Thursday, December 5, 2013

CANDU and growing nuclear industries - except in...

CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) reactors have been built in 7 countries.
Recent news stories show 5 of those countries are actively growing their nuclear industries, while one is actively working against it.

DAWN: Pakistan looks to nuclear | Editorials | BDlive:
WITH the groundbreaking of what is intended to be Pakistan’s largest civilian nuclear power facility in Karachi last week, a practical step has been taken to help meet this country’s ravenous power demand through nuclear technology.
Contract awarded for CAREM vessel | world nuclear news | Argentina

The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for Argentina's prototype CAREM reactor is to be manufactured domestically by engineering company IMP SA. It will be the first RPV to be designed and manufactured in the country.
The ARS 298 million ($64 million) contract to manufacture the 200 tonne vessel was signed in a ceremony led by the head of Argentina's cabinet Jorge Capitanich and federal planning minister Julio De Vido. As well as the manufacture of the vessel - which is 11 m high and 3.5 m in diameter - the contract also includes the associated internal structures and its installation at the plant. The RPV has been designed by Argentina's national atomic energy commission, the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (CNEA).
CAREM - the name is taken from Central ARgentina de Elementos Modulares - is a domestically-designed and developed 25 MWe small modular pressurized water reactor. A prototype of the design, CAREM-25, is being built at a site adjacent to the Atucha nuclear power plant in Lima, 110 km northwest of Buenos Aires.
Chinese and Canadian companies sign agreement for future collaboration on Romania’s nuclear reactors project | Romania Insider
Canadian company Candu Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with China Nuclear Power Engineering Company, according to representatives of the Canadian company, quoted by Romanian news website Hotnews.ro.
Candu Energy “welcomes” China’s intention of getting involved in the construction of reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavoda site, Romania
How Pakistan and China Are Strengthening Nuclear Ties Read more: How Pakistan and China Are Strengthening Nuclear Ties | TIME 
Pakistan held a ceremonial groundbreaking last week on a nuclear complex in Karachi that it intends to build with assistance from China. The government says the complex, which will contain two Chinese-built nuclear reactors, will cost $9.6 billion and will help assuage the power crisis that has crippled daily life and the national economy in recent years.
The reactors are expected to start supplying 2,200 megawatts to the grid by 2019. The complex is not the first energy investment or nuclear project in Pakistan that China has been involved with, but it will be by far the largest.
WNN: New Chinese nuclear grid connection | georesources.net
Hongyanhe 2 has been connected to the Chinese electricity grid, the 18th large reactor supplying power to the country.
The unit is a CPR-1000 pressurized water reactor, on which construction was started in 2008. The first unit at the site has been operating on a commercial basis since June and now unit 2 is set to follow in a matter of months. Two more units are under construction and expected to start up next year. Beyond these the site could also feature two further units
 India nuclear power plant connects to power grid | POWER Engineering (Oct. 22, 2012)
The first of two nuclear reactors at the Kudankulam plant in Tamil Nadu state was connected to the grid and supplied 170 MW of electricity. Full commercial generation of the entire 1,000 MW VVER unit may happen by the end of the year... A second 1,000 MW reactor is scheduled to come online by June 2014, the article said.
India is working to increase its nuclear capacity to 63 GW over the next 20 years from 47 MW currently.
Nuclear role in Ontario power system shrinks | The Toronto Star
The figures in Ontario’s just-released energy plan show a dramatic drop in the province’s dependence on nuclear power......[The energy plan] casts new uncertainty on plans to refurbish 10 reactors at the Bruce and Darlington stations, which have reached middle age and require extensive work if they are to continue operating.
The plan calls for work to start in 2016 on one unit at Darlington and one unit at Bruce.
But the plan warns that refurbishing all the reactors is not guaranteed.
...“If they are not on or under budget, or on or under time, then there will be reconsideration of going forward with new refurbishments.”
Ontario's Liberal government has been rapidly escalating costs by introducing large amounts of wind and solar generation at extremely high rates, and guaranteeing profits to natural gas generators to acquire actual capacity to accompany the variable energy sources - plans it is pushing ahead with while implying, falsely, that recent price hikes have been due to the expense of its nuclear generation.

Graph, and calculations behind it, are my own

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