Abstracts - VGB PowerTech Journal 5/2018
Editorial: Nuclear power: Facts and figures 2017
Christopher Weßelmann
During the last decades the development of nuclear energy was marked in direction of high-efficient and increasingly standardised light water reactors. Light water reactors, prevailed themselves in the 1950s and 1960s as economically and technically competitive reactor type against new developments in that time. Today’s plants are actively on the market with a performance of up to 1,600 MWe.[more...]
While you were sleeping: The unnoticed loss of carbon-free generation in the United States
Chris Vlahoplus, Ed Baker, Sean Lawrie, Paul Quinlan and Benjamin Lozier
The United States has embarked on actions to combat climate change by putting a focus on lowering the carbon emissions from the electric generation sector. A pillar of this approach is to promote the greater use of renewable resources, such as wind and solar. The past decade has seen significant growth in carbon-free energy from wind and solar. Generation from these resources reached 333,000 GWh in 2017. However, unbeknownst to many who care about climate change, most of the progress made to date through renewables is at significant risk due to the loss or potential loss of more than 228,000 GWh of nuclear carbon-free generation.
Legal aspects with regard to IT security for KRITIS energy systems
Stefan Loubichi
By referencing the IT security catalog to ISO/ IEC 27001, compliance with legal and regulatory requirements has become a matter for auditors to investigate. Unfortunately, this often overlooks the fact that organizational negligence has always been sanctioned by the GmbHG and AktG. Already Annex A 18.1 ISO/IEC 27001 specifies that it is the task of the management to determine the relevant laws, regulations, standards and guidelines. The management must also determine which measures are to be taken and who has to implement these measures. Annexes A.18.2 to A.18.5 of ISO/IEC 27001 contain further re-quirements for the fulfillment of legal and contractual requirements. In this context, reference is also made to the standards DIN ISO 15489-1: 2016, DIN 66399 and the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union. In addition to these normative requirements, the fulfillment of the following laws is an absolute must: BSI law (§ 8a, § 8b, § 14), EnWG (§ 11 1b) and the IT security catalog according to § 11 1b EnWG. To meet these requirements, creating and maintaining a legal register is a must. The legal register presented in this article consists of seventeen laws, six directives, fifteen standards and eight guide-lines. It should not be forgotten that a legal register can only be up-to-the-minute and must be permanently maintained.
360 Degree area atlas in the Biblis nuclear power plant
Jürgen Kircher
The operation and the dismantling of decommissioned nuclear power plants is a technical challenge. It must be fully documented. A helpful tool for opera-tion and dismantling is the so-called spatial atlas. The atlas provides the rooms in the nuclear power plants in high-resolution 360° HDR images and technical circumstances resulting therefrom may be deduced.
EURATOM achievements and challenges in facilitating pan-European infrastructure collaborative efforts
Roger Garbil
The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) Research and Training framework programmes are benefiting from a consistent success in pursuing excellence in research and facilitating Pan European collaborative efforts across a broad range of nuclear science and technologies, nuclear fission and radiation protection. To fulfil Euratom R&D programmes keys objectives of maintaining high levels of nuclear knowledge and building a more dynamic and competitive European industry, promotion of Pan-European mobility of researchers are implemented by co-financing transnational access to research infrastructures (RIs) and joint research activities. ‘Euratom Achievements and Challenges’ show the benefits of research efforts in key fields, of building an effective ‘critical mass’, of promoting the creation of ‘centres of excellence’ with an increased support for ‘open access to key research infrastructures’, exploitation of research results, management of knowledge, dissemination and sharing of learning outcomes.
Optimal holistic disposal planning – Development of a calculation tool
Johannes Schubert, Anton Philipp Anthofer and Max Schreier
The expected volume of radioactive waste from dismantling of nuclear facilities in the forthcoming scope and the opening of the Konrad disposal requires an optimised planning of the removal of radioactive waste. For the treatment of radioactive raw waste, with negligible heat generation, different condi-tioning processes are available. Thereby different waste volumes and masses with different properties can result even from the same raw waste. An optimisa-tion can be realised. The complex process can be carried out by a calculation tool.
The New CASTOR® geo – A comprehensive solution for transport and storage of spent nuclear fuel, MOX and damaged fuel
Linus Bettermann and Roland Hüggenberg
Dry interim storage has become a common solution for the disposal of spent fuel in recent years worldwide. However, in particular the complete defueling of NPP prior to decommissioning and dismantling will dramatically increase the demand especially for non-standard fuel. Here the new dry storage system by GNS is presented for international markets with its capability to also store MOX and damaged spent fuel. The new CASTOR® geo cask system is a product line based on standardized modules and components featuring different cask dimensions and basket designs.
Conditioning and storage of radioactive waste: Potential savings and new processes
The agreement between power plant operators and the German federal government in the dispute over the costs of the nuclear phase-out, which was for-mally concluded with the transfer of 24.17 billion euros by the companies on 3 July 2017, assures both sides the long-awaited legal certainty. Costs for the storage of radioactive waste arising from the decommissioning of the last nuclear power plants and costs for the search, construction and operation of a repository for spent fuel will in future be borne by a federal foundation. Reason enough to get to the bottom of the consequences of the agreement: What risks does the accelerated phase-out of nuclear power and the associated treatment of large quantities of contaminated, uncontaminated and activated waste by the operators and the federal government entail - and what countermeasures can be taken?
The application of knowledge management and TRIZ for solving the safe shutdown capability in case of fire alarms in nuclear power plants
Chia-Nan Wang, Hsin-Po Chen, Ming-Hsien Hsueh and Fong-Li Chin
The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 has raised widespread concern over the safety of nuclear power plants. This study employed knowledge management in conjunction with the TeoriyaResheniya Izobreatatelskih Zadatch (TRIZ) method in the formulation of a database to facilitate the evaluation of post-fire safe shutdown capability with the aim of safeguarding nuclear facilities in the event of fire. The proposed approach is meant to bring facilities in line with US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) standards. When implemented in a case study of an Asian nuclear power plant, our method proved highly effective in the detection of 22 cables that fell short of regulatory requirements, thereby reducing 850,000 paths to 0. This study could serve as reference for industry and academia in the development of systematic approaches to the upgrading of nuclear power plants.
Analysis of the in-vessel phase of SAM strategy for a Korean 1000 MWe PWR
Sung-Min Cho, Seung-Jong Oh and Aya Diab
This paper focuses on the in-vessel phase of Severe Accident Management (SAM) strategy for a Korean 1000 MWe Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) with reference to ROAAM+ framework approach. To apply ROAAM+, it is needed to identify epistemic and aleatory uncertainties. The selected scenario is a station blackout (SBO) and the corresponding SAM strategy is RCS depressurization followed by water injection into the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). The analysis considers the depressurization timing and the flow rate and timing of in-vessel injection for scenario variations. For the phenomenological uncertainties, the core melting and relocation process is considered to be the most important phenomenon in the in-vessel phase of SAM strategy. Accordingly, a sensitivity analysis is carried out to assess the impact of the cut-off porosity below which the flow area of a core node is zero (EPSCUT), and the critical temperature for cladding rupture (TCLMAX) on the core melting and relocation process. In this paper, the SAM strategy for maintaining the integrity of RPV is derived after quantification of the scenario and phenomenological uncertainties.
Operating experience with nuclear power plants 2017
VGB PowerTech
The VGB Technical Committee “Nuclear Plant Operation” has been exchanging operating experience about nuclear power plants for more than 30 years. Plant operators from several European countries are participating in the exchange. A report is given on the operating results achieved in 2017, events im-portant to plant safety, special and relevant repair, and retrofit measures.