Mikhail Bakanov, Deputy General Director of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC – Director of Beloyarsk NPP:

 — Japan is “at the back of the pack”, it made an attempt to start up the Monzhu reactor of 250 mW capacity – a BN-600 analog of a lower level

On July 23, 2010 the IXth scientific-technical conference dedicated to 30 years of successful operation of the unique BN-600 power unit with fast neutrons reactor was held in Zarechny city, Sverdlovsk region. The conference was organized by Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC and Beloyarsk NPP. The conference was attended by over 100 professionals. Among them — representatives of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC, research studies institutes, design organizations as well as foreign nuclear specialists from Italy, France, India and Japan.

Mikhail Bakanov, Deputy General Director of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC – Director of Beloyarsk NPP:

The foreigners’ interest in BN is based on the fact that we have experience. Almost no one has succeeded in carrying out such ambitious long-term program of fast reactors exploitation, only in Russia.

Japan is “at the back of the pack”, it made an attempt to start up the Monzhu reactor of 250 mW capacity – a BN-600 analog of a lower level. In the middle 90s they had troubles of ideological rather than technical nature and they had to stop operation of this unit in 1996. So, for 14 years they have upgraded, modernized to avoid the things that had happened before. In May they began the new, repeated Monzhu start-up sequence. And in case it works it will be, I wouldn’t say, a competitor but another operating fast neutron reactor unit.

Then India. China, if you know, has performed the first criticality of a fast neutron reactor prototype constructed under our project. All of them are hot on the heels: the Japanese, China, India, France, sure enough, keeps pace.

But I think that we have a more realistic, pragmatic, the most realizable and supported program. We’ve already had projects: BN-800, BN-1200 follows it by a finger’s breadth. BN-1200 is already a commercial reactor. We remain as priority-oriented as before, the more so as we plan our activity in quite a realistic manner.

REFERENCE: Beloyarsk NPP is a branch of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC operating all nuclear power plants of Russia. This is the first NPP in the nuclear power industry of the country and the only one with reactors of different types on the same site. At Beloyarsk NPP the unique power unit with a fast neutron reactor of industrial power level is being operated — BN-600. The BN-800 power unit with a fast neutron reactor is being constructed. The fast neutron power units serve for substantial extension of the fuel base of the nuclear power industry and minimization of radioactive waste due to the closed nuclear fuel cycle. The first power units of Beloyarsk NPP with the AMB-100 and AMB-200 fast neutron reactors have outlived their usefulness.