Russia’s BN-800 fast reactor to be fully fuelled with mox in 2022

• 4 years ago (2022-01-05)
• David Flin

Europe 1170 Nuclear 735

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Russia’s BN-800 fast reactor is due to be fully fuelled with mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (mox) fuel in 2022.

Ivan Sidorov, Director of Russia’s Beloyarsk nuclear power plant, said: “An important task this year was to load mox fuel into the BN-800 core. This will increase the fuel base of nuclear power tenfold and make it practically waste-free.”

Mox currently makes up 60 per cent of the fuel. Sidorov said that the intention was to increase this to 100 per cent in 2022.

Beloyarsk has two operating units: Beloyarsk 3 with a BN-600 fast neutron reactor, which started up in 1980, and Beloyarsk 4 with a BN-800 fast reactor, which started up in 2015. These are the world’s largest fast reactors and the only ones operating on a commercial basis.