Krško Nuclear Power Plant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Krško Nuclear Power Plant | |
| Data | |
|---|---|
| Country | Slovenia |
| Operator | Nuklearna Elektrarna Krško |
| Built | 1975 |
| Start of commercial operation | January 1, 1983 |
| Reactors | |
| Reactors active | 1 (730 MW) |
| Power | |
| Capacity | MW |
| Total power generation in 2006 | 5,289 GWh |
| Average annual generation (last 5 yrs) | 5,277 GWh |
| Net generation | 110,978 GWh |
| Other details | |
| Website http://www.nek.si/en/ |
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As of July 25, 2007
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The Krško Nuclear Power Plant is located in Krško, Slovenia. The plant was connected to the power grid on October 2, 1981 and went into commercial operation on January 15, 1983. It was built as a joint venture by Slovenia and Croatia which were at the time both part of Yugoslavia.
The plant has a Westinghouse pressurized water reactor, with a rated thermal capacity of 1,882 thermal megawatts (MWth) and 632 megawatts-electric (MWe). It runs on enriched uranium (2.1-4.3 weight-percent 235U), fuel mass 48.7 t, with 121 fuel elements, demineralized water as the moderator, and 33 bundles of 20 control rods each made of silver, indium and cadmium alloys to regulate power.
The operating company Nuklearna Elektrarna Krško (NEK) is co-owned by the Slovenian company Gen-Energija, a daughter company of the state-owned Elektro-Slovenija (ELES), and the Croatian state-owned company Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP). The power plant provides more than one-quarter of Slovenia's and roughly a fifth of Croatia's power.
The reason why the plant is co-owned by two countries was that these then constituent republics of Yugoslavia planned to build two plants, one in each republic, according to the original 1970 agreement and its revised version from 1982, but that plan was abandoned by Slovenia due to a referendum held in 1987. From that point on, there arose an issue with nuclear waste storage, because the only existing waste storage site was in Slovenia. In 1997, ELES and NEK decided to increase the operational and decommissioning costs billed to both ELES and HEP, but the latter refused to pay. In 1998, the Government of Slovenia nationalized NEK, stopped supplying power from Krško to HEP, and sued HEP for the unpaid bills. In 1999, HEP counter-sued for damages because of lack of supply. In January 2001, the leaders of the two countries agreed on equal ownership of the Krško plant, joint responsibility for the nuclear waste, and the compensation of mutual claims. The joint management of the plant was to begin on January 1, 2002. The plant was expected to start supplying Croatia with electricity by July 1, 2002 at the latest, but the connection was only established in 2003 because of protests from the local population. Since then, HEP has additionally sued the Slovenian side for damages during the latest one-year period when Krško wasn't supplying power to it.
The nuclear waste from the plant is currently being stored nearby. The retirement site near Krško will be filled to capacity by 2011, by which time additional sites will need to be set up. Croatia also has a contractual obligation to take in one half of the nuclear waste by 2025.
The planned retirement date is January 14, 2023. The decommissioning plan that was ratified by Slovenian and Croatian parliaments schedules the start of disassembly shortly after that, and the taking apart of the plant would last until 2036.
[edit] Accidents
After a small LOCA on June 4, 2008, the European Commission set off an EU wide alarm through the European Community Urgent Radiological Information Exchange (ECURIE). The power plant was safely shut down to a secure mode after a small leak in the cooling circuit. According to the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration (the country's nuclear watchdog agency), no radioactive release into the environment occured and none is expected. The event did not affect employees, the nearby population or the environment [1]. Slovenian authorities immediately notified the proper international institutions, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and ECURIE. The EU then notified (through ECURIE) the remaining EU member states, issuing a EU-wide alert. Several news agencies around the world then reported on the incident[2]. According to Greenpeace such a EU-wide alert is very unusual.[3]
