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Stealthy British success of Chinese Dragon AtomInfo.Ru, PUBLISHED 20.02.2022 The Chinese HPR-1000 (Hualong One) project was certified in Britain in February 2022. Not so long ago, this news would have become the event of a year, if not a decade, but now it has gone almost unnoticed. Britain is a rare customer these days. It has the needs and desire to build new nuclear power units, it has financial resources and a national regulatory system that is not burdened with ties with supranational superstructures such as the European Union, and it does not have its own projects for third-generation nuclear reactors. Therefore, one should not be surprised that literally all developers of modern reactor projects are interested in the possibility of certifying their projects in Britain. Certification in Britain is a British-style confusing process. Its important component is the procedure for evaluating the concept of the project (Generic Design Assessment, GDA). Projects that successfully pass the GDA process receive two documents, namely the Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) and the Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA). The EPR project was the first to pass the GDA procedure in December 2012. Five years later, AP-1000 and ABWR joined it. And on February 7, 2022, the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) of Britain announced the successful completion of the GDA for the HPR-1000 project from CGN Corporation. More specifically, the certified design is called the UK HPR1000, "based on the Hualong One power plant, designed by China General Nuclear Group (CGN)." The applicant for certification was General Nuclear System Ltd (GNS), a joint venture between CGN and the French company EDF. "The ONR and the Environment Agency, the regulators who carry out the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) of new reactor designs, are satisfied that the reactor meets regulatory expectations PDF on safety, security and environmental protection at this stage of the regulatory process," a press release from the ONR said. "ONR has issued a Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) and the Environment Agency has issued a Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA) to China General Nuclear, EDF and General Nuclear International Ltd, the partners in this GDA of the UK HPR1000." The reaction to this event was lukewarm. For example, CGN Corporation, which usually takes every opportunity to highlight and celebrate its achievements, issued a short five-line statement in English. Despite the success of the GDA, the prospects for building units with Dragons in Britain are slim, and the chances of this are decreasing literally every day. Once again, the world sees how politics interferes with the cooperation of nuclear scientists. Tensions between London and Beijing and direct US sanctions against CGN practically put an end to the British plans of a Chinese corporation that was going to build Dragons at one site in Britain with the possibility of expanding to at least one more site in the future. But because of politics, the French EPR reactors took the place of the Chinese. Topics: Great Britain, China, Opinions Other news: ROSATOM presents full Small Modular Reactors product line at EXPO 2020 Small Modular Reactors Day was an international platform for discussing the benefits of SMR. 19 CNNC nuclear power units anticipated to achieve full marks on WANO composite index Average index reaching a record high of 99.51. The second Chinese HTGR came out for first criticality The Shidao Bay-1 unit consists of two HTR-PM reactors combined with a common 211 MWe turbine. |
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