Nuclear Power: Russia's largest nuclear power plant

The Chernobyl tragedy and the dramatic events at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant have caused serious damage to the development of nuclear energy throughout the world. Through the efforts of the media, a persistent conviction has been created about the imminent danger of any power plant with a nuclear power plant. But, according to many scientists, there is as yet no worthy alternative in meeting the need for electricity, and, for example, Balakovskaya - Russia's largest nuclear power plant - poses a threat no more than any other industrial facility of this magnitude.

Principle of operation of nuclear power plants

All major nuclear power plants have a similar operating principle. For the production of electricity, heat is used, which is generated by a controlled chain reaction of fission of nuclear fuel - mainly enriched uranium. This process is carried out in a nuclear reactor - the heart of the nuclear power plant.

Further, hot steam is produced, which drives the turbines of the electric generators. Depending on the design, it can be rotors used in power plants of all types or built with the specific characteristics of installations operating on nuclear fuel.

Types of Reactors

There are several types of reactors, which differ in fuel, coolant passing through the active zone, and a retarder necessary to control the chain reaction.

The reactors proved to be the most economical and productive ones, where usual, "light" water is used as a process fluid. By design, they are of two main types:

• RBMK is a high-capacity channel reactor. In it, steam, rotating turbines, is prepared directly in the core, so this object is called boiling. This was the reactor of the fourth power unit in Chernobyl, an installation of this type uses, for example, the Kursk station - the largest nuclear power plant in Russia.
• VVER - water-water power reactor. This is a system of two sealed circuits: in the first - radioactive - water circulates directly through the active zone of the reactor, absorbing heat from the chain reaction of nuclear fission, in the second - steam is generated, which is fed to the turbines of electric generators. Such reactors are used in the most powerful in Europe Zaporizhzhya NPP, they operate one of the largest nuclear power plants in Russia - Balakovskaya.

The second type of reactor is gas-cooled, where graphite is used to control the processes (EGP-6 reactor at Bilibino NPP). The third - on fuel in the form of natural uranium and with "heavy water" - deuterium oxide - in the form of a coolant and a moderator. The fourth one is a fast neutron reactor.

The first nuclear power plants

The first experiment on the use of an atomic reactor for the production of electricity was carried out in the United States, at the Idaho National Laboratory in 1951. The reactor operated at a power level sufficient to light four 200-watt light bulbs. After a while, the installation began to supply electricity to the entire building where scientific research was conducted on the nuclear reactor. It was connected to the power grid in 4 years, and the nearby city of Arco was the first in the world to be supplied with electricity by an atomic installation.

But the world's first industrial nuclear power plant is the nuclear power plant, launched in the summer of 1954 in the city of Obninsk, Kaluga region of the USSR and immediately connected to the network. Hence the nuclear power industry of Russia. The power of the Obninsk nuclear power plant was small - only 5 MW. Three years later, in the Tomsk region, in the city of Seversk, the first stage of the Siberian NPP was put into operation, which subsequently produced 600 MW. The reactor, mounted there, was intended for the production of weapons-grade plutonium, and electrical and thermal energy was a by-product. Today the reactors at these stations are drowned out.

NPP in the territory of the former USSR

Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, intensive construction of such power stations in various regions of the country has begun in the USSR. The list of nuclear power plants in Russia and the Union republics includes 17 such structures, 7 of which remained outside the present Russian Federation:

• Armenian, near the city of Metsamor. It has two power units with a total capacity of 440 MW. After the 1988 Spitak earthquake, which the nuclear power plant withstood without serious accidents due to the seismic stability inherent in the design, it was decided to stop it. However, in the future, because of the high demand for electricity, the government of the republic decided to launch the second power unit in 1995. Despite the fact that this happened taking into account the increased requirements for technological and environmental safety, the European Union insists on its conservation.
• Ignalina NPP in the north-east of Lithuania operated from 1983 to 2009 and was closed at the request of the European Union.
• Zaporozhye, the most powerful nuclear power plant in Europe, is located on the shore of the Kakhovka water reservoir, in Energodar, built in 1978. In its composition, 6 power units VVER-1000, which produce a fifth of Ukraine's electricity - about 40 billion kW / h per year. It fully complies with the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
• Rivne, near the city of Kuznetsovsk in the Rivne region of Ukraine. It has 4 WWER-type power units with a total capacity of 2,835 MW. I was highly appreciated by the IAEA on the basis of the results of the safety audit.
• Khmelnitskaya, near the town of Neteshina, near the Gorini river in Ukraine. 2 WWER-1000 are involved.
• South-Ukrainian, is located on the shore of the Southern Bug in the Mykolayiv region of Ukraine. 3 power units VVER-1000 provide 96% of the needs of the south of Ukraine in electricity.
• Chernobyl, near the city of Pripyat, was the site of the largest man-made disaster on April 26, 1986 . The last of the four RBMK-1000 units was shut down in 2000.

The share of electricity generated at nuclear power plants in the total energy balance of the largest nuclear power plants, hydroelectric power stations, and thermal power plants in Russia is about 18%. This is significantly less than, for example, the leader in the nuclear power industry - France, where this figure is 75%. According to the energy strategy adopted by the government, it is planned to bring this ratio up to 20-30% by 2030 and to quadruple the production of electricity with the help of power units working on nuclear fuel.

Nuclear Power Engineering in Russia

How many NPPs are in Russia today? In our country there are 10 stations with 35 power units of various types (there are about 100 such units in the US). The greatest distribution we have water-cooled reactors (VVER) - only 18 pieces. Of these, 1000 MW is 12, and another 6 is 440 MW. There are also 15 boiling channel reactors in operation: 11 RBMK-1000 and 4-EGP-6 reactors.

Which nuclear power plant is the largest in Russia

To date, Rosenergoatom has no one clear leader among nuclear power plants in terms of capacity and contribution to the overall balance of the country. There are 2 complexes, where the same amount (4) of the same type of VVER-1000 reactors is used. These are the Balakovo and Kalinin nuclear power plants. Each of them has a total capacity of 4000 MW. The same capacity is laid in the power plant of Kursk and Leningrad, where 4 RBMK-1000 power units are used. At the same time, the world's most powerful nuclear power plant, the Japanese Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, has 7 power units with a total capacity of 8,212 MW.

The concentration of energy enterprises of this type in the European part of Russia has led to the fact that they play a crucial role in providing electricity to the central regions of the country. In the center of Russia, and especially in the north-west, the share of nuclear power plants in the energy balance reaches 40%.

6 other Russian NPPs

Its contribution to the Russian energy sector is made by the Kola station, Russia's largest nuclear power plant in the northern territories, which operates two thousand-kilowatt power units. The introduction of new capacities at Novovoronezh NPP continues, where new, improved VVER-1200 power units are used. Beloyarsk NPP in the Sverdlovsk region can be considered an experimental site for Russian nuclear power engineers. It uses several types of power units, including reactors on fast neutrons. The Bilibino station is located in Chukotka, supplying this region with necessary heat.

The question of which nuclear power plant is the largest in Russia can again become relevant when new power units are put into operation at the Rostov station, of which there are still three, and their capacity is 3100 MW. Smolenskaya, which operates on RBMK reactors, has the same power.

Prospects

The industry development program takes into account how many nuclear power plants in Russia it is necessary to build, how many power units need to be reconstructed and put into operation in order to improve energy supply. This is especially true for the regions of the North, Siberia and the Far East. Most of the oil and gas producing companies are located there, while they form the backbone of the Russian economy.

One of the most promising areas, which has nuclear power in Russia, is the creation of floating nuclear thermal power plants. These are transportable power units of low power (up to 70 MW) based on fast neutron reactors of the KLT-40 type. Such mobile facilities can provide the most difficult areas with electricity, industrial and domestic heat and even fresh water. Commissioning of the first floating NPP "Mikhail Lomonosov" is planned in the coming years.