Likhachev: Russia will be the first in the world to create a fourth-generation nuclear power facility

Russia will be the first in the world to launch a real new generation nuclear power facility with a closed nuclear fuel cycle (CNFC). This was announced by the head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, at the Russian Energy Week.

“We <...> We will be the first on the planet to create a real fourth-generation nuclear energy facility with a CNFC,” he said (quote according to TASS).

From 2032-2034 the state corporation, according to him, will begin to replicate the construction not of individual units, but of industrial two-component energy complexes, which will include both fast and thermal reactors.

The Breakthrough project, implemented by the state corporation, is aimed at the creation and industrial implementation of a closed nuclear fuel cycle based on fast neutron reactors, developing large-scale nuclear energy. The key element of the experimental demonstration energy complex is the world’s first power unit based on the Brest-OD-300 fast reactor with lead coolant in Seversk, Tomsk region.

Construction of the power unit “Rosatom» began in 2021. Currently, the only fast neutron reactors operating in Russia are two BN-800 at the Beloyarsk NPP in the Sverdlovsk region. Fast reactors do not use neutron moderators. They are capable of converting spent nuclear fuel into new fuel, forming a closed cycle. This allows, instead of the currently available 3% at traditional nuclear power plants, to use about 30% of the potential of nuclear fuel.