant, or Wolsong, is a nuclear power plant located on the coast near
Nae-ri, Yangnm-myeon, Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang province, South Korea. It is the only South Korean
nuclear power plant operating CANDU-type PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors). Korea Hydro &
Nuclear Power owns the plant. These reactors are capable of consuming multiple types of fuel, including
wastes from South Korea's other nuclear plants.

The power plant site including Yangnam-myeon. Yangbuk-myeon and Gampo-eup was designated an
industrial infrastructure development zone in 1976. Construction of Wolseong 1 started in 1976 and was
completed in 1982. In the following year, the power
plant began commercial operations. This PHWR
reactor has a gross generation capacity of 678 MW.
Wolseong reactors 2, 3 and 4 were completed in
1997, 1998 and 1999, respectively. Each of these
reactors has a capacity of 700 MW. Wolseong
Nuclear Plant has since operated successfully.

Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant supplies about 5% of South Korea's electricity.

4. The Hanbit Nuclear Power Plant is a large nuclear power station in the Jeollanam-do province
of South Korea. The facility runs at an installed capacity of 5,875 MW. The power station is currently
ranked as the fifth largest nuclear power station in the world. The plant's name was changed
from Yeonggwang NPP to Hanbit in 2013 at the request of local fishermen.

All the units at Hanbit are of the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) reactor type. Unit-1 and Unit-2 are 3-
loop Westinghouse-designed plants; major components were sourced from foreign firms while auxiliary
components and site construction were handled domestically. Unit-3 and Unit-4 are 2-loop Combustion
Engineering (C-E) System 80 plants with major components and construction handled domestically under
a technology transfer agreement. Unit-5 and Unit-6 are based on the Ulchin (now Hanul) Unit-3 OPR-
1000 Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plant design.

H. GERMANY

 Germany until March 2011 obtained one-

quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy,
using 17 reactors. The figure is now about
12% from seven reactors, while over 40% of
electricity comes from coal, the majority of
that from lignite.
 A coalition government formed after the 1998
federal elections had the phasing out of
nuclear energy as a feature of its policy. With
a new government in 2009, the phase-out was
cancelled, but then reintroduced in 2011, with
eight reactors shut down immediately.
 Public opinion in Germany remains broadly
opposed to nuclear power with virtually no
support for building new nuclear plants.
 Germany has some of the lowest wholesale
electricity prices in Europe and some of the
highest retail prices, due to its energy policies.
Taxes and surcharges account for more than half the domestic electricity price.
1. The Grohnde Nuclear Power Plant is located
in Grohnde in the Hamelin-Pyrmont district in Lower
Saxony. It has one reactor that uses 193 fuel assemblies
and utilizes both enriched uranium and MOX fuel. In
1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990 and 1998 the reactor
produced more net electricity for the respective year than
any other reactor in the world. The plant is of
the pressurized water reactor type, using four water based
coolant cycles, kept under high pressure. About
80,000 people live within 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) of the plant and a total of more than a million people
within 60 kilometres (37 mi). The next big cities are Hanover 50 kilometres (31 mi) and Hildesheim 40
kilometres (25 mi) away.

2. Brokdorf Nuclear Power is close to the municipality of Brokdorf in Steinburg, Schleswig-

Holstein, Germany. It started in October 1986 by a first-of-its-kind joint venture between PreussenElektra
AG and Hamburgische Elektrizitäts-Werke AG. During the construction phase in the 1970s and 1980s there
were violent protests against nuclear power at the location.

Vattenfall Europe Nuclear Energy GmbH owns 20%

and PreussenElektra GmbH owns 80% of the plant.

The plant is a pressurized water reactor with uranium

dioxide fuel elements, which are used in degrees of
enrichment of 1.9%, 2.5% and 3.5%. It also uses MOX
fuel. There are 193 fuel assemblies In the reactor, with
a total heavy-metal weight of 103 tons. The power
station has a thermal output of 3765 MW, as well as an electrical output of 1440 MW. It belongs to the 3rd
PWR generation in Germany. With a net generation of just under 12 billion a kWh, it was the worldwide
leader in 2005.

The decommissioning of the plant is planned for 2021.

I. CHINA

 Mainland China has about 45 nuclear power reactors in operation, about 15 under construction, and
more about to start construction.
  The government's long-term target, as outlined in its Energy Development Strategy Action Plan
2014-2020, is for 58 GWe capacity by 2020, with 30 GWe more under construction.
 The impetus for nuclear power in China is increasingly due to air pollution from coal-fired plants.
 China’s policy is to have a closed nuclear fuel cycle.
 China has become largely self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects
of the fuel cycle, but is making full use of western technology while adapting and improving it.
 Relative to the rest of the world, a major strength is the nuclear supply chain.
 China’s policy is to ‘go global’ with exporting nuclear technology including heavy components in
the supply chain.

1. The Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Plant is located in Donggang Town, Wafangdian in the Liaoning
Province of China. The site is within
the Prefecture-level city of Dalian, 104
kilometres (65 mi) north of Dalian City proper.
The first unit started commercial operations in
June 2013.

Phase I consists of four CPR-1000 reactors,

which is a design developed by China from
the Framatome-designed PWRs at the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant.

Phase II is the first construction of two ACPR1000 reactors, a further development of the CPR-1000. This
reactor will include a core catcher and double containment as additional safety measures.

2. Tianwan Nuclear Power Station is a nuclear power plant in Lianyungang prefecture level
city, Jiangsu province, China. It is located
on the coast of the Yellow
Sea approximately 30 kilometers east
of Lianyungang proper.

The nuclear power plant consists of two

reactor units each rated at 1,000 MW
capacity and constructed by Russia's Atomstroyexport. The first reactor began full operations in 2006 and
the second in 2007.

3. The Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Fuqing, Fujian Province, China. The
plant is located on the coast of Xinghua Bay, near Qianxue Village, Sanshan Town. The station has four
1,089 megawatt (MW) CPR-1000 pressurized water reactors (PWRs). The CPR-1000 is an advanced PWR
design developed by China from the Areva-designed PWRs at the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant. The
plant was jointly constructed and is operated by China National Nuclear Corporation (51%), China Huadian
Corp. (39%) and the Fujian Investment & Development Co Ltd. (10%).

Construction of the first unit began on 21 November

2008 and was completed in 2014. First concrete for
Unit 2 was poured on 17 June 2009 and the unit was
started in October 2015. First concrete for Unit 3 was
poured on 31 December 2010. Construction of Unit 4
was to begin in 2011, but was delayed until November
2012 by China's nuclear safety review after the Japanese
nuclear accident.

In November 2014 it was announced that units 5 and 6 would be of the Hualong One (updated CPR-1000)
design, with unit 5 scheduled to be in operation about 2019. The first concrete was poured for Fuqing 5 on
7 May 2015.
4. The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear
power plant in Taishan, Guangdong
province, China. The plant features two
operational EPR reactors. The first unit, Taishan 1,
came online and was connected to the grid in August
2018. It was planned to go online in 2013 and to be
the third site to house EPR units. However, the start of
operation was postponed to late 2018. Also, delays in other EPR construction sites mean that Taishan has
been the first nuclear power plant with an operational EPR unit.

5. Ling Ao Nuclear Power Plant is located on the Dapeng Peninsula in Longgang

District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, about 60 km north of Hong Kong, 1 km north of Daya Bay Nuclear
Power Plant. It is operated by China General Nuclear Power Group. The units on site are separated between
phase I and phase II.

Ling Ao phase I has two nuclear reactors,

950 MWe PWRs Ling Ao I-1 and I-2, based on
the French 900 MWe three cooling loop design,
which started commercial operation in 2002 and
2003.

In a Phase II development two CPR-

1000 reactors, Ling Ao II-1 and II-2
(alternatively, units 3 and 4), were constructed in conjunction with Areva, based on the French three cooling
loop design. Ling Ao II-1, China’s first domestic CPR-1000 nuclear power plant, was first connected to the
grid on 15 July 2010, having started criticality testing on 11 June 2010. It started commercial operations on
27 September 2010. Ling Ao II-2 was synchronized to the grid on May 3, 2011, with commercial operation
beginning on August 7, 2011.

6. Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station

The Yangjiang Nuclear Power Station is a nuclear power

plant in Guangdong province, China. The site is
Dongping Town, Yangjiang City in western Guangdong
Province.The station has six 1,000 megawatt (MW) CPR-
1000 pressurized water reactors (PWRs). The plant began
commercial operation in March 2014, and as of 2018 is the largest nuclear power station in China.

J. SWITZERLAND

 Switzerland has five nuclear reactors

generating up to 40% of its electricity.
Two large new units were planned.
 In June 2011 parliament resolved not to
replace any reactors, and hence to phase
out nuclear power gradually, and this was
confirmed in a 2017 referendum.

1. The Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant is located

near Leibstadt, canton of Aargau, Switzerland, on
the Rhine River and close to the border to
Germany. Commissioned in 1984, it is the
country's youngest and most powerful of all five
operating reactors.

Its General Electric built boiling water reactor produces 1,220 MW of electrical power. The nuclear power
station has produced approximately 8.5 TWh per year, slightly less than the power station Gösgen.

It is owned by Leibstadt AG (KKL), a consortium of six Swiss energy companies: the Aare Tessin AG for
electricity (Atel) with 27%, the northeast power stations AG (NOK) with 23%, the central-Swiss power
stations AG (CKW) with 14%, the electricity company Laufenburg AG (EGL) with 16%, the Bern power
stations AG (BKW FMB energy AG) with 10% and the Aargauer of power stations AG (AEW energy AG)
with 5%. The management was originally done by the EGL, but with establishment of the Axpo it was
consolidated within the Axpo group, so whereby today the NOK is the manager. The plant also houses a
380 kV switchyard for Beznau.
2. The Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant is in the Mühleberg municipality in the (Canton of
Berne, Switzerland) north of the village of Mühleberg and near a hydroelectric plant. It is operated by
the BKW FMB Energie AG. The KKM consists of a single boiling water reactor (BWR) of type 4 provided
by General Electric Technical Services
Company (GETSCO), a then subsidiary
of General Electric specialized in nuclear
power plants. All the 240 assemblies
contain uranium oxide rods. The
pressurized vessel has a diameter of 4.04 m
and is 19 m high, has a wall thickness of
10.2 cm and operates at 288 °C and 72 bar.

The thermal power of 1097 MW is

converted into 355 MW of net electrical power by two Brown Boveri steam turbine generators connected
to the 220 kV and 50 kV grids. The power output was increased in 1990 from the original 320 MW.

3. The Gösgen Nuclear Power Plant is located in the Däniken municipality (canton of Solothurn,
Switzerland) on a loop of the Aar river. It is operated by the ad hoc society Kernkraftwerk Gösgen-Däniken
AG.
The KKG possess a pressurized water reactor delivered by the German Kraftwerk Union AG, a then
subsidiary of Siemens AG and now
part of Areva NP. It contains 177 fuel
assemblies, 48 of which are equipped
with control elements. Each fuel
assembly can hold up to 225 rods, but
only 205 (204 for the MOX ones) are
occupied by the fuel. The remaining
20 positions are reserved to the
control rods. The reactor in operation
contains a total of around 76 t of
uranium. It works at 324 °C and 153 bar. The thermal power output achieves 3002 MW.

Three steam generators transfer the heat to the secondary coolant loop at 65 bar and 280 °C. They are fed
by three strands, with the addition of two other for start-up or emergency cases. The resulting steam is
routed to the turbine, although around 1% is piped to an evaporator where is converted into pressurized
process steam eventually delivered to a downstream cardboard facility. The turbine is composed of a high-
pressure and three low-pressure units. It generates a net electric power of 970 MW that is delivered to the
400 kV power grid.

K. CZECH REPUBLIC

 The Czech Republic has six nuclear reactors generating about one-third of its electricity.
 Its first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1985.
 Government commitment to the future of nuclear energy is strong, and was reaffirmed in mid-2015
energy policy.
 Plans for new nuclear capacity are stalled by pricing uncertainty, but policy calls for a substantial
increase by 2040.
1. Temelín Nuclear Power Plant

The Temelín Nuclear Power Plant is situated approximately 24 km from České Budějovice and 5 km from
Týn nad Vltavou. Electricity is generated in two production units with VVER 1000 Type V 320 pressurised-
water reactors. Process water is drawn from the Hněvkovice reservoir on the Vltava River; it was built as
a part of the power plant project. The required quality of water is guaranteed by waste water treatment

stations situated on the upper course of the Vltava River, namely at Větřní, Český Krumlov and České
Budějovice. In spring 2003, the Temelín Nuclear Power Plant became the largest power resource in the
Czech Republic.

The investment design of the construction was issued in February 1979, while the initial power plant design
was developed by Energoprojekt Prague in 1985, and construction of operating units was launched in 1987.
After November 1989, under new political and economic conditions, it was decided to reduce the number
of production units to only two. In the course of a period of great uncertainty, the reduced but
technologically updated construction was completed, and in July 2000 the reactor was loaded. On 21
December 2000, the 1st production unit realised the first supply of electricity.

2. The Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant is situated approximately 30 km southeast of Třebíč in a triangle
formed by the municipalities of Dukovany, Slavětice and Rouchovany. Four pressurised-water reactors of
Type VVER 440 – Model V 213. Each of these reactors has the heat capacity of 1,375 MW and electric
capacity of 510 MW.

Its construction was started in 1974.

A change to the project caused
postponement of the full start-up of
the construction until 1978. The first
reactor unit was put into operation on
4 May 1985 and the last (the fourth)
unit on 20 July 1987. The Dalešice
waterworks with a pumped-storage
hydroelectric power plant of 450 MW capacity was built in the vicinity of the power plant on the Jihlava
River. Its equalising reservoir serves as a water resource for the nuclear power plant.

The Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant is intended for a base-load operation mode. It annually supplies
approximately 13 TWhr of electric energy to the national power network. Particular attention is paid to the
safety of its operation which is supervised on on-going bases by the State Office on Nuclear Safety and
relevant international organisations.
L. BELGIUM

 Belgium has seven nuclear reactors

generating about half of its electricity.
 Belgium's first commercial nuclear
power reactor began operating in 1974.
 Since 2003 there has been little
government support for nuclear energy,
and nuclear power generation, the
lowest-cost source of power, incurred a
0.5 cent/kWh tax to 2014.

1. The Doel Nuclear Power Station is one of two nuclear power plants in Belgium. The plant includes 4
reactors. The site is located on the bank of the Scheldt river, near the village of Doel in
the Flemish province of East Flanders, on the outskirts of the city of Antwerp. The station is operated and
majority-owned by vertically-
integrated French energy
corporation Engie SA through its 100%-
owned Belgian
subsidiary Electrabel. EDF
Luminus has a 10.2% stake in the two
newest units. The Doel plant employs
963 workers and covers an area of 80
hectares (200 acres). The plant
represents about 15% of Belgium's total
electricity production capacity and 30%
of the total electricity
generation. Nuclear energy typically provides half of Belgium's domestically-generated electricity and is
the country's lowest-cost source of power.

The station is located in the most densely populated area for any power station in Europe, with 9 million
inhabitants within a radius of 75 kilometres (47 mi).
2. The Tihange Nuclear Power Station is one of two nuclear energy production sites in Belgium and
contains 3 nuclear power plants. The site is located on the bank of the Meuse river, near the village
of Tihange in the Walloon province of Liège. The station is operated and majority-owned by vertically-
integrated Belgian energy corporation Electrabel. EDF Luminus has a 50% stake in the oldest unit and a
10% stake in the two newest units. It
employs 1074 workers and covers an area
of 75 hectares (190 acres). The plant
represents about 15% of Belgium's total
electricity production capacity. Nuclear
energy typically provides half of
Belgium's domestically-generated
electricity and is the country's lowest-cost
source of power.
M. SPAIN

 Spain has seven nuclear reactors

generating about a fifth of its
electricity.
 Its first commercial nuclear power
reactor began operating in 1968.
 A new uranium mining project is
commencing.
 Government commitment to the
future of nuclear energy in Spain
has been uncertain, but has firmed
up as the cost of subsidising
renewables becomes unaffordable.

1. Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant

Located in the province of Cáceres, in the district known as Campo Arañuelo, the Almaraz plant is cooled
by water from the Arrocampo reservoir, on the river Tajo. The plant site occupies an area of 1,683 hectares
in the municipal areas of Almaraz, Saucedilla, Serrejón and Romangordo, where thinly wooded pastures
and irrigated crops are the most common methods of land exploitation. The land lends itself more to grazing
than it does to crops, and there are abundant holly oak and cork plantations.
 On the 28 January 2016, the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council inspectors found serious failings in
the water pump engines at the plant, which have potential operational issues of the cooling system and
could pose a serious risk to local people and the environment in Spain and in neighboring
Portugal. Greenpeace has labelled the plant as an ‘extreme case’ in its study on the application of minimum
safety standards introduced in Europe after the Fukushima accident.

On the 21 September 2016, defective parts were used on unit 1’s second and third steam generators and on
unit 2’s third steam generator, as well as the rim of the reactor lid in unit 2. It had already been reported
that the water pump engines had been stopped twice, the plant’s cooling system was reported as not 100%
reliable.

2. Trillo Nuclear Power Plant

The Trillo nuclear power plant in Guadalajara, in

the community of Castilla La Mancha, provides an
average 8,000 million kWh a year throughout
Spain. The site is located in the township of La
Alcarria, along the course of the Tajo River, in an
area called “Cerrilo Alto” in the Trillo municipal
term (Guadalajara).

The Trillo I Nuclear Power Plant is the most

modern of Spain’s nuclear park, with 1,066 MWe installed power. It has a pressurized water reactor with
three refrigeration loops with Siemens-KWU German technology. It uses enriched uranium as fuel.
Proprietors are the Spanish electric companies Iberdrola, with a participation of 48%, Unión Fenosa
(currently Gas Natural Fenosa SDG) WITH 34.5%, Hidroeléctrica del Cantábrico with 15.5% and Nuclenor
with 2%.

3. Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant is a mothballed nuclear power station at Santa María de
Garoña, Burgos (Spain). It consists of one boiling water reactor (BWR) of 466 megawatts (MWe).
The reactor vessel was built in 1966 by the Dutch RDM., being the oldest Spanish Nuclear Power Plant in
service. The reactor is a BWR/3 model with
a Mark I containment building.

The plant was opened in 1971 and officially

closed on 5 July 2013. Nuclenor, the plant's
operator, had sought a ten-year extension, which
was supported by Spain's Nuclear Safety Council
(Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear, CSN) despite
Spain's policy of phasing out nuclear power. On
2 July 2009, the Ministry of Industry, Tourism
and Trade compromised, extending the operating license for an additional four years subject to safety
upgrades, though this extension was never used.

N. UNITED KINGDOM

 The UK has 15 reactors generating about 21% of its electricity but almost half of this capacity is to
be retired by 2025.
 The UK has implemented a very thorough assessment process for new reactor designs and their
siting.
 The UK has privatized power generation and liberalized its electricity market, which together make
major capital investments problematic.
 Construction has commenced on the first of a new generation of plants.

1. Hunterston B Power Station is a nuclear power

station in North Ayrshire, Scotland. It is located
about 6 miles (9 km) south of Largs and about 2.5
miles (4 km) north-west of West Kilbride, on
the Firth of Clyde coast. It is currently operated by
France's EDF Energy, and began producing
electricity in 1976.

Hunterston B's two reactors have been shut down

since 2018 because of safety concerns, but are
projected to resume power generation, after several delays, in 2019. When operational, the plant generates
up to 1000 MW. The facility is planned to permanently shut down in 2023 and begin the process of nuclear
decommissioning at that date.

Hunterston B is very similar in design to the Hinkley Point B power station which is also due to operate
until 2023.

2. Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (HPC) is a project to construct a 3,200 MWe nuclear
power station with two EPR reactors in Somerset, England. The proposed site is one of eight announced by
the British government in 2010, and in November 2012 a nuclear site licence was granted. On 28 July 2016
the EDF board approved the project, and on 15 September 2016 the UK government approved the project
with some safeguards for the investment.

The plant, which has a projected lifetime of sixty years, has an estimated construction cost of between
£19.6 billion and £20.3 billion. The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers
(above the estimated market price of electricity) under the "strike price" will be £50 billion, which "will
continue to vary as the outlook for wholesale market prices shifts". Financing of the project is still to be
finalised, but the construction costs will be
paid for by the mainly state-owned EDF of
France and state-owned CGN of China.

According to December 2017 estimates,

Hinkley is being built for £20.3bn by 2025,
to be paid over a 35 year period. According
to Dieter Helm, professor of Energy Policy at
the University of Oxford, Hinkley Point C
would have been roughly half the cost if the
government had been borrowing the money
to build it at 2%, rather than EDF's cost of capital, which was 9%. In September 2019, further costs were
identified that bring the estimated total to £22.9bn, and may further delay operations.
3. Wylfa Nuclear Power Station (Welsh: Atomfa'r Wylfa) is a former Magnox power station situated west
of Cemaes Bay on the island of Anglesey, North Wales. Construction of the two 490 MW nuclear reactors,
known as "Reactor 1" and "Reactor 2", began in 1963.
They became operational in 1971. Wylfa was located
on the coast because seawater was used as a coolant.

In 2012, Reactor 2 was shut down. Three years later,

Reactor 1 was switched off on 30 December 2015 so
ending 44 years of operation at the site.

Wylfa Newydd (literally New Wylfa) is a proposed

new nuclear station on a site adjacent to the old plant.
An application to build two advanced boiling water reactors was submitted by Horizon Nuclear Power to
the Office of Nuclear Regulation on 4 April 2017.

O. CANADA

 About 15% of Canada's electricity comes from nuclear power, with 19 reactors mostly in Ontario
providing 13.5 GWe of power capacity.
 Canada had
plans to expand
its nuclear
capacity over
the next decade
by
building two
more new
reactors, but
these have
been
deferred.
 For many
years Canada
has been a
leader in nuclear
 research and technology, exporting reactor systems developed in Canada as well as a high
proportion of the world supply of radioisotopes used in medical diagnosis and cancer therapy.

1. Bruce Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power station located on the eastern shore of Lake
Huron in Ontario. It occupies 932 ha (2300 acres) of land. The facility derives its name from Bruce
County in which it is located, in the former Bruce Township. It is the world's largest fully operational
nuclear generating station by total reactor count, the number of currently operational reactors, and total
output. The station is the largest employer in Bruce County, with over 4000 workers.

Formerly known as the Bruce Nuclear

Power Development (BNPD), the facility
was constructed in stages between 1970
and 1987 by the provincial Crown
corporation, Ontario Hydro. In April
1999 Ontario Hydro was split into 5
component Crown corporations
with Ontario Power Generation (OPG)
taking over all electrical generating
stations. In June 2000, OPG entered into
a long term lease agreement with private sector consortium Bruce Power to take over operation. In May
2001, Bruce Power began operations. The lease is for 18 years until 2019 with an option to extend another
25 years to 2044.

In November 2009, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) renewed Bruce Power's operating
licences for 5 years until 2014, and gave permission to refuel units 1 and 2. In May 2014, the CNSC
extended the licence to May 2015 and public hearings were scheduled for early 2015 in Ottawa and
Kincardine. A new operating licence was granted for June 1, 2015, until May 31, 2020.

2. Darlington Nuclear Generating Station is a Canadian nuclear power station located on the north shore
of Lake Ontario in Clarington, Ontario. It is a large nuclear facility comprising four CANDU nuclear
reactors with a total output of 3,512 MWe (capacity net) when all units are online. It is Canada's second-
largest NPS and provides about 20 percent of Ontario's electricity needs, enough to serve a city of two
million people.
3. Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is a
Canadian nuclear power station located on the north
shore of Lake Ontario in Pickering, Ontario. It is one
of the oldest nuclear power stations in the world and
Canada's third-largest, producing about 15% of
Ontario's power and employing 3,000 workers.

Co-located at the Pickering station is a single

1.8 MWe wind turbine named the OPG 7
commemorative turbine.

4. Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power station located 2 km northeast of Point
Lepreau, New Brunswick, Canada. The facility
was constructed between 1975-1983 by NB
Power, the provincially owned public utility.

The facility derives its name from the nearby

headland situated at the easternmost part
of Charlotte County, although the generating
station itself is located within Saint John County.
The generating station is administratively part of
the local service district of Musquash, west of the
city of Saint John.
The Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station is the only nuclear generating facility located in Atlantic
Canada and consists of a single CANDU nuclear reactor located on the northern shore of the Bay of Fundy,
having a net capacity of 660 MW (705 MW gross).

P. FINLAND

 Finland has four nuclear reactors providing about

30% of its electricity.
 A fifth reactor is under construction and another is
planned, to take the nuclear contribution to about
60% and replace coal.
 Provisions for radioactive waste disposal are well
advanced.

1. The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant is on Olkiluoto

Island, which is on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia, in the
municipality of Eurajoki in western Finland. It is one of
Finland's two nuclear power plants, the other being the two-unit VVER Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant. The
plant is owned and operated by Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), a subsidiary of Pohjolan Voima.

The Olkiluoto plant consists of two boiling water reactors (BWRs), producing 880 MW and 890 MW of
electricity. A third reactor, Unit 3, is expected to be online in July 2020.

Unit 3 is an EPR reactor and has been under construction since 2005. The start of commercial operation
was originally planned for May 2009 but the project has been delayed and, as of July 2019, the latest
estimate for start of regular production is July 2020. In December 2012, the French multi-national building
contractor, Areva,
estimated that the full cost
of building the reactor will
be about €8.5 billion, or
almost three times the
delivery price of €3 billion.

A decision-in-principle for
a fourth reactor to be built
at the site was granted by
the Finnish parliament in July 2010, but, in June 2015, TVO decided that it would not apply for a
construction license for Olkiluoto 4.

2. The Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant is located close to the Finnish town of Loviisa. It houses two Soviet-
designed VVER-440/213 PWR reactors, with capacities of 507 MW each.

The reactors at Loviisa NPP went into commercial operation in 1977 and 1980 respectively. To comply
with Finnish nuclear regulation, Westinghouse and Siemens supplied equipment and engineering expertise.
This unorthodox mix of Western and Soviet enterprise led to the project developers being given the
nickname "Eastinghouse". The plant is operated by Fortum Oyj.

In 1996, the pressure vessel of Unit 1 was successfully heat annealed in order to clear embrittlement caused
by neutron bombardment and impurities of the welding seam between the two halves of the vessel.

The operating licence for both units has been renewed for a 50-year lifetime, Loviisa-1 to 2027 and Loviisa-
2 to 2030. As of 2018 Fortum is reportedly considering applying for a further 20-year lifetime extension
until 2050, which is a change from plans just a year earlier that would have seen the plant decommissioned
on the earlier schedule.

Fortum Power and Heat Oy applied to build a third reactor unit, to produce up to 1000 MWt of district
heating supply and from 800 - 1,600 MW of electrical generation, which the Finnish government declined
on 21 April 2010.

Spent fuel from the reactors were planned to be stored permanently at the Onkalo spent nuclear fuel
repository operated by Posiva.
In 2014 Rolls-Royce took over the modernisation of safety-related systems for both units from an AREVA-
Siemens consortium and the project was completed in 2018. Since then, both Unit 1 and Unit 2 are operating
at a nominal 507 MW capacity after updates.

Q. SWEDEN

 Sweden has eight nuclear power reactors

providing about 40% of its electricity.
 In 1980, the government decided to phase out
nuclear power. In June 2010, Parliament voted to
repeal this policy.
 The country's 1997 energy policy allowed 10
reactors to operate longer than envisaged by the
1980 phase-out policy, but also resulted in the
premature closure of a two-unit plant (1200 MWe).
Some 1600 MWe was subsequently added in
uprates to the remaining ten reactors.
 In 2015 decisions were made to close four older
reactors by 2020, removing 2.7 GWe net.
 Sweden had a tax discriminating against nuclear
power – about 0.75 Euro cents/kWh, making up
about one-third of the operating cost of nuclear power. Wind and biomass are subsidised by about
three times that. The tax was abolished in 2016 and fully phased out by 2019.
1. Ringhals Nuclear Power Plant is
a Swedish nuclear power plant with 4 reactors,
one boiling water reactor (R1) and three pressurized
water reactors (R2, R3 and R4). It is situated on
the Värö Peninsula (Swedish: Väröhalvön)
in Varberg Municipality approximately 65 km south
of Gothenburg. With a total power rating of
3955 MWe it is the largest power plant in Sweden and
generates 23 TWh of electricity a year, the equivalent
of 15% of the electrical power usage of Sweden. It is owned 70% by Vattenfall and 30% by Uniper SE.

2. Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power

plant in Forsmark, Sweden, and also the site of the
Swedish Final repository for radioactive operational
waste. It is operated by a company mainly owned
by Vattenfall.

The radiation monitors at Forsmark were the first outside

the Soviet Union to detect the elevated radiation levels
resulting from the Chernobyl disaster, over 1,000 km
away, forcing the Soviet government to publicly
acknowledge it after two days of hiding it from the world.
3. The Nuclear power station Oskarshamn is one of three active nuclear power stations in Sweden. The
plant is about 30 kilometers (19 mi) north of Oskarshamn, directly at the Kalmarsund at the Baltic Sea coast
and with one active reactor, producing about
10% of the electricity needs of Sweden. All
reactors were built using BWR technology.

Unit 1 had an installed output of 494 MW

and Unit 2 664 MW; these are now
decommissioned. Unit 3, the newest reactor
block at the facility, has an installed output of
1,450 MW.

Clab, the temporary storage facility for spent

nuclear fuel from all Swedish reactors, is also located at the site.

R. UKRAINE

 Ukraine is heavily dependent on nuclear energy – it has 15 reactors generating about half of its
electricity.
 Ukraine receives most of its nuclear services and nuclear fuel from Russia, but is reducing this
dependence by buying fuel from Westinghouse.
 In 2004 Ukraine commissioned two large new reactors. The government plans to maintain nuclear
share in electricity production to 2030, which will involve substantial new build.
 The government is looking to the West for both technology and investment in its nuclear plants.
1. The South Ukraine Nuclear Power Station is a nuclear power station in Ukraine. It is part of the South
Ukrainian Energy Complex.

It is located near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk in Mykolaiv province, approximately 350 kilometers (220 mi)
south of Kiev. The nuclear power station has three VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors and a net
generation capacity of 2,850 megawatts (MW). It is at present the second largest of five nuclear power
stations in Ukraine.

From South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant a 750 kV powerline runs to Isaccea, Romania, but it is mostly
dismantled or ruined.
In 2013, following major upgrade
work, unit 1 was given a 10-year
license extension, which will take
it beyond its original 30-year
design lifetime. Similar extensions
are planned for units 2 and 3,
licensed until 2015 and 2019,
respectively.

2. The Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar, Ukraine, is the largest nuclear power
plant in Europe and among the top 10 largest in the world.

The plant is located in Central Ukraine near the city of Enerhodar, on the banks of the Kakhovka
Reservoir on the Dnieper river. It has
6 VVER-1000 pressurized light water
nuclear reactors, each generating 950 MWe,
for a total power output of 5,700 MWe. The
first five were successively brought online
between 1985 and 1989, and the sixth was
added in 1995. The plant generates nearly
half of the country's electricity derived from
nuclear power, and more than a fifth of
total electricity generated in Ukraine. The
Zaporizhia coal power station is also located nearby.

In 2017 modernisation work was completed on unit 3, enabling a 10 year life-extension to 2027.

3. The Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Netishyn, Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine.
The plant is operated by Energoatom. Two VVER-1000 reactors are operational, each generating
1000 MW (net) of electricity. Construction of the first reactor started in 1981 and the first unit was put in
operation in late 1987. Construction of the second reactor started in 1983 with plans to finish it in 1991. In
1990, however, construction was stopped as part of a moratorium on new plant construction. Construction
was completed only in August 2004 after the moratorium was lifted.

Two more VVER-1000

reactors are currently under
construction. Construction of
the third reactor started in
September 1985 and the fourth
reactor in June 1986.
Construction was stopped in
1990 when they were 75% and
28% complete, respectively.
An intergovernmental agreement on the resumption of construction was signed between Ukraine and Russia
in June 2010. On 10 February 2011, Energoatom and Atomstroyexport signed a contract agreement for the
completion of reactors 3 and 4. They should be commissioned in 2018 and 2020, respectively. Feasibility
study of reactors 3 and 4 was conducted by Kiev Institute Energoproekt.

S. TAIWAN
  Taiwan has four operable nuclear power reactors,
which account for around 15% of the island's
electricity generation.
 Two advanced reactors were under construction,
but this project is suspended.
 Existing nuclear power is considerably cheaper
than the alternatives.
 The Democratic Progressive Party elected in
January 2016 has a policy of phasing out nuclear
power by 2025.
 A November 2018 referendum showed 59%
support for continued use of nuclear power.

1. The Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located near South
Bay, Hengchun, Pingtung County, Taiwan. The plant is Taiwan's third nuclear power plant and second-
largest in generation capacity. The expected lifespan of this plant is 60 years.

Each unit at Maanshan is a three-loop Westinghouse PWR with three Westinghouse type F steam
generators. Each steam generator has 5626 U-bend tubes made of thermally treated Inconel 600 alloy. The
power plant can generate 15 TWh of electricity per year.
2. The Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant or Chin Shan
Nuclear Power Plant ), is a nuclear power
plant being decommissioned in Shimen District, New
Taipei, Taiwan. Commissioned in 1978, the plant is
Taiwan's first and smallest nuclear power plant.

The power plant can generate 9 billion kWh of

electricity per year.

The two spent fuel pools at the plant have 3,074 and 3,076 spent nuclear fuel assemblies, respectively, with
a maximum storage of 3,083 assemblies per pool.

3. The Kuosheng Nuclear Power

Plant or Guosheng Nuclear Power Plantis
a nuclear power plant in Wanli, New
Taipei, Taiwan. The plant is currently the largest
nuclear power plant in Taiwan.

As of 2015, more than 5 million people live within

30 km of the NPP, second only to KANUPP in
Pakistan.

The power plant can generate 16 billion kWh of

electricity per year.
T. IRAN

 One nuclear power reactor is operating in Iran, after many years' construction.
 Two further large Russian-designed units are planned, the first of which commenced construction
in November 2019.
 The country also has a major programme developing uranium enrichment, which was concealed
for many years.
 Iran is now limiting its enrichment-related activities and ceasing its work on heavy water-related
projects, under the internationally-agreed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Most enriched
uranium has now been removed from the country.

1. The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Iran 17 kilometres (11 mi) southeast of
the city of Bushehr, between the fishing villages of Halileh and Bandargeh along the Persian Gulf.
 Construction of the plant was started
in 1975 by German companies, but
the work was stopped in 1979 after
the Islamic revolution of Iran. The
site was repeatedly bombed during
the Iran–Iraq war. Later, a contract
for finishing the plant was signed
between Iran and the
Russian Ministry for Atomic
Energy in 1995, with
Russia's Atomstroyexport named as
the main contractor. The work was
delayed several years by technical and financial challenges as well as by political pressure from the West.
After construction was again in danger of being stopped in 2007, a renewed agreement was reached in
which the Iranians promised to compensate for rising costs and inflation after completion of the
plant. Delivery of nuclear fuel started the same year. The plant started adding electricity to the national grid
on 3 September 2011, and was officially opened in a ceremony on 12 September 2011, attended by Russian
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko and head of the Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko.

The project is considered unique in terms of its technology, the political environment and the challenging
physical climate. It is the first civilian nuclear power plant built in the Middle East. Several research
reactors had been built earlier in the Middle East: two in Iraq, two in Israel, one in Syria and three in Iran.

U. MEXICO

 Mexico has two nuclear reactors generating almost 4% of its electricity.

 Its first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1989.
 There is some government support for expanding nuclear energy to reduce reliance on natural gas,
but recent low gas prices have overshadowed this.
1. Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant (LVNPP) is located on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in Alto
Lucero, Veracruz, Mexico. It is the only nuclear power plant in Mexicoand produces about 4.5% of the
country's electrical energy. It consists of two units GE Boiling Water Reactors (BWR-5) each one with
installed capacity of 682 MW using low enriched uranium (3%) as fuel. Unit-1 (U-1) started its operation
on July 29, 1990. Unit-2 (U-2) started its operation on April 10, 1995. Initial architects in 1975 for the plant
were Burns and Roe Inc and later Ebasco Services designed and supervised the project. The steam turbine
and other components were manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric. The plant is owned and operated
by Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), the national electric company owned by the Mexican
government.
V. SLOVAKIA

 Slovakia has four nuclear reactors generating half of its electricity and two more under construction.
 Slovakia's first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1972.
 Government commitment to the future of nuclear energy is strong.

1. The Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is a complex of nuclear reactors situated 2.5 km from the
village of Jaslovské Bohunice in the Trnava District in western Slovakia.

Bohunice NPP comprises two plants: V1 and V2. Both plants contain two reactor units. The plant was
connected to the national power network in stages in the period between 1978 and 1985. The four power
reactors are pressurized water reactors of the Soviet VVER-440 design.

Annual electricity generation averages about 12,000 GWh. Upon development of a district heating supply
network in the town of Trnava near Bohunice NPP, V2 switched to co-generation. Part of this system is a
heat feeder line commissioned in 1987. In 1997 a heat feeder line to Leopoldov and Hlohovec was begun,
branching off from the Trnava line.
2. The Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located between the towns
of Nitra and Levice, on the site of the former village of Mochovce, Slovakia. Two up-rated 470 MW
(originally 440MW) reactors are presently in operation, with two further reactors of the same type under
construction. Generating almost 7,000 GW·h of electricity a year, the power plant currently serves
approximately 20% of Slovakia's energy needs.

W. SOUTH AFRICA

 South Africa has two nuclear reactors generating 5% of its electricity.

 South Africa's first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1984.
  Government commitment to the future of nuclear energy has been strong, but in August 2018 the
new administration abandoned plans for new capacity to be installed before 2030.

1. Koeberg nuclear power station is a nuclear power station in South Africa. It is currently the only one
on the entire African continent. It is located 30 km north of Cape Town, near Melkbosstrand on the west
coast of South Africa. Koeberg is owned and operated by the country's only national electricity
supplier, Eskom. The two reactors form the cornerstone of the South African nuclear program.
 Chapter 3
SAFETY PROCEDURES AND MAINTENANCE
Safe, reliable and economic nuclear power plants typically exhibit careful, conservative operation
and rigorous, well-planned maintenance activities to minimize risks to workers, the public and the
environment.
According to IAEA (2007), the fundamental safety objective of protecting people – individually
and collectively – and the environment has to be achieved without unduly limiting the operation of facilities
or the conduct of activities that give rise to radiation risks. To ensure that facilities are operated and
activities are conducted so as to achieve the highest standards of safety that can reasonably be achieved,
measures have to be taken: to control the radiation exposure of people and the release of radioactive material
to the environment; to restrict the likelihood of events that might lead to a loss of control over a nuclear
reactor core, nuclear chain reaction, radioactive source or any other source of radiation; to mitigate the
consequences of events if they were to occur.
The fundamental safety objective applies to all nuclear facilities and activities and for all stages
over the lifetime of a facility or radiation source, including planning, siting, design, manufacturing,
construction, commissioning and operation as well as decommissioning and closure. This includes the
associated transport of radioactive material and management of radioactive waste.
The safety principles form a set that is applicable in its entirety; although in practice different
principles may be more or less important in relation to particular circumstances. The IAEA Safety Standards
Series establishes the safety requirements governed by the safety principles as well as recommendations
and guidance on how to comply with the safety requirements.
 This supposes that an effective nuclear infrastructure has been implemented in due time to ensure
that the concerns of all stakeholders (and public especially) are being addressed adequately and that man
and machine work together harmoniously to ensure safety.
Also, although prime responsibility for safety rests with the organization responsible for the
facilities and activities that give rise to radiation risks, national efforts alone should not be considered
sufficient and should be supported by the activities of variety of international organizations that cooperate
to ensure an effective global nuclear safety regime.
Key safety elements of an effective nuclear infrastructure include:
Legal framework – This element includes a legislation establishing an independent and competent
regulatory body as well as a regulatory system that provides framework (codes and standards, licensing
process, assessments, inspections, enforcement if necessary) within which construction, operation and
decommissioning of nuclear facilities can proceed.
Regulatory competence – The regulator should have the capacity to oversee all stages of the NPP
project, including site evaluation, design review, construction, operation, decommissioning and waste
management. As well as the operator, the regulator should seek for continuous improvement. He should
regularly check for its effectiveness through self-assessments and/or international peer reviews.
Financial stability – A commitment to nuclear power demands financial capacity not only to
acquire a plant but also to fund operations, decommissioning and waste management. This supposes that
not only the operator, but the regulatory body, the industry and the education sector dispose of adequate
financial resources to maintain adequate conditions for safety over this period of time (i.e. about 100 years
from policy decision to site closure after decommissioning).
Technical competence - After an initial reliance to some extent on skills from abroad, the country
should develop through adequate educational and training programs an indigenous capacity to provide
skilled personnel in all areas needed to maintain an effective safety level for the whole duration of the
nuclear program.
Operator skills and attitude – To ensure its prime responsibility in safety, the operator needs
technical competence to operate and maintain its facilities. This requires the availability of staff and
management with knowledge and experience, committed to a safety culture where everyone is aware of its
individual responsibility for safety. Credit should be taken from experience at all levels including
international, to continuously seek for improvements not only in the designs of NPPs, but also in training
programs, organizational structures and plant operation and maintenance procedures.
Emergency preparedness – Notwithstanding all the efforts to ensure safety, the country should
also prepare for the possibility that a nuclear or radiation emergency could arise. Arrangements should be
taken with the concerned stakeholders for an effective response at the scene and, as appropriate, at local,
regional, national or international levels.
International connectivity – For obvious reasons, every country should share information with
others and learn from their experience. Every country embarking on a nuclear program should take the
opportunity to join the variety of international organizations that constitute the global nuclear safety and
operating regimes and benefit of their services as well as of the experience built through these relationships.
Giraldo, Gotham, Nderitu, Preckel, & Mize (2012) stated in their report that there are many ways
in which the U.S nuclear industry strives to achieve high levels of safety. Everything from the design, siting,
construction and operation of the power plants, as well as international collaboration contribute to the
attainment of safety.
Defense-in-Depth: Nuclear power plants in the U.S. and in western countries have an approach
to design and operation to prevent and mitigate accidents known as Defense-in-Depth. The key to this
approach is to create multiple independent and redundant safety systems in order to compensate for any
human or mechanical error and to not rely exclusively on any single system. Features of this approach
include access controls, physical barriers, redundant safety systems and emergency response measures.
Safety features of reactors: The three safety functions that are to be performed with respect to the
nuclear reactor itself are: the control of reactivity, the cooling of the fuel, and the containment of radioactive
substances. To control the reactivity, control rods are inserted into the reactor core. These have neutron
absorbing properties that decrease the number of nuclear reactions. Additionally, reactors are designed with
inherent safety features that control the reactivity. For example, all western nuclear reactors are designed
to have negative void coefficients. This means that if steam builds up in the coolant water, as a consequence
of overheating, the nuclear reaction actually slows down. This occurs because in LWR the coolant water is
also the moderator and as water evaporates there is a decrease in the moderating effect. For the cooling of
the fuel all nuclear reactors have a back-up emergency core cooling system to remove excess heat in case
of main coolant system power loss. The containment of radioactive substances is one of the most important
safety features that a nuclear reactor has. A typical power plant will have several barriers between
radioactive material and the environment (see Figure 3.1). These include: the zirconium alloy tubes where
the enriched uranium pellets are sealed to form the fuel rods; the reactor pressure vessel that can have walls
up to 30 cm thick, depending on the type of reactor; and the reinforced concrete containment structure that
has several compartments and walls up to 4 feet thick (see Figure 3.2). Containment structures can mitigate
the severity of a nuclear accident as demonstrated by the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. In the
Three Mile Island accident even though half of the reactor core melted, there was no significant release of
radiation due to the adequacy of the containment structures. In contrast, the Chernobyl reactor did not have
containment structures comparable to the ones in western nuclear reactors.
Figure 3.1 Safety barriers of a boiling water reactor
Figure 3.2 Construction of containment wall
Most of the safety systems on currently operating reactors are ‘active’ safety systems in the sense
that they require mechanical or electrical operation in order to work. In the new reactor designs, Generation
III and III+, several active safety systems have been replaced with passive systems. Passive safety systems
depend only on physical phenomena such as gravity, convection and resistance to high temperature to
function.
Several safety and design considerations have to be taken into account when choosing the site to
build a nuclear power plant. Because of cooling requirements nuclear power plants are usually built close
to bodies of water. This places the plants at risk of being flooded by storms, tides and tsunamis. During the
site licensing process worst case scenarios are considered in order to build proper safety barriers, however
there have been several instances where flooding occurred at nuclear power plants. This can have
catastrophic consequences as demonstrated by the Fukushima accident where the flooding of the back-up
generators caused a meltdown in 3 reactor units.
Another important siting consideration is whether the site is in an area of significant seismic
activity: 20 percent of the world’s reactors are located in areas of significant seismic activity. Reactors in
these areas have more stringent criteria for planning, design and construction in order to withstand very
strong earthquakes. All reactors are designed to automatically shut off in case a major seismic event.
Industry organizations have also been formed to aid in monitoring the adherence of nuclear power
plants to regulations and policies. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) was established in
1979 following the recommendation of the Kemeny Commission, which was set up by President Carter to
investigate the Three Mile Island accident. INPO’s mission is to promote high levels of safety and reliability
in the operation of nuclear power plants by establishing performance objectives, conducting regular detailed
evaluations of nuclear power plants, and by providing assistance to nuclear power plant operators.
 There is a great deal of international cooperation with regards to the safe operation of nuclear
power plants. Following the Chernobyl accident the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) was
set up in 1989. There is evidence that many accidents could have been prevented had information learned
from previous incidents been shared. WANO helps operators to easily communicate and share operational
experience and information. WANO has helped achieve high levels of safety worldwide through its four
main programs: peer reviews, operational experience, technical support and exchange, and professional and
technical development. At the end of 2009 all of the world’s commercial power plants had been peer-
reviewed at least once.
The IAEA’s Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) is another instrument by which international
nuclear safety is strengthened. The Convention came into effect in 1996 with the aim to legally commit
participating states operating land-based nuclear power plants to maintain a high level of safety by setting
international benchmarks to which states would subscribe. Currently there are 72 contracting parties
including all countries that operate nuclear power plants. The NRC prepares a U.S. National Report every
three years for the CNS and assigns experienced technical managers to participate in peer reviewed
discussions.
A proper balance of preventive and corrective maintenance provides a high degree of confidence
that station equipment degradation is identified and corrected, that equipment life is optimized and that the
maintenance program is cost effective. Preventive maintenance includes predictive, periodic, and planned
maintenance actions taken to maintain a piece of equipment, so that it can meet its design intent and extend
its useful life. It is performed prior to equipment failure, or to prevent future equipment failure. On some
multi-unit plants which have a single resource for 'at power' and shutdown maintenance, it is important to
manage maintenance resources to give the best balance between these often conflicting demands on
maintenance. The maintenance resource must be evaluated over the course of the whole year and
predictive/preventive maintenance must not be cancelled in order to complete outages on time.
The provision of parts, material and services must support the correction of deficiencies and the
timely return to service of equipment.
The proper care of spare parts, materials and equipment must occur from the time they are
received at the plant, until they are installed in a system. In order to achieve this objective, the responsibility
for procurement, receipt, storage and issue of spare parts and materials must be dearly defined.
Spares must be purchased to the same technical standards and QA requirements as the equivalent
installed plant items. Items should only be obtained from suppliers who are approved in accordance with
QA requirements. The material management facilities must provide adequate support to the plant resulting
in parts and materials being available when needed in the plant.
 Materials should be stored and identified in a manner that permits timely retrieval. Proper
engineering approval is required for any deviations from design specifications for parts or material.
Storage facilities should be operated in a manner that takes into account special environmental
requirements for storing certain components. In particular, preventive maintenance activities should be
performed on certain spare equipment (e.g. rotating large electrical motors).
Spare parts with limited life should be stored separately and clearly marked to indicate acceptable
periods of use.
Hazardous material should be properly segregated and adequate procedures should be in place to
control its receipt and use.
According to Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC, 2012), effective maintenance is
essential for the safe operation of a nuclear power plant. The facility must be monitored, inspected, tested,
assessed and maintained to ensure that structures, systems or components (SSCs) function as per design.
Various maintenance concepts can be used to form a maintenance strategy.
Figure 3.3 illustrates an example of the relationship of maintenance concepts and associated
maintenance activities that provide the basis of a good maintenance strategy. This strategy would be
supported by the maintenance program.
The majority of maintenance activities are traditionally allocated to the concept of preventive
maintenance. These maintenance activities can be derived, for example, from the safety analysis
assumptions, design or reliability requirements, codes and standards, and operating experience and are
performed on the basis of service time, actual condition or predicted condition. Where the performance or
condition of an SSC does not allow it to function as per design, corrective action must be taken.
The results of all maintenance activities are fed back through an optimization process which
enables the continuous improvement of the program.
Figure 3.3 Relationship of maintenance concepts and activities
 CHAPTER 4
FUKUSHIMA DISASTER
On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku earthquake followed by a tsunami prompted the Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) to a situation exceeding design basis accidents and was further
aggravated by multiple failures developed in the accident management measures. Units 1–3 of the NPS
experienced severe accidents – the units lost functions related to cooling despite being shut down.
Kurihara City in Miyagi Prefecture experienced an earthquake, with seismic intensity of 7 on the
scale ranging from 0 to 7 as defined by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), while the coastline along
Hokkaido and Tohoku to the Kanto region endured seven high tsunami waves. Regions including offshore
Miyagi Prefecture, offshore Central Sanriku, offshore Ibaraki Prefecture, and offshore Fukushima
Prefecture were disturbed simultaneously. The magnitude at the hypocenter was 9.0 on the Richter scale.
On the same day, Units 4-6 of the Fukushima Daiichi NPS had been shut down for periodic
inspection outage while Units 1–3 were in operation. The shock of the earthquake caused the safety function
of Units 1–3 to be actuated which resulted in automatic shutdown of all reactors. Moreover, due to the
collapse of the off-site electric tower connection, all power supply from off-site to the power station was
lost. But, the emergency diesel generators (EDGs) activated which produced the electric power necessary
to maintain safety of the reactors.
Not long after the earthquake, a 14-meter tsunami that swept into coastal towns, hit the Futaba area
of Fukushima Prefecture where Fukushima Daiichi NPS is located. The tsunami was the fourth largest ever
observed in the world and the largest ever in Japan. It was designated as Mw 9.1 in an index for scaling
tsunamis.
Immediately after the tsunami, the authorities were informed of a 'nuclear emergency' as nothing
was able to prevent the reactor cores from overheating. If they became too hot, an eventual explosion was
likely – an event that would have severe implications for the 1.5 million people living in the Fukushima
district.
Many systems and much equipment lost their functions in a limited time when there were no
aftershocks, indicating it was the tsunami that caused the losses of power. The tsunami waves that hit
Fukushima Daiichi exceeded not only the 4-m ground level where seawater pumps had been installed, but
also the 10-m ground level, where key buildings had been constructed. Also, the tsunami flowed into the
infrastructures. Its wave force was strong enough to partially destroy buildings. Motors and electrical
equipment were flooded. Parts of heavy oil tanks, which had stood on the seaside area within the NPS,
seemed to have been pulled away from their positions by wave force and buoyancy. Important systems such
as the EDGs , seawater system pumps, and power panels were affected, causing them to lose their functions
resulting in the loss of all alternating-current (AC) power and loss of all the cooling functions using AC
power at the site. Consequently, core-cooling functions not utilizing AC power were attempted to be put in
operation. These were the operation of the reactor core isolation cooling system (RCIC) in Unit 2, and the
operation of the RCIC and the high-pressure injection system (HPCI) in Unit 3.
Moments later, the loss of direct-current (DC) power resulted in the sequential shut down of core
cooling functions that were designed to be operated without AC power supply. Then, due to water
evaporation by decay heat and depressurization boiling, the reactor coolant in the reactor pressure vessel
gradually decreased, which caused boil-dry of the fuel. Accordingly, water injection was attempted through
an alternative water path by joining fire engines with the fire protection system and make up water
condensate system (MUWC), but water could not be injected into the reactor vessels in Units 1–3 for a
period of time.
Due to exothermic chemical reaction between steam and zirconium (Zr) included in the fuel
cladding tube, massive heat was generated, causing the fuel to melt and the generation of a substantial
amount of hydrogen. Subsequently, in Units 1 and 3, explosions, which appeared to be caused by hydrogen
leakage from the primary containment vessel (PCV), destroyed the upper structure of their respective
reactor buildings. The PCV pressure showed a sharp rise and the reactor pressure decreased despite no
depressurization actions.
The reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi are called boiling-water reactors (BWRs) and were
manufactured by General Electric. They have a primary and a secondary containment structure, both made
from thick reinforced concrete, to protect against the release of radioactive materials. Inside the primary
containment are two vessels called a “dry well” and a “wet well”. The drywell is a large steel pressure
vessel that looks like a giant upside-down pear and holds the reactor and primary pumps, and the wet well
is a large toroidal vessel that looks like a donut. The wet well is connected to the drywell by a number of
wide pipes. Both the drywell and the wet well are surrounded by a secondary containment vessel (or shield
building) also built from reinforced concrete about a meter thick. This rectangular secondary containment
building is the structure that most people have seen in pictures of the reactor. At the top of the secondary
containment building is a steel frame structure with “blowout” panels that holds the crane used to remove
solid nuclear fuel during fueling and refueling.
BWR with MARK-I PCV is designed to suppress pressure increase by condensation at the
suppression pool by steam from the reactor. Therefore, the sharp pressure rise is considered to be caused
by gas leakage to the drywell. A scenario was assumed in the analysis that steam had leaked from in-core
instrumentation dry tubes or main steam pipe flanges due to temperature rise in the vessel caused by
overheating of uncovered fuel and fuel melting.
 The meltdown accident progressed as follows: When heated to high temperatures, fuel melted down
from the core to the lower plenum, and then further down to the bottom of the PCV by breaking through
the reactor vessel.
The designers of the reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi had anticipated situations where pressure was
rising in the core. So long as power was available, pumps would circulate hot fluid from the reactor to the
wet well where it would be condensed. Heat removal could continue indefinitely in this way. But it all
relied on a power source, and power had been lost due to the tsunami’s destruction of the diesel generators.
The water in the reactor is susceptible to damage from radiation, causing it to split into its
components, hydrogen and oxygen. Normally, circulation would channel the hydrogen and oxygen to a
recombiner where they would be restored back to water, but in the hours after the reactors were shut down,
hydrogen was accumulating and separating in the wet well and reached a point where it was vented into the
sparse steel-frame structure at the top of the reactor building. It was only a matter of time before the
hydrogen reached a level where it would detonate, and one after another, the first unit, then the third unit,
and finally the second unit, suffered hydrogen explosions that blew off the steel panels and left the top of
the reactor building exposed. The reactor vessels remained intact as did the reinforced concrete
containment buildings, but each reactor building lost its hat due to the hydrogen explosions.
Initially there was hope of saving the reactors to generate power again after the crisis had
passed. But as that hope faded and the need to remove the steadily-decreasing decay heat remained,
operators at Fukushima-Daiichi took measures that would cool the reactors but would ruin them for future
operation, such as the decision to try to cool the reactors with seawater.
An evacuation was ordered by the government at 8.50pm. Everyone within 2km of the plant was
ordered to move to a safe distance. As it became clearer that battery power was not enough to sustain the
growing heat inside the power plant, the government felt obligated to increase the evacuation zone to 3km,
just half an hour after the first evacuation order. Seven hours later, this range extended to 10km.
All the while, pressure was rising inside the reactor cores. Radioactive decay continued to raise the
temperature of the cores, and hydrogen gas was nearing its maximum capacity. Three hours later, the
evacuation area was once again increased; this time to 20km.
While the temperature did begin to slow down its rise, it was not enough to reduce the heat.
Inconveniently, the water pumping system failed for Reactor 3. Then on March 14, another hydrogen
explosion occurred at the power plant site; this time in Reactor 3. Eleven people were injured in the blast
that, once again, blew the roof off of the reactor core.
However, Reactor 4 was also a concern. Despite being switched off from the very beginning,
Reactor 4 managed to fill up with hydrogen too. Pipes connecting Cores 3 and 4 meant that the pressure
build up in Reactor 3 was unknowingly causing a similar effect in Reactor 4.
 While water injection had managed to slow down the pressure build up in Reactor 3, nobody knew
how to carry out a similar procedure in Reactor 4. The blast from 3 was the catalyst for a similar fate in 4.
March 14, Reactor 4 was the third hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Reactor 2
was not slipping under the radar. At the time, it seemed attempts to contain this reactor had proved
reasonably successful, but that was not the case.
A leak inside the reactor core meant that radiation had been seeping out for days. Later research
discovered that despite three explosions from other reactors, it was Reactor 2 that contributed most of the
radiation to the outside environment; almost entirely into water. It was at this point that the government
called for anybody in the range of 20-30km of the power station to remain indoors, amid fears that the
radiation would spread.
An estimated 200,000 people had been evacuated. Combined with those that were advised to
remain indoors, that total reached 390,000. As it stands, there have been no reported deaths from the
radiation itself.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) follow-up report of the disaster said that the residents of
Fukushima received between one and 10 mSv of radiation after one full year of the explosions. To put that
into perspective, a patient receiving a full-body CT scan would receive mSV around 10 mSv of radiation.
Scientists have found that for any clear indication of increased cancer risk, a person would have to endure
an annual total of 100.
One hundred sixteen cases of thyroid cancer in children has been reported since the nuclear disaster.
That is roughly 20 to 50 times higher than the national average. In the peer-reviewed Philosophical
Transactions A of the Royal Society, researchers Costas Synolakis of the USC Viterbi School of
Engineering and Utku Kânoğlu of the Middle East Technical University in Turkey distilled thousands of
pages of government and industry reports and hundreds of news stories, focusing on the run-up to the
Fukushima Daiichi disaster in 2011. They found that “arrogance and ignorance,” design flaws, regulatory
failures and improper hazard analyses doomed the coastal nuclear power plant even before the tsunami hit.
“While most studies have focused on the response to the accident, we’ve found that there were
design problems that led to the disaster that should have been dealt with long before the earthquake hit,”
said Synolakis, professor of civil and environmental engineering at USC Viterbi
Despite Japan’s history of tsunamis, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Japan’s nuclear
regulator, did not apply those standards. It failed to review studies of tsunami risks performed by the plant’s
owner, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). It also failed to ensure the development of tsunami-modeling tools
compliant with international standards.
 Synolakis and Kânoğlu report that TEPCO first reduced the height of the coastal cliffs where the
plant was built, underestimated potential tsunami heights, relied on its own internal faulty data and
incomplete modeling and ignored warnings from Japanese scientists that larger tsunamis were possible.
Prior to the disaster, TEPCO estimated that the maximum possible rise in water level at Fukushima
Daiichi was 6.1 meters — a number that appears to have been based on low-resolution studies of
earthquakes of magnitude 7.5, even though up to magnitude 8.6 quakes have been recorded along the same
coast where the plant is located.
This is also despite the fact that TEPCO did two sets of calculations in 2008 based on datasets from
different sources, each of which suggested that tsunami heights could top 8.4 meters — possibly reaching
above 10 meters
TEPCO knew of geological evidence that the region surrounding the plant had been periodically
flooded about once every thousand years. In 2008, it performed computer simulations suggesting that a
repeat of the devastating earthquake of 869 would lead to a tsunami that would inundate the plant. Yet it
did not adequately follow up on either of these leads.
The biggest risk that tsunamis pose to nuclear plants is the destruction of their power supplies.
Without electricity, a reactor cannot be cooled and a meltdown can result. This is exactly what happened at
Fukushima. A similar event might have been triggered in France in December 1999, when the Blayais
nuclear power plant was flooded.
Recognizing this risk, European states examined their nuclear plant designs for vulnerabilities.
They then equipped their plants with more emergency electricity supplies and protected them to better
withstand a whole range of hard-to-predict extreme hazards.
TEPCO and Japan’s nuclear safety agency were well aware of the European experience. Fukushima
would have survived if they followed Europe’s lead and improved the plant’s design.
During the 2011 disaster, tsunami heights reached an estimated 13 meters at Fukushima Daiichi —
high enough to flood all of the backup generators and wash away power lines. Additionally, the 2010
Chilean earthquake (magnitude 8.8) should have been a wake-up call to TEPCO, said Synolakis, who
described it as the “last chance to avoid the accident.” TEPCO conducted a new safety assessment of
Fukushima Daiichi but used 5.7 meters as the maximum possible height of a tsunami, against the published
recommendations of some of its own scientists. TEPCO concluded in November 2010 that they had
“assessed and confirmed the safety of the nuclear plants,” presenting its findings at a nuclear engineering
conference in Japan.
Lacking tsunami specific training, certification and licensing, the potential for similar mistakes to
occur in hazard studies for other coastal nuclear power plants exists, he said. He points to recent studies
around the world where lack of experience and context produced tsunami inundation projections with
Fukushima-size underestimation of the hazard
In short, had TEPCO and the nuclear safety agency followed international standards and best
practice, the Fukushima accident would have been prevented.
The reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant irrigation is continued to be poured water
in order to maintain the current state of cold shutdown. The core fuels solidified after the melt down from
Unit 1 to Unit 3, the spent fuels stored in the each storage pool and more than 1500 of the fuel rods which
had been stored in the fuel storage pool of Unit 4 must be continued to cool down. No. 4 reactor did not
have any fuels in the reactor due to the regular inspections at the time of the accident. However, even those
spelt fuels generate heat even in the pool, so it become dangerous quickly if not continue cooling the spent
fuel rods.
The plan of the dismantling of the facility will be terminated over 30-40 years, but the decommissioning
work has been hampered by difficulties in the very high radioactivity.In June 2012, the dosimeter was
inserted by using the endoscope from the reactor building of Unit 1 to the first floor of the basement. In the
basement, the level of the radiation recorded the maximum hourly 10.3Sv in 5m water depth. This was the
figure that means the high probability of the death if a person exposes for one hour.
The radioactive materials from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are still leaking. Most
of radioactive materials are leaking from Unit 1-3 because of lack of the confinement function at the
collapsed reactor building from Units 1-3. Still Release of maximum 10 million Becquerel’s per hour is
continuing. 400 tons of groundwater per day was flowed into the reactor building and acuminated as
contaminated water. TEPCO has created a large amount of on-site storage tank to store the contaminated
water. In the future, the contained water will be purified up to the level of no detection of radiation by the
special equipment and release to the sea, according to TEPCO.
 APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
Definition of Terms
Absorber - any material that stops ionizing radiation by absorbing alpha particles and most beta particles.
Activation product - radioactive isotope of an element which has been created by neutron bombardment.
Activity - number of disintegrations per unit time inside a radioactive source
Alpha particle/Helium-4 nucleus - A positively charged particle made up of two neutrons and two protons
Atom - particle of matter, which cannot be broken up by chemical means, comprising a nucleus consisting
of positively-charged protons and uncharged neutrons of almost the same mass.
Atomic number - The number assigned to each element on the basis of the number of protons found in its
nucleus.
Atomic weight (atomic mass) - the approximate sum of the number of protons and neutrons found in the
nucleus of an atom
Becquerel - the SI unit of intrinsic radioactivity in a material. It indicates the disintegration per second;
thus, it is the activity of a quantity of radioactive material which averages one decay per second.
Beta particle - particle emitted from an atom during radioactive decay.
Contamination - radioactive material deposited or dispersed in materials or places where it is not wanted.
Coolant - liquid or gas that is used to transfer heat from the reactor core to steam generators or turbines.
Core - central part of a nuclear reactor which contains the fuel elements and moderators.
Critical mass - smallest amount of fissile material that can support a self-sustaining chain reaction under
specific conditions.
Curie (Ci) - basic unit used to describe the intensity of radioactivity in a sample of material. One curie
equals thirty-seven billion disintegrations per second.
Decay - disintegration of atomic nuclei resulting from alpha- or beta-particle emissions usually with gamma
radiation.
Deuterium - a stable isotope with one proton and one neutron in the nucleus.
Disintegration - natural change in the nucleus of a radioactive isotope as particles are emitted making it a
different element.
Electron capture - a radioactive decay process where an orbital electron is captured and merges with the
nucleus.
Energy - a fundamental entity of nature that can be transferred among parts of the system in the production
of physical change within the system
Excited state - the state of an atom or nucleus when it possesses more than its normal energy.
Fission - a process where heavy element atoms split into smaller atoms, producing free neutrons and energy.
Fission products - daughter nuclei resulting either from the fission of heavy elements or the radioactive
decay of those primary daughters.
Fusion - a process where several light nuclei form into a heavier nucleus and energy is released.
Gamma rays - high energy electromagnetic radiation from the atomic nucleus that is virtually identical to
X-rays.
Genetic mutation - change in the chromosomal DNA of a gene which may produce inherited changes in
descendants.
Green energy - clean power source that can replace dirty energy generated by fossil fuels for a future without
pollution
Half-life – time required for half of the atoms of a particular radioactive isotope to decay
Ion - electrically-charged atom or molecule due to loss or gain of electrons.
Ionising radiation - radiation capable of breaking chemical bonds that can cause ionisation of the matter
through which it passes.
Isotope - atomic form of an element with a particular number of neutrons. Different isotopes of an element
have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons and hence different atomic
masses.
Neutron - uncharged elementary particle found in every atom's nucleus except in hydrogen.
Nuclear engineering - branch of engineering concerned with fusion or fission and application of other sub-
atomic processes based on the principles of nuclear physics
Nuclear power - electricity generated from fission in a nuclear reactor
Nuclear reaction - process in which two nuclei or a nucleus and a nucleon interact to produce two or more
nuclear particles or gamma rays
Nuclear reactor - device wherein nuclear fission initiates a controlled chain reaction that produces heat
energy used for power generation, and neutrons and fission products.
Nucleon - a constituent of the nucleus (i.e., a proton or a neutron)
Nucleus - the core of the atom, where most of its mass and all of its positive charge is concentrated.
Nuclide - any species of atom that exists for a measurable length of time that can be distinguished by its
atomic weight, atomic number, and energy state.
Photon - a quantity of electromagnetic energy that have momentum but no mass or electrical charge.
Proton - found in the nucleus and has a positive electrical charge equivalent to the negative charge of an
electron and a mass similar to that of a neutron: a hydrogen nucleus.
Radioactive dating - a technique for estimating the age of an object by measuring the amounts of various
radioisotopes in it.
Radioactive waste - materials which are radioactive and for which there is no further use.
Radionuclide - a radioactive isotope of an element.
Radiotoxicity - the adverse health effect of a radionuclide due to its radioactivity.
Shielding - a protective barrier, usually a dense material, which reduces the passage of radiation from
radioactive materials to the surroundings.
Source - a radioactive material that produces radiation for experimental or industrial use.
Spill - the accidental release of radioactive materials.
Stable - non-radioactive
Transmutation - the transformation of one element into another by a nuclear reaction.
 APPENDIX B
List of Reactors
Thermal Reactor - reactors that use thermal neutrons to sustain the chain reaction and contain neutron
moderator that slows neutrons from fission until their kinetic energy is more or less in thermal
equilibrium with the atoms (E < 1 eV) in the system.
Fast Neutron Reactors – does not contain neutron moderators, but use less-moderating primary coolants,
because they use fast neutrons (E > 1 keV), to cause fission in their fuel. A fast neutron reactor is
a nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons. That means
the neutron moderator (slowing down) in such reactors is undesirable. This is a key advantage of
fast reactors, because fast reactors have a significant excess of neutrons (due to low parasitic
absorption), unlike PWRs (or LWRs).
Breeder Reactor - essentially a particular configuration of a fast reactor. Fast reactors generally have
an excess of neutrons (due to low parasitic absorption), the neutrons given off by fission reactions
can “breed” more fuel from otherwise non-fissionable isotopes or can be used for other purposes.
A key parameter of breeder reactors is a breeding ratio, although this ratio describes also thermal
reactors fuel cycle
Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) - uses graphite as the neutron moderator and carbon dioxide as
coolant. AGRs operate at high gas temperature for improved thermal efficiency, thus requires
stainless steel fuel cladding to withstand the higher temperature.
CANDU Reactor (or PHWR – Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) - developed since the 1950s in Canada,
and more recently also in India. These reactors are heavy water cooled and moderated pressurized
water reactors. Its nuclear core is contained in hundreds of pressure tubes. PHWRs generally use
natural uranium (0.7% U-235) oxide as fuel, which needs a more efficient moderator like heavy
water (D2O).
Boiling Water Reactor - cooled and moderated by water like a PWR, but at a lower pressure, which allows
the water to boil inside the pressure vessel producing the steam that runs the turbines. Unlike a
PWR, there is no primary and secondary loop. The thermal efficiency of these reactors can be
higher, and they can be simpler, and even potentially more stable and safe. But the disadvantage of
this concept is that any fuel leak can make the water radioactive and that radioactivity can reach
the turbine and the rest of the loop.
Pressurized water reactors – uses a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) to contain the nuclear
fuel, moderator, control rods and coolant. They are cooled and moderated by high-pressure liquid
water. At this pressure water boils at approximately 350°C. Inlet temperature of the water is about
290°C . The coolant is heated in the reactor core to approximately 325°C as the water flows through
the core. As it can be seen, the reactor has approximately 25°C subcooled coolant. The hot water
that leaves the pressure vessel through the hot leg nozzle and is looped through a steam generator,
which in turn heats a secondary loop of water to steam that can run turbines and generator.
Secondary water in the steam generator boils at pressure approximately 6-7 MPa, what equals to
260°C saturated steam.
 Chapter 5

CHERNOBYL

Chernobyl itself is a small town of 12,500 people in the Ukraine region of the Soviet Union. It is
located about 105 km north of Kiev, the major city of the Ukraine with 2 1/2 million people. Chernobyl
town gave its name to the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power station, 15 km to the north-west, which by 1986
had four of the most recent of the Soviet RBMK type reactors in full operation, and two more being built.
The initials RBMK are a Russian acronym which translates roughly as “reactor cooled by water and
moderated by graphite”. It describes one of the two types of reactors the Soviets have built for power
production, the other being similar to the United States pressure vessel reactor. The RBMK type is the older
of the two designs. The Soviets developed it, by themselves, from early models which had been first used
to generate plutonium for weapons, and to produce heat for district heating. The Soviets have a strong and
growing nuclear power program. At the time of the accident they generated about 10% of the world’s
nuclear power from 43 operating reactors, a total of 27 thousand million watts of electricity. They had under
construction another 36 reactors representing 37 thousand million watts, and had planned another 34
reactors or 36 thousand million watts. Figure 2 shows the split by type of reactor as of January, 1986. Even
then, there was a big shift in future plants away from the RBMK-type of reactor and toward the pressure
vessel (PWR) type of reactor. This was a recognition, we believe, that the RBMK reactors were becoming
obsolete, and were not economic compared to modern pressure-vessel and modern pressure-tube concepts.

I. How and Why It Happened

It is one of history’s ironies that the worst nuclear accident in the world began as a test to improve.
The events of April 26 started as an experiment to see how long a spinning turbine could provide electrical
power to certain systems in the plant. The Soviets, in common with most of the rest of the world, design
their reactors not only to withstand an accident, but also to cope simultaneously with a loss of electric
power. This may seem a little strange — to run out of power at a generating station — but in an accident
the reactor is shut down right away, so can’t generate its own power directly. It would normally get power
from the electrical supply to the station or from the other reactors at the same site. To ensure an extra layer
of defense, it is considered that there is a possibility that these sources have also failed. The normal backup
is to provide diesel engines at the site to drive emergency generators, just as hospitals do in case of a power
failure. These diesels usually start up in 30 seconds, and for most plants this is a short enough interruption
to keep important systems going. For the Chernobyl reactor, the Soviets felt this was not short enough, and
they had to have almost an uninterrupted supply. Now even with the reactor shut down, the spinning turbine
is so heavy, it takes a while to slow down, and the Soviets decided to tap the energy of the spinning turbine
to generate electricity for the few seconds before their diesels started. The experiment was to see how long
this electricity would power the main pumps which keep the cooling water flowing over the fuel.

The test had been done before, on unit 3, with no particular ill-effects on the reactor. However, the
electrical voltage had fallen off too quickly, so that the test was to be redone on unit 4 with improved
electrical equipment. The idea was to reduce reactor power to less than half its normal output, so all the
steam could be put into one turbine; this remaining turbine was then to be disconnected, and its spinning
energy used to run some of the main pumps for a short while. At the meeting in Vienna the Soviets were at
some pains to point out that the atmosphere was not conducive to the operators performing a cautious test:

1. The test was scheduled to be done just before a planned reactor shutdown for routine maintenance.

If the test could not be done successfully this time, then the people would have to wait another year for the
next shutdown. Thus they felt under pressure to complete the test this time.

2. Chernobyl unit 4 was a model plant - of all the RBMK-1000 type plants, it ran the best. Its operators felt
they were an elite crew and they had become overconfident.

3. The test was perceived as an electrical test only, and had been done uneventfully before. Thus the
operators did not think carefully enough about the effects on the reactor. There is some suggestion that in
fact the test was being supervised by representatives of the turbine manufacturer instead of the normal
operators.

The accident really began 24 hours earlier, since the mistakes made then slowly set the scene that
culminated in the explosion on April 26. Table 1 shows a summary of all the things the operators did and
how the plant responded; here we describe the key events. At 1 a.m. on April 25, the reactor was at full
power, operating normally with steam going to both turbines. Permission was given to start reducing power
for the test, and this was done slowly, with the reactor reaching 50% power twelve hours later at 1:05 in the
afternoon. At this point only one of the two turbines was needed to take the steam from the reactor, and the
second turbine was switched off.

Normally the test would then have proceeded, with the next step being to reduce power still further
to about 30%. However, the people in charge of distribution of electricity in the USSR refused to allow
this, as apparently the electricity was needed, so the reactor stayed at 50% power for another 9 hours. At
11:10 p.m. on April 25, the Chernobyl staff got permission to continue with the power reduction.
Unfortunately, the operator made a mistake, and instead of holding power at about 30%, he forgot to reset
a controller and the power fell to about 1% — the reactor was almost shut off. This was too low for the test.
Now in all reactors, a sudden power reduction causes a quick buildup of a material called xenon in the
uranium fuel. Xenon is a radioactive gas, but more important it sucks up neutrons like a sponge, and tends
to hasten the reactor down the slope to complete shutdown. As well, the core was at such a low power that
the water in the pressure tubes was not boiling, as it normally does, but was liquid instead. Liquid water
has the same absorbing effect as xenon. To try to offset these two effects, the operator pulled out almost all
the control rods, and managed to struggle back up to about 7% power — still well below the level he was
supposed to test at, but as high as he could go because of the xenon and water. It was as if you were trying
to drive a car with the accelerator floored and the brakes on — it’s abnormal and unstable. Indeed, it is a
very serious error in this reactor design to try to run with all the control rods out. The main reason is that
some of these same rods are used for emergency shutdown, and if they are all pulled out well above the
core, it takes too long for them to fall back into the high-power part of the reactor in an emergency, and the
shutdown is very slow. The Soviets said that their procedures were very emphatic on that point, and that
“not even the Premier of the Soviet Union is authorized to run with less than 30 rods!” Nevertheless, at the
time of the accident, there was the equivalent of only 6 to 8 rods in the core. At any rate, the operator had
struggled up to 7% power by 1 a.m. on April 26, by violating the procedure on the control rods. He had
other problems as well — all stemming from the fact that the plant was never intended to operate at such a
low power. He had to take over manual control of the flow of water returning from the turbine, as the
automatic controllers were not operating well at the low power. This is a complex task to do manually, and
he never did succeed in getting the flow correct. The reactor was so unstable that it was close to being shut
down by the emergency rods. But since a shutdown would abort the test, the operator disabled a number of
the emergency shutdown signal After about half an hour of trying to stabilize the reactor, by 1:22 a.m. the
operators felt that things were as steady as they were going to be, and decided to start the test. But first they
disabled one more signal for automatic shutdown. Normally the reactor would shut down automatically if
the remaining turbine were disconnected, as would occur in the test, but because the staff wanted the chance
to repeat the test, they disabled this shut down signal also. The remaining automatic shutdown signals would
go off on abnormal power levels, but would not react immediately to the test. Let us pause briefly to see
what the state of the reactor was. Most of the shutdown signals had been disabled. The control/safety rods
had mostly been removed, and the power was abnormally low. As well, the core was filled with water
almost at the boiling point, but not quite. We mentioned that liquid water is a good absorber of neutrons.
So if it boils suddenly (water being replaced with steam), fewer neutrons get absorbed and the power goes
up. In normal operation, this is not a problem as the reactor is designed to cope with this change. But at low
power, with the core filled completely with water, sudden boiling would cause a rise in power at a time
when the shutdown systems were abnormally slow. The Canadian analysis of the accident by Chan, Dastur,
Grant, and Hopwood of AECL and Chexal of the U.S. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), showed
that this effect by itself would be too small to start a bad accident, but it would accelerate a rise in power
that had already started. The Canadian/EPRI analysis in fact points to a more fundamental weakness in the
shutdown system design. The control rods (which are also used for shutdown) travel in vertical tubes, and
are cooled by flowing water. Normally the control rod moves in and out of the reactor to control the power
— moving in (adding more neutron absorber) to reduce power and out to increase it. So as the control rod
moved in, it would replace the water, and as it moved out, it would be replaced by water. The trouble with
this scheme is that water also absorbs neutrons, so the effect of moving the rod would be small. To enhance
its effect, at the bottom end of most of the rods, there is attached another rod, made of graphite — called a
displacer. Graphite as we have said does not absorb neutrons very well. So now when a control rod moves
in, it replaces not water but graphite — so its effect on the number of neutrons is larger. And similarly when
it moves out. So far so good. The weakness lay in the way this scheme worked if the reactor was not
operating normally. Just before the accident, most of the control rods were pulled out of the reactor, so far
out in fact that even the graphite section was above the bottom part of the reactor — the control rod tubes
at the bottom contained only water. Even this would not normally matter, because very little power is
usually generated at the bottom. But Canadian simulations and the pattern of damage to the reactor suggest
that just before the accident, most of the reactor power was being generated near the bottom. If the control/
shutoff rods were then driven slowly in the first effect would be to replace water (which absorbs neutrons)
by graphite (which does not). In other words, driving in the control/shutoff rods, which was supposed to
shut down the reactor, would have precisely the opposite effect — it would cause a fast power increase
instead. With this in mind, let us return to the sequence of events.

At 1:23:04, the turbine was disconnected and its energy fed to 4 of the 8 main pumps. As it slowed
down, so did the pumps, and the water in the core, now moving more slowly over the hot fuel, began to
boil. Twenty seconds later the power started rising slowly, then faster, and at 1:23:40 an operator pushed
the button to drive in the emergency rods and shut down the reactor. We do not know for sure why he did
it — the individual was one of the early casualties — but likely he saw either the power begins to rise or
the control rods start to move slowly in to overcome the power rise. The shutdown rods began to move in
slowly. Our analysis shows that this attempt to shut the reactor down in fact caused a large, fast power rise.
It is acknowledged as plausible by a Soviet paper, presented at a public conference in October, 1987
(Reference 7)). Within four seconds, the power had risen to perhaps 100 times full power and had destroyed
the reactor.

The power surge put a sudden burst of heat into the uranium fuel, and it broke up into little pieces.
The heat from these pieces caused a rapid boiling of the cooling water, and a number of pressure tubes burst
under the strain. The steam escaped from the pressure tubes, burst the metal container around the graphite,
and lifted the concrete shield on top of the reactor. This broke all the remaining pressure tubes.

II. Damage to the Plant

The power surge destroyed the top half of the reactor core, the building immediately above the
reactor, and some of the walls on either side (Figure 9(b)). The Soviets commented somewhat ironically
that the leak-tight compartments below the reactor survived intact. Burning fragments of fuel and graphite
were thrown out in the explosion, and landed on the roof of the adjacent turbine building, causing about 30
fires on the asphalt roof and elsewhere. The Soviets’ first priority was to put these out, so the damage would
not spread to the reactors operating nearby. Local firefighters had extinguished all fires by 5 in the morning,
but at a terrible personal cost: many of them were overexposed to radiation and were among the early
casualties. The destruction was not, of course, caused by a nuclear explosion but by steam and perhaps
chemical explosions, so the damage was confined to unit 4. Indeed, unit 3 was kept generating electricity
for several hours, and the other units for somewhat longer, until they were all shut down in a controlled
manner because of the increasing radioactive contamination of the area.

The next step was to try to cool off the damaged core. The water pipes had been broken in the
explosion, so an attempt to flood the core with water didn’t work. The graphite, meanwhile, had been
exposed to air by the destruction, and was being heated by the small amount of heat coming from the fuel,
which although broken up, was still in the reactor and piping compartments. By the second day, the graphite
had begun to burn in places, as clearly seen in a film taken from a Soviet helicopter. Eventually about 10%
of it was consumed. The burning was not altogether bad — it caused an air draft through the damaged core
that kept the fuel cool, but the same air was reacting chemically with the fuel and causing it to release
radioactive particles. So the Soviets decided to smother the core, and from April 28 to May 2, flew hundreds
of helicopter sorties over the reactor, dropping 5000 tons of mainly lead, sand, clay, and limestone — the
idea was that these materials would trap radioactive particles before they could escape. The materials did
shield the core, but like putting a tea cozy over an electric kettle, also trapped the heat, so the fuel began to
heat up again. The Soviets solved that by pumping nitrogen into the bottom of the core. That really did the
job — cooling off the core and putting out the graphite fire. The Soviets were worried about the possibility
of the core collapsing into the water pool below, causing a burst of steam. So they sent courageous divers
into the pool to open some valves and empty it. Indeed, recent observations on the remains of the reactor
showed that fuel had melted and flowed out of the core, later solidifying again as it cooled down. In the
end, between 2% and 8% of the significant radioactive species of material escaped from the plant, much of
it being deposited as dust or particles close by, and the rest being carried by wind over the Ukraine and
Europe. 2.2.3 The Long Term with the situation stabilized, the Soviets’ next jobs were to remove
radioactivity from the site so the other three units could be restarted, and to shield the damaged reactor
more permanently. Remotely-controlled bulldozers were used to scrape off contaminated soil, buildings
were washed down with special chemicals, concrete was poured on the ground to keep down radioactive
dust, and deep concrete walls were built in the ground around the site to prevent contaminated groundwater
from spreading. The damaged reactor itself has been surrounded by a concrete “sarcophagus”, as the Soviets
called it, which shields the radiation sufficiently that working near it is possible. The fuel will continue to
generate a small amount of heat for a longtime, so fans blow cooling air through the core, and filters remove
radioactive particles from the air on its way out. The brunt of the accident, in human terms, was borne by
the station staff and the firefighters — no member of the public received lethal doses of radiation or even
became ill from radiation. Two station staff were killed almost immediately —one was trapped by falling
masonry, and the other was badly burned in the fire. Twenty-nine others died over the next few weeks —
many from severe skin damage. The combination of ordinary skin burns from the fire, and radiation damage
to the skin, proved particularly difficult to treat. Bone marrow transplants, which featured so prominently
in the early days after the accident, were reported as counterproductive for some patients, because the
surgery exposed the patients to increased risk of infection and to complications resulting from rejection of
the transplant. In the end the Soviets felt that the most effective treatment was Tender Loving Care —
meaning individual nursing, antibiotics, very sterile surroundings, and as little dramatic intervention as
possible.

As the scale of the accident became apparent, and the direction of the wind veered toward populated
areas near the plant, the Soviets ordered first that people in Pripyat and other nearby towns should stay
indoors (to reduce their exposure to the radioactive cloud) and then decided to evacuate them. On April 27,
45,000 people from Pripyat were evacuated, followed over the next few days by 90,000 people living within
30 km of the plant. In order to appreciate the significance of radiation effects, we should remember that we
live in a natural seal of “background” radiation (from cosmic rays, soil, food, water and air). From it, if we
live in Canada or Europe, we get a radiation dose of about 200 units (called millirem) a year. In some places
in the world, it is much higher — in Kerala, India, the natural dose is about 1000 millirem/year, because of
natural radioactivity in the soil. There are no obvious effects from this increase — in that area, poverty, for
example, has a much larger effect on life expectancy than radiation. For the people evacuated from the 30
km zone, the radiation dose they received before evacuation was, on average, equivalent to 60 years’ worth
of natural radiation in Europe; a few were as high as 200 years’ worth. The effect fell off quickly with
distance, as the radioactive material became more and more dilute: in the regional population of 75 million
in the Ukraine, the average dose was equivalent to 4 to 16 years’ worth of natural radiation, and in most of
Western Europe, the dose to people was less than one year’s worth. The extensive coverage of the accident
caused widespread concern among people who thought they could have been exposed. In addition to the
stress on these people, what do we expect to happen to them as a physical effect of the radiation? We know
that radiation can lead to a small increase in the normal chance of getting cancer many years after the
original exposure — but the tests which show this effect are for doses much higher than almost all people
received in the accident. How does one interpret these tests at lower doses? The technique used by almost
all scientists is to assume that the effect of a dose of radiation is proportional to the dose — i.e., if the dose
is halved, the effect is halved — even down to very small doses. The effects of small amounts of radiation
are difficult to quantify because they are small. The incidence of cancer deaths versus background radiation
in the various U.S. states. The states with the higher natural background have the lower rate of cancer
fatalities. Does this mean radiation is good for you in small doses? More likely the effect of radiation is
swamped by other factors.

Nevertheless, the predictions of cancer fatalities from Chernobyl, which we present below, are for
doses in this range — the dose to the average population of the Ukraine from Chernobyl is similar to the
increase in dose that you get by spending your life in Banff rather than Toronto, because of the increase in
natural radiation exposure with altitude. The Soviets’ dose figures suggest that in the evacuated population
of 135,000, over the next 30-40 years, about 200 people would die of cancer from the accident — or about
1% of the 17,000 people who would die of cancer from other causes. In the regional population of 75
million, the accident would increase the number of fatal cancers by about a fifth of a per cent. The effects
on the rest of Europe will be much less than this. At the Vienna meeting, there was considerable debate
over the Soviets’ calculations — many experts felt that their modelling of how radioactive material got into
the food chain was a large overestimate, and the Soviets conceded that the results of their calculations could
be ten times too high. However, all the predictions are small enough that direct observations of the effects
are difficult — thus a continuing follow-up of the health of the exposed people is planned. The follow-up
itself could affect the results — if people see the doctor more often, illnesses which normally go undetected
until too late will be caught and cured — a phenomenon which was found in the follow-up of the Hiroshima
bomb survivors.

III. Why Things Went Wrong— Ideas of Safety

To be sure, the operators made some mistakes. But a mistake should not lead to such disastrous
consequences. The problem was that the design was not forgiving of mistakes.

Let’s assume, narrowly, that our safety concern with a power drill is electrocution — we’ll ignore
drilling holes in one’s hand or getting hit by broken metal. To achieve this safety goal, the first thing an
informed consumer does is buy a quality product — the better the drill is built, the less chance there is that
it will short out. Accident prevention is the most effective way of assuring safety. But it is not enough. Most
of us want to be protected even if an accident occurs. Modern power drills are able to protect you from
electrocution by means of a ground plug (which ensures the housing is grounded) or by double electrical
insulation — so even if a wire does short out, you do not get a shock. This is accident mitigation. You can
go even one step further, and buy a -fault-interrupter — this plugs into the wall and the drill plugs into it in
turn. It works by measuring the difference in current between the hot and neutral wires, and if there is a
difference, concludes the missing current must be passing through you, and cuts it off. This level of safety
assumes the drill has failed and accommodates that failure — accident accommodation. In order for these
to work well, they have to be simple and powerful. Simple in the sense that they shouldn’t depend on the
type of fault in order to work — e.g., which wire shorts out shouldn’t matter. Powerful in the sense that
they have to be designed to do the job — a ground fault interrupter has to cut off the current fast enough
that you are not injured.
 Chapter 6

THREE MILE ISLAND

The Three Mile Island power station is near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in USA. It had two
pressurized water reactors. TMI-1, a PWR of 800 MWe (775 MWe net) entered service in 1974, and
remains one of the best-performing units in the USA. TMI-2 was of 906 MWe (880 MWe net) and almost
brand new at the time of the accident.

The accident to unit 2 happened at 4 am on 28 March 1979 when the reactor was operating at
97% power. It involved a relatively minor malfunction in the secondary cooling circuit which caused the
temperature in the primary coolant to rise. This in turn caused the reactor to shut down automatically.
Shut down took about one second. At this point a relief valve failed to close, but instrumentation did not
reveal the fact, and so much of the primary coolant drained away that the residual decay heat in the
reactor core was not removed. The core suffered severe damage as a result.

The operators were unable to diagnose or respond properly to the unplanned automatic
shutdown of the reactor. Deficient control room instrumentation and inadequate emergency response
training proved to be root causes of the accident

Within seconds of the shutdown, the pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) on the reactor cooling
system opened, as it was supposed to. About 10 seconds later it should have closed. But it remained
open, leaking vital reactor coolant water to the reactor coolant drain tank. The operators believed the
relief valve had shut because instruments showed them that a "close" signal was sent to the valve.
However, they did not have an instrument indicating the valve's actual position.

Responding to the loss of cooling water, high-pressure injection pumps automatically pushed
replacement water into the reactor system. As water and steam escaped through the relief valve,
cooling water surged into the pressuriser, raising the water level in it. (The pressuriser is a tank which is
part of the primary reactor cooling system, maintaining proper pressure in the system. The relief valve is
located on the pressuriser. In a PWR like TMI-2, water in the primary cooling system around the core is
kept under very high pressure to keep it from boiling.)

Operators responded by reducing the flow of replacement water. Their training told them that
the pressurizer water level was the only dependable indication of the amount of cooling water in the
system. Because the pressurizer level was increasing, they thought the reactor system was too full of
water. Their training told them to do all they could to keep the pressurizer from filling with water. If it
filled, they could not control pressure in the cooling system and it might rupture.

Steam then formed in the reactor primary cooling system. Pumping a mixture of steam and
water caused the reactor cooling pumps to vibrate. Because the severe vibrations could have damaged
the pumps and made them unusable, operators shut down the pumps. This ended forced cooling of the
reactor core. (The operators still believed the system was nearly full of water because the pressurizer
level remained high.) However, as reactor coolant water boiled away, the reactor's fuel core was
uncovered and became even hotter. The fuel rods were damaged and released radioactive material into
the cooling water.

At 6:22 am operators closed a block valve between the relief valve and the pressurizer. This
action stopped the loss of coolant water through the relief valve. However, superheated steam and
gases blocked the flow of water through the core cooling system.

Throughout the morning, operators attempted to force more water into the reactor system to
condense steam bubbles that they believed were blocking the flow of cooling water. During the
afternoon, operators attempted to decrease the pressure in the reactor system to allow a low pressure
cooling system to be used and emergency water supplies to be put into the system.

By late afternoon, operators began high-pressure injection of water into the reactor cooling
system to increase pressure and to collapse steam bubbles. By 7:50 pm on 28 March, they restored
forced cooling of the reactor core when they were able to restart one reactor coolant pump. They had
condensed steam so that the pump could run without severe vibrations.

Radioactive gases from the reactor cooling system built up in the makeup tank in the auxiliary
building. During March 29 and 30, operators used a system of pipes and compressors to move the gas to
waste gas decay tanks. The compressors leaked, and some radioactive gases were released to the
environment. These went through high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters and charcoal filters which
removed most of the radionuclides, except for the noble gases, the estimated total of which was about
370 PBq (the Kemeny Commission said ‘a maximum of 480 PBq noble gases’ and NRC also quotes 1.6
PBq of krypton rlelease in July). With short half-life and being biologically inert, these did not pose a
health hazard.

When the reactor's core was uncovered, on the morning of 28 March, a high-temperature
chemical reaction between water and the zircaloy metal tubes holding the nuclear fuel pellets had
created hydrogen gas. In the afternoon of 28 March, a sudden rise in reactor building pressure shown by
the control room instruments indicated a hydrogen burn had occurred. Hydrogen gas also gathered at
the top of the reactor vessel.

From 30 March through 1 April operators removed this hydrogen gas "bubble" by periodically
opening the vent valve on the reactor cooling system pressurizer. For a time, regulatory (NRC) officials
believed the hydrogen bubble could explode, though such an explosion was never possible since there
was not enough oxygen in the system.

After an anxious month, on 27 April operators established natural convection circulation of

coolant. The reactor core was being cooled by the natural movement of water rather than by
mechanical pumping. The plant was in "cold shutdown", i.e. with the water at less than 100°C at
atmospheric pressure.

The head of the reactor pressure vessel was removed in July 1984 allowing access to the
remains of the core. Subsequent investigation revealed that at lest 45% of the core – 62 tons – had
melted and 19 tons of this had ended up in the lower plenum, mostly in the lower head of the reactor
pressure vessel, but without seriously damaging the vessel. Most of the melted core material (corium)
had remained in the core region. In 1988 a multinational OECD Vessel Investigation Project (VIP) took
samples to evaluate the situation in detail and confirmed that there was much less damage than
anticipated.
 When the TMI-2 accident is recalled, it is often in the context of what happened on Friday and
Saturday, March 30-31. The drama of the TMI-2 accident-induced fear, stress and confusion on those
two days. The atmosphere then, and the reasons for it, are described well in the book "Crisis Contained,
The Department of Energy at Three Mile Island," by Philip L Cantelon and Robert C. Williams, 1982. This
is an official history of the Department of Energy's role during the accident.

"Friday appears to have become a turning point in the history of the accident because of two
events: the sudden rise in reactor pressure shown by control room instruments on Wednesday
afternoon (the "hydrogen burn") which suggested a hydrogen explosion? Became known to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission [that day]; and the deliberate venting of radioactive gases from the plant Friday
morning which produced a reading of 1,200 millirems (12 mSv) directly above the stack of the auxiliary
building. "What made these significant was a series of misunderstandings caused, in part, by problems
of communication within various state and federal agencies. Because of confused telephone
conversations between people uninformed about the plant's status, officials concluded that the 1,200
millirems (12 mSv) reading was an off-site reading. They also believed that another hydrogen explosion
was possible, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had ordered evacuation and that a meltdown
was conceivable. "Garbled communications reported by the media generated a debate over evacuation.
Whether or not there were evacuation plans soon became academic. What happened on Friday was not
a planned evacuation but a weekend exodus based not on what was actually happening at Three Mile
Island but on what government officials and the media imagined might happen. On Friday confused
communications created the politics of fear."

Throughout the book, Cantelon and Williams note that hundreds of environmental samples
were taken around TMI during the accident period by the Department of Energy (which had the lead
sampling role) or the then-Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. But there were no
unusually high readings, except for noble gases, and virtually no iodine. Readings were far below health
limits. Yet a political storm was raging based on confusion and misinformation.

The Three Mile Island accident caused concerns about the possibility of radiation-induced health
effects, principally cancer, in the area surrounding the plant. Because of those concerns, the
Pennsylvania Department of Health for 18 years maintained a registry of more than 30,000 people who
lived within five miles of Three Mile Island at the time of the accident. The state's registry was
discontinued in mid-1997, without any evidence of unusual health trends in the area.
 Indeed, more than a dozen major, independent health studies of the accident showed no
evidence of any abnormal number of cancers around TMI years after the accident. The only detectable
effect was psychological stress during and shortly after the accident.

The studies found that the radiation releases during the accident were minimal, well below any
levels that have been associated with health effects from radiation exposure. The average radiation
dose to people living within 10 miles of the plant was 0.08 millisieverts, with no more than 1 millisievert
to any single individual. The level of 0.08 mSv is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 1 mSv is about a third
of the average background level of radiation received by U.S. residents in a year.

In June 1996, 17 years after the TMI-2 accident, Harrisburg U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia
Rambo dismissed a class action lawsuit alleging that the accident caused health effects. The plaintiffs
have appealed Judge Rambo's ruling. The appeal is before the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
However, in making her decision, Judge Rambo cited:

· Findings that exposure patterns projected by computer models of the releases compared so well
with data from the TMI dosimeters (TLDs) available during the accident that the dosimeters probably
were adequate to measure the releases.

· That the maximum offsite dose was, possibly, 100 millirem (1 mSv), and that projected fatal
cancers were less than one.

· The plaintiffs' failure to prove their assertion that one or more unreported hydrogen "blowouts" in the
reactor system caused one or more unreported radiation "spikes", producing a narrow yet highly
concentrated plume of radioactive gases.

Judge Rambo concluded: "The parties to the instant action have had nearly two decades to muster
evidence in support of their respective cases... The paucity of proof alleged in support of Plaintiffs' case
is manifest. The court has searched the record for any and all evidence which construed in a light most
favourable to Plaintiffs creates a genuine issue of material fact warranting submission of their claims to
a jury. This effort has been in vain."

More than a dozen major, independent studies have assessed the radiation releases and
possible effects on the people and the environment around TMI since the 1979 accident at TMI-2. The
most recent was a 13-year study on 32,000 people. None has found any adverse health effects such as
cancers which might be linked to the accident.
 The cleanup of the damaged nuclear reactor system at TMI-2 took nearly 12 years and cost
approximately US$973 million. The cleanup was uniquely challenging technically and radiologically. Plant
surfaces had to be decontaminated. Water used and stored during the cleanup had to be processed.
And about 100 tons of damaged uranium fuel had to be removed from the reactor vessel -- all without
hazard to cleanup workers or the public.

A cleanup plan was developed and carried out safely and successfully by a team of more than
1000 skilled workers. It began in August 1979, with the first shipments of accident-generated low-level
radiological waste to Richland, Washington. In the cleanup's closing phases, in 1991, final measurements
were taken of the fuel remaining in inaccessible parts of the reactor vessel. Approximately one percent
of the fuel and debris remains in the vessel. Also in 1991, the last remaining water was pumped from the
TMI-2 reactor. The cleanup ended in December 1993, when Unit 2 received a license from the NRC to
enter Post Defueling Monitored Storage (PDMS).

Early in the cleanup, Unit 2 was completely severed from any connection to TMI Unit 1. TMI-2 today is in
long-term monitored storage. No further use of the nuclear part of the plant is anticipated. Ventilation
and rainwater systems are monitored. Equipment necessary to keep the plant in safe long-term storage
is maintained.

Defueling the TMI-2 reactor vessel was the heart of the cleanup. The damaged fuel remained
underwater throughout the defueling. In October 1985, after nearly six years of preparations, workers
standing on a platform atop the reactor and manipulating long-handled tools began lifting the fuel into
canisters that hung beneath the platform. In all, 342 fuel canisters were shipped safely for long-term
storage at the Idaho National Laboratory, a program that was completed in April 1990. It was put into
dry storage in concrete containers.

TMI-2 cleanup operations produced over 10.6 megalitres of accident-generated water that was
processed, stored and ultimately evaporated safely.

In February 1991, the TMI-2 Cleanup Program was named by the National Society of Professional
Engineers as one of the top engineering achievements in the U.S. completed during 1990.

In 2010 the generator was sold by FirstEnergy to Progress Energy to upgrade its Shearon Harris nuclear
power plant in North Carolina. It was shipped in two parts, the rotor, which weighs 170 tons, and the
stator, which weighs about 500 tons.
From its restart in 1985, TMI-1 has operated at very high levels of safety and reliability. Application of
the lessons of the TMI-2 accident has been a key factor in the plant's outstanding performance.

In 1997, TMI-1 completed the longest operating run of any light water reactor in the history of nuclear
power worldwide - 616 days and 23 hours of uninterrupted operation. (That run was also the longest at
any steam-driven plant in the U.S., including plants powered by fossil fuels.) And in October 1998, TMI
employees completed three million hours of work without a lost-work day accident.

At the time of the TMI-2 accident, TMI-1 was shut down for refueling. It was kept shut down
during lengthy proceedings by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. During the shutdown, the plant was
modified and training and operating procedures were revamped in light of the lessons of TMI-2.

When TMI-1 restarted in October 1985, General Public Utilities pledged that the plant would be
operated safely and efficiently and would become a leader in the nuclear power industry. Those pledges
have been kept.

 The plant's capability factor for 1987, including almost three months of a five-month refueling
and maintenance outage, was 74.1%, compared to an industry average of 62%. (Capability
factor refers to the amount of electricity generated compared to the plant's maximum capacity.)
 In 1988 a 1.3% (11 MWe) uprate was licensed.
 For 1989, TMI-1's capability factor was 100.03 percent and the best of 357 nuclear power plants
worldwide, according to Nucleonics Week.
 In 1990-91, TMI-1 operated 479 consecutive days, the longest operating run at that point in the
history of US commercial nuclear power. It was named by the NRC as one of the four safest
plants in the country during this period.
 By the end of 1994, TMI-1 was one of the first two plants in the history of US commercial
nuclear power to achieve a three-year average capability factor of over 90% (TMI-1 had 94.3%).
 In October 1998, TMI workers completed two full years without a lost workday injury.
 Since its restart, TMI-1 has earned consistently high ratings in the NRC's program, Systematic
Assessment of Licensee Performance (SALP).
 In 2009, the TMI-1 operating licence was renewed, extending it life by 20 years to 2034.
 Immediately following this, both steam generators were replaced as TMI's "largest capital
project to date".
 In 1999, TMI-1 was purchased by AmerGen, a new joint venture between British Energy and
PECO Energy. In 2003 the BE share was sold so that the plant became wholly-owned by Exelon, PECO's
successor. It is now listed as producing 786 MWe net.

Training reforms are among the most significant outcomes of the TMI-2 accident. Training
became centred on protecting a plant's cooling capacity, whatever the triggering problem might be. At
TMI-2, the operators turned to a book of procedures to pick those that seemed to fit the event. Now
operators are taken through a set of "yes-no" questions to ensure, first, that the reactor's fuel core
remains covered. Then they determine the specific malfunction. This is known as a "symptom-based"
approach for responding to plant events. Underlying it is a style of training that gives operators a
foundation for understanding both theoretical and practical aspects of plant operations.

The TMI-2 accident also led to the establishment of the Atlanta-based Institute of Nuclear Power
Operations (INPO) and its National Academy for Nuclear Training. These two industry organizations have
been effective in promoting excellence in the operation of nuclear plants and accrediting their training
programs.

INPO was formed in 1979. The National Academy for Nuclear Training was established under
INPO's auspices in 1985. TMI's operator training program has passed three INPO accreditation reviews
since then.

Training has gone well beyond button-pushing. Communications and teamwork, emphasizing effective
interaction among crew members, are now part of TMI's training curriculum.

Close to half of the operators' training is in a full-scale electronic simulator of the TMI control room. The
$18 million simulator permits operators to learn and be tested on all kinds of accident scenarios.

Disciplines in training, operations and event reporting that grew from the lessons of the TMI-2 accident
have made the nuclear power industry demonstrably safer and more reliable. Those trends have been
both promoted and tracked by INPO. To remain in good standing, a nuclear plant must meet the high
standards set by INPO as well as the strict regulation of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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