TVEL and Afrikantov OKBM (Chief Designer of Reactor Plants) signed an agreement for the development of the core of the RITM-200S reactor facility intended for the project of modernized floating power units. Such installations are being created at Rosatom to supply power to the Baimsky mining and processing plant.
In the Bilibinsky region of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the largest project for the construction of a mining and processing plant based on the Peschanka porphyry copper deposit is being implemented. The mine's capacity will be 70 million tones of ore per year (1.4 million tones of copper concentrate). To provide electricity to the Baimsky GOK project, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom proposed using modernized floating power units with two new RITM-200S reactor units. In total, it is planned to build four power units: three main and one standby, which will be used during the repair of one of the main.
By order of TVEL, Afrikantov OKBM, VNIINM and NRC Kurchatov Institute are participating in the development of the reactor core and its component parts. Substantiations of the operability of absorbing elements, launching neutron sources and emergency protection rods were issued, and a technical design for the rods of a burnable absorber was issued. In 2022, it is planned to release technical designs for fuel elements and the core as a whole. The core production will be mastered at the Machine-Building Plant in Elektrostal (ELEMASH Machine-Building Plant, an enterprise of the Rosatom Fuel Company TVEL).
The family of modern nuclear reactors of the RITM type is widely used in projects of low-power power plants of various designs. On October 21, 2020, the Arktika lead universal nuclear icebreaker of project 22220 with two RITM-200 reactors became part of the nuclear fleet; it is already operating on the Northern Sea Route. The first serial Siberia icebreaker of this project has passed sea trials. At the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg, the construction of three more serial universal nuclear icebreakers "Ural", "Yakutia" and "Chukotka" continues.
In addition, by order of TVEL in 2021, the element base of the RITM-200N reactor core was developed for a low-power nuclear power plant in Yakutia. The technical design of this core will also be completed in 2022.
The world's first floating nuclear thermal power plant "Akademik Lomonosov" was put into commercial operation in 2020 in Pevek on the Chukchi Peninsula. The floating nuclear power plant includes two KLT-40S reactors, nuclear fuel for which is also produced by ELEMASH Machine-Building Plant.
Source: TVEL