Russia Set To Extend Life of Nuclear Reactors Past Engineered Life Span

Harperdog writes "Yikes! Russia is extending the lifetime of nuclear power reactors beyond their engineered life span of 30 years, including the nation's oldest reactors: first-generation VVERs and RBMKs, the Chernobyl-type reactors. This goes against existing Russian law, because the projects have not undergone environmental assessments. 'Many of the country's experts and non-governmental organizations maintain that this decision is economically unjustifiable and environmentally dangerous — to say nothing of illegal. The Russian nuclear industry, however, argues that lifetime extensions are justified because the original estimate of a 30-year life span was conservative; the plants have been significantly upgraded; and extensions cost significantly less than constructing new reactors.'"

Comments

So does Canada.

[slackware 3.6]

The Chalk river reactor.

Re:So does Canada.

[Anonymous Coward]

As does the US, which has re-certified multiple reactors, including both at Nine Mile Point, which were re-certified for an additional 20 years after their initial lifespan.

Re:So does Canada.

[icebike]

Design life span is a best guess.

Actual use reveals the true life span. Aggressive maintenance can stretch life span even further.

The same is true of small to medium sized hydro dams. They were so over-built that many of them have exceeded their design life. Some have doubled their design life without showing significant degradation, especially with new resurfacing technologies.

It is said that "Engineering is the art of finding the least safe design".
By which it is meant that engineers design to use the least materials, cost, labor, and still achieve a safe result.

When actual measurements and data are poor, or not available, engineers (the good ones) over build.
They design in extra safety factors, excessive strength. The result is you have Brooklyn Bridges, (a whipersnapper compared to the Ponte Fabrico B52s, the aqueducts (some still in use) and similar very over-engineered projects.

That some reactors that were designed when the industry was in its infancy are still safe and suitable today is not all that surprising. People didn't push the envelope as often then.

But it remains to be seen expect that of future designs.

Re:So does Canada.

[gman003]

Ponte Fabrico

Shit, I remember reading about that in school. Latin class, to be specific - translating a section of Cassius Dio's Historia Romana about its construction. That alone tells you how incredibly old and overdesigned that thing is.

Re:So does Canada.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chalkriver is kept operational by political decree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_River_Laboratories#2007_shutdown

On December 11, 2007, the Canadian House of Commons, acting on independent expert advice, passed emergency legislation authorizing the restarting of the NRU reactor and its operation for 120 days (counter to the decision of the CNSC), which was passed by the Senate and received Royal Assent on December 12. Prime Minister Stephen Harper criticized the CNSC for this shutdown which "jeopardized the health and safety of tens of thousands of Canadians", insisting that there was no risk, contrary to the testimony of then CNSC President & CEO Linda Keen. She would later be fired for ignoring a decision by Parliament to restart the reactor, reflecting its policy that the safety of citizens requiring essential nuclear medicine should be taken in to account in assessing the overall safety concerns of the reactor's operation.

This reactor suffered 2 major emergency shutdowns since this incident already. Each resulted in many months downtime.

Basically, it's a reactor used for medical isotopes built back in the 50s kept limping along into 2nd decade when it should have been completely shut down and replaced. But that effort failed,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAPLE

so we are stuck with a leaking, 50+ year old machine.

Well,

[SJHillman]

What could possibly go boom?

Re:Well,

[roman_mir]

Except it does:

During life-extension projects, engineers determine which components are in need of replacement, and which can remain in service if maintained regularly. Some parts of a reactor, however, cannot be replaced -- including the reactor casing and its internal elements, the graphite stack (found in RBMK reactors), primary coolant circuits, primary coolant pumps, and biological shield systems. These parts are crucial for the safe operation of a reactor, particularly a first-generation reactor.

In the case of the Kola nuclear power plant in northern Russia, for example, the reactor casing should be replaced in order to ensure safer operation, but that cannot be done without building a new reactor. In addition, the proximity of the fuel assemblies to the steel walls in the VVER-440 reactor tank -- such as those used in two of Kola's reactor units -- results in higher neutron irradiation than in other types of reactors, so the walls of the VVER-440 become brittle more rapidly.

Re:Well,

[Arancaytar]

Material decay under long-term exposure to radiation, most likely. Also, as new technology becomes available, they may expect the plant to be out-dated and no longer worth the necessary modifications to match newer standards after thirty years.

Re:Well,

[vlm]

No technical limit. Eventually you get to replace the reactor vessel, which for all practical purposes involves disassembling nearly the entire plant, and reassembling it, so you may as well be honest with yourself and call it a brand new plant on the same site. Kind of like the old joke, which is true in my case, that I own my great grandfather-in-laws wood cutting axe, of course its had like 4 new handles and two new heads so there's not much of it older than 50 years or so...

Standard /. car analogy is that eventually a $5 bearing goes out deep in the car innards, and the labor costs to get in there, replace it, and get out, exceed the costs of a new car, or at least exceed the cost of an unbroken car of similar age and quality car.

Much like "reusable" spacecraft have kind of fizzled out because it turns out the recertification process is more expensive than making a new one.

Much like people can spend $75K on a model T restoration, where most people would just buy a much better kia, you could spend the cost of three new nukes trying to rebuild one old nuke, if you really want.

Re:Well,

[y86]

Most metals become brittle when irradiated.

Someone will be along with more details then I can recall offhand.

I would just design the plant to run with brittle metals from day one. Nothing that can't be solved with thicker walls (in many cases anyhow).

Modern reactors use a neutron shield that goes with the fuel basket. It can be replaced and greatly decreases vessel embrittlement by becoming the sacrificial element to first absorb/slow the errant neutrons.

The problem is with shutdown and startup. This needs to be done with control as things become harder and have less flex.

Re:Well,

[makomk]

As I understand it, the RBMK reactors are already a long way from meeting modern safety standards. They have no containment building, they still have a positive void coefficient, the monitoring and control systems are quite limited despite being upgraded and this can't really be fixed, there appear to be a bunch of single points of failure that can't be fixed either, and so on.

Re:Well,

[subreality]

Modern updates greatly reduced the positive void coefficient. It used to be wildly positive (4.7), which allowed running unenriched uranium on a non-heavy-water reactor. Now it's around 0.7, which gives you a lot more room for error.

The controls are considerably upgraded: no more graphite tips on the control rods, more manual control rods, more neutron absorbers, no more safety overrides, and more.

There aren't many single points of failure, but the safety margin and redundancy is much lower than western designs. A PWR can be leaking like a sieve and still maintain adequate cooling; a RBMK can hit trouble with only a few broken pipes, and as you say, there's no way to mitigate it, since it's part of the design.

They actually do have some some containment. It's not a heavy-duty all-encompassing concrete bunker like a western reactor, but there are high pressure management channels, steam condenser pools, etc. Any routine blowout will be contained... Just don't pull a Chernobyl. :)

I'd say RBMK safety has been upgraded from "Insanely Irresponsible" to "Poor".

Insane

[lucm]

A friend of mine was doing electrical panels inspections in Russian nuclear plants (some NGO program), and one time he was in a control center and noticed a door that had no sign. He asked what it was, but nobody knew. He opened it and saw a big rusty pipe. He found out that the pipe was carrying cooling water out of the machine room... The radioactivity level was so high that my friend got a 3-month paid leave to get it out of his system.

I'm no sissy, I could sleep in a haunted houses or dig out bones from indian sacred land, but there is just no way I'll ever set foot in a Russian nuclear plant or a Chinese chemical plant.

Re:Insane

[Cyberax]

Sorry, that's a fairy tale.

1) There's no way a 'room which nobody knows about' can exist in a nuclear power plant.

2) Especially if it contains components from the freaking primary contour. And the secondary cooling contour is absolutely safe - you can drink water from it.

3) There's no way radiation levels can be large enough to cause significant irradiation in several minutes. Absolutely none at all - primary cooling water is radioactive, but not that much (it's continuously monitored).

4) Power plant operators after Chernobyl are _very_ careful. For a reason.

But what do I know? After all, I have actually worked on a Russian nuclear power plant.

Summons Scotty

[Machtyn]

"A good Engineer is always a wee bit conservative, at least on paper." - Scotty, to La Forge, regarding IRC Tank Pressure Variances Regulation 42/15

This story brings this quote to mind.

Re:Summons Scotty

[Tacvek]

I'm pretty sure that was the same exchange. Quoted in full:

Scotty: Shunt the deuterium from the main cryo-pump to the auxiliary tank.
La Forge: Er, the tank can't withstand that kind of pressure.
Scotty: [laughs] Where'd you... where'd you get that idea?
La Forge: What do you mean, where did I get that idea? It's in the impulse engine specifications.
Scotty: Regulation 42/15 - Pressure Variances on the IRC Tank Storage?
La Forge: Yeah.
Scotty: Forget it. I wrote it. A good engineer is always a wee bit conservative, at least on paper. Just bypass the secondary cut-off valve and boost the flow. It'll work.

Russian technology is WAY behind the US . . .

[mmell]

. . . we've been doing that for years.

Just sayin'.

Re:Big deal...

[v1]

The Russian nuclear industry, however, argues that lifetime extensions are justified because the original estimate of a 30-year life span was conservative; the plants have been significantly upgraded; and extensions cost significantly less than constructing new reactors.'"

1. Conservative estimates are appropriate for things that can melt down. Bigger impacts from "catastrophic failure" justify wider safety margins.
2. The original estimates already factored in maintenance and upgrades over their lifespan. Trying to factor them in again is just plain wrong.
3. Meltdowns are more expensive than construction. See also: Fukushima

Most all power plants are life-extended past their first thirty years. Why should nuclear be different?

4. Nuclear is a comparatively new technology, and there have been a lot of fundamental changes and advances in reactor design in the last 30 years. A coal plant may change out a turbine for a more energy-efficient model during its term, but you can't just pull a reactor core (along with all its infrastructure) and swap in a totally different design as part of an upgrade. Changes like that generally call for outright replacement anyway.

We do this too...

[Urza9814]

So far the US has granted extensions like this to more than SIXTY reactors. How many has Russia given out so far?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/15/news/economy/nuclear_plants_us/index.htm

Re:We do this too...

[malraid]

Yep, never have we spread radiation across half or Europe, only our east coast

Re:We do this too...

[coldsalmon]

The original article regarding the Russian reactors is talking about engineered lifespan, whereas your article is talking about license to operate. This is like the difference between renewing your car's inspection sticker and replacing your tires. One is a legal requirement and the other is a physical requirement. Neither article talks about this distinction, and I'm not sure that they're making it. The Russian plants were licensed for 30 years, and according to the article, their physical lifespan is also 30 years. The USA plants were licensed for 40 years, but that article doesn't make any mention about their engineered lifespans, and I don't know enough to say what the engineered lifespan of a USA vs. Russian plant is. It's certainly possible to keep machines working properly for many decades as long as they are designed that way. If the Russian reactors really do have irreplaceable physical parts that are expected to fail after 30 years, it would be madness to operate them after that time. However, this may not be the case with other reactors which have received license extensions.

Re:We do this too...

[malraid]

Sure, I'm just saying that because Three Mile Island was very mild to Chernobyl, it doesn't mean that the US is invulnerable to a nuclear disaster. It has happened, and we were lucky. The Russians were not lucky. The Japanese were not lucky. It can happen again. But then I'm sure Chernobyl caused less deaths than coal mining causes every year. It's just a risk that we have to manage and live with.

Re:Laws...

[EdIII]

I'm pretty sure that corporations and governments cannot violate the laws of physics.

You fool!

Black Mesa, Aperture Science, and UAC mean nothing to you?

Re:Big deal...

[rtfa-troll]

Most all power plants are life-extended past their first thirty years. Why should nuclear be different?

There are several things here.

• a) nuclear plants suffer from neutron damage. Almost any material can be degraded by long term neutron bombardment through neutron capture; this means that over the long term parts of nuclear reactors have failure modes that may not be present in any other power plant
• b) nuclear reactor cores are highly radioactive to the level that can even destroy electronic equipment, certainly causes contamination and makes human inspection impossible. This makes it extremely difficult to be sure that equipment degradation has not become serious (compare with aeroplane inspection which uses detailed visual inspection at close range combined with large devices wheeled right up to the plane)
• c) the parts which are likely to fail (those close to the reactor core) are precisely the ones which really matter and can have worse consequences than the typical failures in a conventional power plant
• d) reactor physicists (the same ones that guaranteed us that Fukashima was safe) tell us that the new generations of reactors are much safer than the old ones; hydro power, for example, hasn't really had a massive safety change in the last fifty (or even hundred) years
• e) nuclear reactors are incredibly complex, difficult and precise mechanisms. They have a huge setup and teardown cost which means that the capital investment is huge, even compared to other large power plants. The more often this is done the more likely that it will go wrong.
• f) nuclear reactors leave large amounts of radioactive waste during decommissioning; one part of this is the fuel, but probably more important is all of the other parts which become radioactive during the lifetime of the reactor (remember neutron capture). The fewer plants that are decommissioned the lower the volume of this waste.

Obviously a), b) and c) push in the opposite direction from d), e) and f). What this means is that basically we should have a smaller number of safer nuclear reactors run for longer by people who we can trust to ensure that a) and b) don't become a problem. Unfortunately people who support nuclear power tend to be in denial about the potential risks and so aren't the right people. I guess it's like politicians. Anybody who wants to be a politician should probably be ruled out from the job / anybody who wants to run a reactor should probably be banned from doing so :-)