Rosatom proceeded to construction of an experimental plant in Tomsk Region

In late March current year, State Corporation Rosatom launched in Tomsk Region construction of a fuel manufacturing plant for the first in the world pilot liquid metal fast reactor BREST-300 as part of Proryv Project.

This was stated on the 2nd of April by Rosatom Deputy Director General Vyacheslav Pershukov at a plenary meeting of U-NOVUS, first All-Russian Forum of Young Scientists.

'As far as innovation projects are concerned, the "breakthrough" word has been said today quite a few times, and we have a breakthrough, this is how the project is called [translator's note: "breakthrough" is "proryv" in Russian], said Vyacheslav Pershukov. This is a creation of a new form of fast reactor based atomic power with fuel cycle closure. And this project will be implemented in Tomsk, in the Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises (SGCE). Actually, just few days ago, we already started to implement the project at the level of capital construction'.

Rosatom Deputy Director General advised of the start of Proyv Project implementation in the course of discussion of how production based major innovation projects are not accounted for by official statistics and various ratings. As an example the discussants named the products of Research and Production Company Mikran for aeronautics and astronautics, as well as the newest plant in Tomsk for BOPP film production. In his turn, Vyacheslav Pershukov singled out Proryv Project as world's unprecedented innovation which will be implemented in Tomsk as a pilot production and will significantly contribute to the region's economy.

'Suppose if the ratings and statistics take into account the availability of such projects in Tomsk Region, this will be the first place, stated the representative of Rosatom. And the number of people which will be in demand, and I'm speaking about qualified engineers here (physicists, chemists (since there is going to be chemical processing there), process engineers dealing with robotics, IT engineers) will amount to several thousands of professionals. And for Tomsk Region this is in fact a backbone innovation project which can seriously  unlock and promote the potential of the region'.

As an example of how modern technologies influence the conventional production cost, time and personnel wise, he named 6D modeling used at Rosatom construction sites involving addition of three more dimensions to a spatial model.

It was stated earlier that Rosatom is planning to implement Proryv Project at Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises site, in a closed administrative-territorial unit (CATU) of Seversk in Tomsk Region, for creation of a state-of-the-art fuel which atomic energy industry will be using after 2020. The Project will comprise an experimental test facility as part of BREST-300 reactor assembly with a nuclear fuel cycle, as well as a facility for production of dense uranium plutonium (nitride) fuel for fast reactors. The key task of the Project is to fine tune the technology of the new fuel production, the technique of the new reactor operation, and the technology of spent fuel processing.

The launch of the construction of the fuel production package alongside with the reactor infrastructure and the processing package is planned for mid 2014. The state-of-the-art fuel production is planned to be commissioned in 2017 in order to try, test and produce the first fueling for BREST-300 reactor which is to be launched in 2020. In 2022 it is planned to start up a fuel processing package to establish a non-waste technology and a closed cycle.

Establishment of an experimental test facility at the SGCE site is included in Federal Special-Purpose Program 'New-Generation Nuclear Energy Technologies for 2010-2015 and for Further Extension Till 2020'. The cost of Proryv Project implementation will amount to RUB 102 bln, out of which RUB 64 bln should be allocated directly to the construction of facilities in the CATU of Seversk.

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• April
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