AECL to be awarded contract for completion of Romania's Cernovoda 3 and 4 nuclear units. [View All]

I'm a big fan of heavy water nuclear reactor, (HWR) also known as CANDU, developed initially by our neighbors in Canada, because of their high neutron economy, and the possibility, most actively being explored in India, of using these reactors as defacto breeder reactors with uranium-233 derived from thorium while consuming plutonium.

Most of the world's nuclear fleet, roughly 440 reactors, consists of light water reactors, but all Canadas reactors, Argentina's, some of South Korea's reactors, and most of India's reactors are all HWR.

They can also use unreprocessed used nuclear fuel in a fuel cycle known as the DUPIC cycle, since they don't require high enrichments. This option is being most actively explored in Korea, which intends to use used Japanese nuclear fuel.

In Europe, the only country to operate a heavy water reactor is Romania. For many years, Romania operated just one of these reactors, but - albeit under the terrible dictatorship of Nicolai Ceauseceau - 5 reactors were started but only one was completed.

One of the unfinished reactors was finished in the last several years by the new Romanian government and began operating in 2007, and both now operating reactors have been great performers.

Reactors 3 and 4 are now expected to be completed, with financing including ENEL, Italy's power company, which has been desparate in recent years to buy into other country's nuclear plants in order to reduce the high prices paid by Italian electricity consumers as a result of Italy's 1989 nuclear phase out, the only nuclear phase out ever to have actually been completed.

Recently Italy announced an intention to phase out the phase out and build new nuclear reactors.

Canada's AECL has had some hard times, regrettably since they have a great reactor technology - I wish we had 20 or 30 HWR here in the US - but the completion of units 3 and 4 has shown some light at the end of the tunnel.

They have been awarded consulting contracts on the completion of units 3 and 4 at Cernavoda.



http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=27149&terms=Cernavoda">Romanian reactor contract for AECL

The Cernavoda reactors are unique in the Western World because they - Britain's Calder Hall Reactor which operated for 46 years was the only other Western example, although many Soviet reactors did it too - in as much as they provide district heating, using the waste heat generated in connection with the second law of thermodynamics.

I covered the Romanian nuclear power program on another website where I used to write:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/7/681265/-A-Geeky-Company-Report-From-Romania:Nuclearelectrica.">A Geeky Company Report From Romania: Nuclearelectrica.