Image source,China News Service
After nearly 10 years of construction and testing, the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant was put into operation in 2018.
China General Nuclear Power Group issued an announcement on Friday evening (July 30) that “a small amount of fuel damage” occurred during the operation of Unit 1 of Guangdong Taishan Nuclear Power Plant. After communication between Chinese and French technicians, they decided to shut down for maintenance and find fuel. Reasons for damage, replace damaged fuel, and emphasize that the reactor is “safe and controllable”.
The Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company Électricité de France (EDF) issued a statement stating that the decision of the Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company is consistent with EDF’s procedures for managing nuclear power in France.
In mid-June, the safety of Guangdong Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, which claims to have the largest single-unit capacity in the world, was questioned by the outside world. Framatome, a nuclear energy product supplier under the French Electronics Group, was exposed by the US media and once asked the US Department of Energy for help, describing the nuclear power plant as facing ” The imminent radiological threat”.
After the incident was exposed, Taishan Nuclear Power had emphasized that the nuclear power plant and its surrounding environmental indicators were normal, and questioned the “rumoring” and “hype” of the Western media. However, China and France held a special meeting to investigate, and EDF later admitted that the rare gas found in the Taishan No. 1 nuclear reactor It is krypton and xenon, and its accumulation seems to be related to the problem of some fuel rods, but the gas accumulation level is lower than the upper limit allowed by China.
According to the data released by the China National Nuclear Safety Administration in mid-June, during the operation of Unit 1, the “specific activity” of the coolant in the primary circuit of the reactor increased, which was mainly related to the damage of the fuel rods, but it was still within the scope of stable operation allowed by the regulations. , And there are more than 60,000 fuel rods in a reactor, and the damage ratio is less than 0.01%.
Image source,Corbis / Getty Images
What is the latest development?
The latest statement of China General Nuclear Power Group stated that Taishan Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 and 2 have been operating safely and stably since they were put into operation. All operating indicators have met the requirements of nuclear safety regulations and power plant technical specifications, and nuclear safety and environmental safety are guaranteed.
However, its statement also acknowledged that “a small amount of fuel damage” occurred during the operation of Unit 1, but said that the damage was within the allowed range of the specifications and that the unit could operate stably. However, the group considered that Unit 1 uses the world‘s first European pressurized water reactor. (European Pressurized Reactor, EPR) technology, not long after it was put into operation, decided to take the conservative decision of “safety first” to shut down unit 1 for maintenance, find the cause of fuel damage, and replace the damaged fuel.
The statement said: “Combined with the construction of the power grid to start construction of the western Guangdong switchyard construction line to avoid the demand, we chose this time to shut down the reactor for maintenance. At present, the unit is being withdrawn to the shutdown state after following the operating regulations, and the reactor is safe and controllable. Follow-up operations in accordance with the relevant regulations “
Image source,China News Service
On January 9, 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant with visiting French President Macron in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, symbolizing that the world‘s first EPR reactor went online.
EPR safety is questioned
Taishan is the world’s first nuclear power plant to use ERP reactors. The other three that are or will adopt this technology are the French Flamanville (Flamanville) Unit 3, Finland’s Olkiluoto (Olkiluoto) Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 and Hinkley Point C (Hinkley Point C) nuclear power plant in the U.K. invested by China General Nuclear Power Corporation.
ERP technology was designed by Framatome in the mid-1990s, and each unit is expected to have a service life of 60 years. The factory claims that its advantage is that it uses advanced safety and energy efficiency technologies, and produces less waste than traditional reactors.
Image source,Reuters
In addition to the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, EDF and China General Nuclear Power also cooperated in the operation of China’s first large-scale nuclear power plant, the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Huizhou, Guangdong.
Framatome was once a subsidiary of Areva and was resold to EDF in 2009. In 2015, Areva components were exposed by French regulatory authorities to have quality problems, which brought the construction of three nuclear power plants in China, France, and Finland to a standstill.
Construction of the Taishan nuclear power plant in China will soon resume, but until the Taishan unit was put into operation, the Flemishville and Olkiluotto units were still affected by project delays and continued construction cost overruns.
The industry publication “Energy Technology” once quoted Professor Steve Thomas (Prof Steve Thomas), a professor at the University of Greenwich in London, as saying that ERP technology was meant to save space and construction difficulties, but it turned out to be difficult to build.
Agence France-Presse described that the accident in Taishan further hit the outside world‘s confidence in Framatome’s ERP design, and the number of potential customers for ERP has also decreased in recent years, making its future doubtful.