OREANDA-NEWS. September 19, 2008. The 3rd International Conference “Heavy Liquid Metal Coolants in Nuclear Technologies” took place at the State Central Institute for Chief Executive Training (SCICET) on Sept 15–19 2008. The conference was organized by the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) and was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the pilot launch of the world’s first nuclear reactor with lead-bismuth coolant. This type of reactor was used by eight Soviet submarines. 

The experience of use of Obninsk projects in the fleet serves as a good basis for innovative technologies, which are opening up a new way to nuclear power engineering. Today, IPPE is designing modular 100MW lead-bismuth fast-reactor SVBR-100. 100MW is enough for supplying all of Obnink with electricity but the designers are planning to raise its capacity to 1,000MW by assembling standard modules into reactors – like a box of bricks.

The program committee of the conference was chaired by the director of the SVBR project, the chief researcher-the advisor o the director general of IPPE G.Toshinsky.

In an interview to our correspondent he said that Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation had decided to station the reactor at the industrial site of IPPE. The reactor is small and will be brought to the site by a train. The key advantage of the reactor is that it is very safe due to its chemically neutral coolant acting under atmospheric pressure. This is a unique reactor.

However, insufficient financing is the key obstacle to the development of this type of reactor. The foreign participants in the conference said that they abroad were actively developing lead-bismuth reactor production. Toshinsky expressed hope that Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation and Basic Element company would support the project.

The parties are expected to shortly agree to set up a joint venture for building an experimental SVBR-100 reactor. The reactor is to be launched in 2015 and to be tested for several years afterwards. In case of successful testing, the reactor will be built on a mass basis. SVBR not only generates heat and electricity but also desalinates water.

150 specialists from the leading research centers of Russia, the Untied States, Japan, Korea, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, the Czech Republic as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency attended the conference. Such a wide geography proves that lead-bismuth reactor building is regarded as a promising direction worldwide. The sponsors of the conference were Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, Basic Element company and Obninsk Science and Technology Center.