Russian nuclear fuel maker markets its capabilities to SA entities
Nuclear fuel fabricator Tvel, part of the Russian State-owned Rosatom nuclear energy group, has recently briefed the two South African entities that operate nuclear reactors about its capabilities and the services and products it can supply to them. These are power utility Eskom, which operates two nuclear power reactors at its Koeberg power plant near Cape Town, and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (better known as Necsa) which operates the Safari-1 research reactor at Pelindaba, west of Pretoria.
It is believed that the South African companies, both State-owned, are interested in diversifying their sources of nuclear fuel from 2021 onward. Indeed, it is reported that Eskom would like to increase the number of its nuclear fuel suppliers to three, even four, and that the Russian company is one of those under consideration.
Tvel is an ISO 9001:2000-certified company and was set up in 1996 to improve the management of Russia’s nuclear fuel cycle business. In its 2012 annual report, it announced revenues of almost $3.93-billion and a net profit of $632-million. The company currently holds 17% of the global market for fuel for nuclear power reactors, supplying 76 such reactors in Russia and in 15 other countries. It also supplies the fuel for 30 research reactors around the world. Its strategic objective is to secure 30% to 32% of the global front-end nuclear fuel cycle by 2030.
The nuclear fuel cycle starts with the mining of uranium, which is separated from its ores and then processed into a mildly radioactive uranium oxide concentrate (U3O8), popularly called yellowcake. These activities normally take place at the mine. The isotope of uranium required to make nuclear fuel is uranium-235 (U-235), but this usually comprises only 0.7% of naturally occurring uranium. Fuel for a nuclear power reactor requires a U-235 proportion of between 3.5% to 5%. (Nuclear weapons require massively higher levels of enrichment – more than 90%.) Therefore, the yellowcake must be enriched. The uranium can only be enriched if is is in gaseous form, so the uranium oxide is converted into uranium hexafluoride (UF6).
The UF6 is then passed through centrifuges, which concentrate the U-235 to useful levels, leaving depleted uranium as a waste product. At a fuel fabrication plant the enriched UF6 is then converted into uranium dioxide (UO2) powder. This powder is then compressed into small pellets, which are then, in turn, heated to turn them into a hard ceramic material. They are then put into long thin tubes manufactured from zirconium alloys, forming fuel rods. Fuel rods are then grouped together, to form fuel assemblies. Each fuel assembly is several metres long. The fuel assembly structures are made from steel and zirconium. The fuel rods must be precisely aligned within the fuel assembly.
A pressurised water reactor (PWR), like those at Koeberg, can need between 121 and 193 fuel assemblies, each with between 179 and 264 fuel rods. A 1 000 MWe capacity nuclear reactor needs 27 t of new fuel a year, whereas a coal-fired power plant with the same capacity would need more than 2.5-million tons of coal annually.
Tvel is not involved in the mining or processing of uranium or of zirconium. However, it is responsible for converting U3O8 into UF6 and for all the subsequent steps in the manufacture of the fuel, fuel rods and assemblies. It also makes the fuel rod tubes themselves as well as all the fuel assembly structures. Its Chepetsk plant is one of the three biggest zirconium, zirconium alloy and products producing plants in the world – and the biggest in Russia. It manufactures nuclear fuel for both Russian and non-Russian designed nuclear power plants.
Tvel has 45% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity, 22% of the global U3O8 to UF6 conversation capacity and 15% of the world’s fuel fabrication capacity for light water reactors (which include PWRs). It has a 45% share of the global uranium enrichment market.
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