Lithuanian foreign policy vis-à-vis Belarusian nuclear power plant in Ostrovets

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justinas Juozaitis

Abstract The development of nuclear power in Belarus is an important issue addressed by Lithuanian foreign policy due to a mixture of geographic, political and nuclear safety concerns. Despite the pronounced relevance, the topic has received very limited academic attention. The paper attempts to fill this gap by identifying key objectives of Lithuanian foreign policy towards Ostrovets NPP and strategy for attaining them. The research is based on the analysis of high-level meetings and statements of six Lithuanian decision makers and a wide range of official documents. The paper argues that despite the apparent focus on nuclear safety of Ostrovets NPP, Lithuanian foreign policy aims to prevent its construction or at least to prolong the process. In order to do this, Lithuanian pressures Belarus via European Union and other international organizations and platforms by highlighting the nuclear safety issues of the plant, Belarusian non-compliance with Espoo and Aarhus conventions and presenting it as matter of international concern.

2012 ◽  
Vol 260-261 ◽  
pp. 103-106
Author(s):  
Yi Chun Lin ◽  
Yung Nane Yang

The ripples of the tsunami crisis in Japan triggered introspections of nuclear plant safety issues in the worldwide. Many countries have claimed the suspension of nuclear power plants. However, some countries such as Taiwan, under nearly 99% energy is exported, the disasters force government and citizen to face the importance of nuclear safety, especially the neighborhoods nearby the nuclear power plants. We have to face the nuclear safety since there is no other alternative energy presently. The 3rd nuclear power plant located in the south of Taiwan, which has the same geographic features with Fukushima, Japan. Presently, there is no precedent in Taiwan of precaution and rescue team and civil supervised mechanic on nuclear security issue. This paper will review according to transparent information, public participation and cross-organization cooperation to propose the execution and work division principles, including information monitor, educational propagation, hide and evacuation, emergence aid and care, rear and refuge service. The ultimate target is to establish self-governance inside nearby neighborhood to confront nuclear disaster at the critical moment.


Author(s):  
S. Rogozkin ◽  
A. Chernobaeva ◽  
A. Aleev ◽  
A. Nikitin ◽  
A. Zaluzhnyi ◽  
...  

The present work provides the analyses of embrittlement behavior and atom probe tomography study of nano-structure evolution of VVER-440 RPV materials under irradiation and re-irradiation. Specimens from VVER-440 weld with high level of cupper (0.16 wt.%) and phosphorus (0.027–0.038 wt.%) were irradiated in surveillance channels of Rovno Nuclear Power plant unit 1 (Ro-1). The embrittlement behavior has been assessed by transition temperature shift.


Author(s):  
Lei Wan ◽  
Guiyong Li ◽  
Min Rui ◽  
Yongkang Liu ◽  
Jue Yang

A floating nuclear power plant (FNPP) with small modular reactor (SMR) is a combination of a civilian nuclear infrastructure and an offshore installation, which is defined as a floating nuclear facility. The article draws the lessons from studying of the engineer combination like Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) under the regulation of several government departments. It puts forward recommendations for license application and government regulation as follows in consideration with current license application for nuclear power plant and ship survey. A FNPP shall follow the requirements of construction, fueling and operation for civil nuclear installation combined with ship survey. Application is submitted to nuclear safety regulator for construction permit, while the design drawings shall be submitted to department of ship survey which checks the drawings whether meet the requirements of ship survey, considering some nuclear safety needs. The result of ship survey shall be represented in the safety analysis reports. The construction and important devices manufacturing shall be under the supervision of nuclear installation regulators and ship survey departments. In conclusion, National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) and Maritime Safety Administration of the People’s Republic of China (MSA) shall establish united supervisory system for SMR on sea in China. It is suggested that NNSA is in charge of the overall safety of a FNPP, while MSA is responsible of the ship survey. The operator shall undertake obligation of a FNPP and evaluate the ship cooperating with experienced agency. It is suggested that government departments build the mutual recognition agreement of safety review. It is better to solve the vague questions by coordination.


Author(s):  
Dmitry Dmitrievich Zekov ◽  
Mikhail Vladimirovich Ulyanov ◽  
Daniil Veniaminovich Mikryakov ◽  
Tatyana Alexandrovna Suvorova

In connection with the global tendency to prohibit the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry, the prospect of using in ichthyopathological practice preparations from plant materials, which are mostly non-toxic, rarely cause side effects, have an antibacterial effect against a wide range of pathogens of bacterial diseases, opens up. One of these preparations is the feed additive Aquatan (Farmatan Aqua) based on ellagitannins from sweet chestnut wood manufactured by Tanin Sevnica (Slovenia). The aim of this work was to study the effect of different dosages of Aquatan on the survival rate, the rate of mass accumulation and the growth rate of rainbow trout reared in the industrial conditions of the cage farm on the waste warm waters of the nuclear power plant and to assess the production and economic efficiency of the application. The tests were carried out for 34 days in February-March 2021 on the basis of an aquaculture cage farm of LLC “Fish Federation”, located in the water area of the waste canal of warm waste water of the Leningrad nuclear power plant (LNPP) in the area of the LNPP-2 industrial zone in the city of Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad Region. The object of the study is rainbow trout yearlings brought from different fish farms. A total of 247,131 specimens were planted, with an average weight of 156.5–235.7 g and a total weight of 43 950.67 kg. The main hydrochemical indicators of water at the enterprise for the trial period met the water quality requirements for growing salmon fish OST 15.372-87. The feeding was carried out with the production compound feed for salmonids of the firm Alltech® Coppens Supreme-22. In experimental cages, fish were fed with compound feed with the addition of the preparation Aquatan at various concentrations (1, 2, and 3 g/kg of feed); in the control, feed without additive was used. As a result of the experiment, a positive effect of the Aquatan additive in dosages of 2–3 g / 1 kg of feed on growth, mass accumulation, survival and feed costs was established, while when adding 1 g / 1 kg of feed, such an effect was not recorded.


Author(s):  
Jean-Claude Naisse

The Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) is located in Lithuania, 130 km north of Vilnius, and consists of two 1500 MWe RBMK type units, commissioned respectively in December 1983 and August 1987. On the 1st of May 2004, the Republic of Lithuania became a member of the European Union. With the protocol on the Ignalina Nuclear Power in Lithuania which is annexed to the Accession Treaty, the Contracting Parties have agreed: - On Lithuanian side, to commit closure of unit 1 of INPP before 2005 and of Unit 2 by 31 December 2009; - On European Union side, to provide adequate additional Community assistance to the efforts of Lithuania to decommission INPP. The paper is divided in two parts. The first part describes how, starting from this agreement, the project was launched and organized, what is its present status and which activities are planned to reach the final ambitious objective of a green field. To give a global picture, the content of the different projects that were defined and the licensing process will also be presented. In the second part, the paper will focus on the lessons learnt. It will explain the difficulties encountered to define the decommissioning strategy, considering both immediate or differed dismantling options and why the first option was finally selected. The paper will mention other challenges and problems that the different actors of the project faced and how they were managed and solved. The paper will be written by representatives of the Ignalina NPP and of the Project Management Unit.


Author(s):  
P. A. Clark ◽  
D. F. Parvin ◽  
C. Y. Powrie ◽  
C. H. Orr ◽  
G. Mottershead ◽  
...  

BNFL has produced and operates a wide range of DrumScan® gamma measurement systems for monitoring packages, drums and boxed wastes arising from nuclear power plant reprocessing, fuel fabrication and decommissioning operations. The challenges associated with decommissioning operations are met by employing a range of technologies predominantly High Resolution and Low Resolution spectrometry (HRGS & LRGS). This paper describes how BNFL Instruments’ LRGS and HRGS DrumScan® gamma measurement systems have been used for the assay of uranium resides and potentially contaminated low level wastes by Capenhurst Integrated Decommissioning Project (IDP) in the UK. A description of the two Capenhurst segmented HRGS systems is included. Whilst Segmented Gamma Scanning is a well established technique for the non-destructive assay of gamma emitting radioisotopes in drummed waste, these systems utlise unique features to address the specific measurement requirements. The first system is configured for the accurate measurement of both small sized containers of uranium residues arising from recovery operations and low level wastes potentially contaminated with uranium contained in 200 litre drums. To achieve a high level of accuracy, this system uses a novel mechanical arrangement to overcome the wide variety of container sizes, and the unique “TransWeight” and “Transmission” matrix correction techniques which provide significant improvements over conventional Segmented Gamma Scanner matrix correction techniques. The second system is configured for Nuclear Safety purposes to provide an upper limit of the 235U present in 200 litre drums of potentially contaminated waste prior to the opening of the drums for sorting and uranium recovery operations. This system is configured to report an appropriately pessimistic upper estimate of the 235U present. A brief description of the LRGS systems used by Capenhurst is also provided. These systems have served to quantify the 235U content within a variety of potentially contaminated waste items ranging from 200 litre drums to 1m3 boxed waste.


Author(s):  
Susumu Naito ◽  
Shuji Yamamoto ◽  
Mikio Izumi ◽  
Masamichi Obata ◽  
Yukio Yoshimura ◽  
...  

During operation and maintenance, or decommissioning of nuclear power plant, various kind of waste should be treated, and exposure control is also required. These wastes have a wide range of contamination, different composition of nuclides, and a different shape, so each measurement instrument would be optimized for its use especially for very low level radioactivity measurement. TOSHIBA provides appropriate equipment for any needs to discriminate the very low and non radioactive waste to save cost of waste disposal, based on our original and innovative technology. For alpha emitting nuclides, we are ready to supply instruments based on ionized particle measurement technology. For beta, gamma-emitting nuclides, we are ready to customize a shape of detector based on our original plastic scintillation material. Some examples are introduced.


Author(s):  
Horst Rothenhöfer ◽  
Andreas Manke

The safety relevant components of nuclear power plant Neckarwestheim 1 — in service since 1976 — have been reviewed and updated for long-term operation (LTO). The actions included hardware retrofits as well as updates of analysis according to the latest state of the scientific and technical knowledge. For large piping such as the steam lines, the established pipes have been retained while the supports have been optimized. All shock absorbers (snubbers) including corresponding inertia have been eliminated resulting in a defined guidance and statically defined displacements. The integrity analyses for the optimized steam lines, including break preclusion, have been validated successfully with comprehensive measurements. The verification has delivered an extra high level of credibility, exceeding the “standard” requirements to achieve fitness for service in long-term operation. Measurement and validation, which are the main focus of this paper, range from monitoring of service loads to the static and dynamic measurements of pressure, local temperatures and displacements during initial start-up after implementation of the design modifications. The proper function of supports has been proved and the quality of the simulation models has been confirmed. Some expected and some unexpected dynamic events have been detected during blow-down tests. It was demonstrated that the amplitudes of all dynamic loads stay within limits. The validation of analyses with comprehensive measurement has been an important proof of quality and delivered the redundancy required for the integrity of a nuclear power plant in service, enhancing the high level of safety even more.


Author(s):  
Eugene Imbro ◽  
Thomas G. Scarbrough

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has established an initiative to risk-inform the requirements in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) for the regulatory treatment of structures, systems, and components (SSCs) used in commercial nuclear power plants. As discussed in several Commission papers (e.g., SECY-99-256 and SECY-00-0194), Option 2 of this initiative involves categorizing plant SSCs based on their safety significance, and specifying treatment that would provide an appropriate level of confidence in the capability of those SSCs to perform their design functions in accordance with their risk categorization. The NRC has initiated a rulemaking effort to allow licensees of nuclear power plants in the United States to implement the Option 2 approach in lieu of the “special treatment requirements” of the NRC regulations. In a proof-of-concept effort, the NRC recently granted exemptions from the special treatment requirements for safety-related SSCs categorized as having low risk significance by the licensee of the South Texas Project (STP) Units 1 and 2 nuclear power plant, based on a review of the licensee’s high-level objectives of the planned treatment for safety-related and high-risk nonsafety-related SSCs. This paper discusses the NRC staff’s views regarding the treatment of SSCs at STP described by the licensee in its updated Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR) in support of the exemption request, and provides the status of rulemaking that would incorporate risk insights into the treatment of SSCs at nuclear power plants.


Author(s):  
Juan Luo ◽  
Jiacheng Luo ◽  
Lei Sun

Nuclear class equipment should be assessed for seismic safety before they are used in nuclear power plant. According to nuclear safety codes and regulations, all seismic category I equipments shall be designed enduring safety shutdown earthquake (SSE). That is, the stress evaluation needs to be accomplished for those structures. For some components, the deformation evaluation needs to be performed as well to assure the function integrity of the equipment. In this paper, the seismic analysis for an explosion-proof valve used in nuclear power plant, which exactly belongs to seismic category I equipment, has been conducted based on finite element method. The natural frequency, vibration mode and seismic response of the structure have been obtained through calculation, and the stress and deformation under the combined loadings of gravity, internal pressure, blast and seismic load have been evaluated according to ASME AG-1. The bolts of the structure have been qualified according to ASME III-NF as well. The results show that the design of the explosion-proof valve is in compliance with the requirement of corresponding nuclear safety standards.


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