BREST reactor construction at the SCP officially started on Tuesday

TOMSK, Jun 8 – RIA Tomsk. On Tuesday, builders began pouring the concrete foundation for the power unit with a unique BREST-300 reactor plant under construction in Seversk; experts call the event a historic one in terms of the development of a new generation of nuclear power, RIA Tomsk's correspondent reports.

Earlier it was reported that since 2011 Rosatom has been implementing the Proryv ("Breakthrough") project on creation of closed fuel cycle technology at the Siberian Chemical Plant (SCP) in Seversk. A pilot demonstration complex will appear there that will include three industrial facilities that have no analogues in the world: the uranium-plutonium nuclear fuel production module, the BREST-300 power unit, and the irradiated fuel reprocessing module.

The level of safety of the complex and reactor virtually eliminates accidents. Concern Titan-2 is the general contractor for the construction.

On Tuesday, the Siberian Chemical Plant (SCP) hosted a ceremony of pouring the first concrete into the foundation of a unique power unit with a lead-cooled BREST-OD-300 reactor. According to the IAEA classification, the "first concrete" is the official start of the construction, earlier there was only preparation.

"Today is a historic day for the world and Russian nuclear workers, because here and now the energy of the future begins. I am very happy that this is happening in Tomsk where the foundation of nuclear industry was laid 70 years ago. I would like to thank Rosatom and TVEL for their purposefulness and for keeping their word," Governor Sergey Zhvachkin said at the opening.

According to Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev, BREST is a clean and safe nuclear power energy of the fourth generation.

"This is not just a scientific solution, but a prototype of an industrial plant, we will then scale it up at the country level, where the capacity will go to gigawatts. We hope that by 2030-2040 it will be an object of our exports. Here is a triple benefit: we qualitatively increase the economics of nuclear power, we start using natural uranium and spent nuclear fuel, reducing to zero radioactive waste and virtually eliminating beyond design basis accidents," Likhachev said at the ceremony.

According to the head of the Proryv ("Breakthrough") project Vyacheslav Pershukov, the entire complex will be operational in 2030. The already constructed fabrication module is to be launched in 2023, the irradiated fuel reprocessing module will begin construction by 2024 and the BREST-300 reactor will be launched in 2026.

About BREST-300

It was informed earlier that BREST-300 is an experimental fast neutron reactor which is to become the basis of "atomic technologies of XXII century". The reactor, thanks to the stationary closed cycle, will not create nuclear waste, and on the contrary will allow the processing of already existing nuclear waste and weapons-grade plutonium.

BREST-300 will be a small experimental unit (300 megawatts of electrical power and 700 megawatts of thermal power), on the basis of which Rosatom plans to work out the industrial technology of nuclear power plants with fast-neutron reactors, which will then be replicated.