Narora unit-2 is a PHWR type of reactor with a rated capacity of 200 MWe. ON April 15, 2000 it was operating at the MWe. A heavy water (D2O) leak started from the suction flange of a moderator pump. Moderator level in the calandria started falling. Primary Shutdown System (PSS) and Secondary Shutdown System (SSS) were manually actuated to shutdown the reactor. During the process of isolating leak, two plant personnel received radiation due to inhalation of tritium vapours but the exposure were lower than the annual ICRP limits. Calandria box up took place at 88% calandria full tank level as per logic. A total of 7 tons of heavy water leaked out of moderator system and most of it was recovered. During the incident tritium discharges through the gaseous route increased but were within the authorised limit. There was no increase in discharges through the liquid route. The incident has bee rated at level 1 on INES. Justification for Rating: Failure in moderator system in PHWR reactors is a possible initiating event (ref. list of initiators of PHWR, in INES manual, final draft 1999), the event is rated at level 1 on INES.
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
