Sir, I was really surprised to find in the latest issue of Kiev Post both the editorial End the Monopoly and the article Fuel Duel. First, I was surprised with ungrounded accusations of the Ukrainian nuclear safety regulator. Second, it looks strange that nobody bothered to ask our comments on the issue, but probably my knowledge about ethical standards of journalists is quite outdated. Now let me comment on some issues. First of all, both the article and the editorial contain a number of substantial errors. So let me tell you some facts from real life but not from sci-fi. As the first NPP was put in operation in Ukraine in 1977 it has been a long story of nuclear fuel use since then. As during nineties numerous events caused by fuel performance were reported, the original manufacturer of nuclear fuel – Russian TVEL – made significant efforts on improving the fuel performance, and so we have got our experience in dealing with new modifications of nuclear fuel. Eventually the procedure was established to ensure that before commercial operation we had to get proper evidence that safety would not be compromised. We have followed this procedure, for example, with TVS-A fuel assemblies since 2003, when first reload of 42 TVS-A was put into the core of ZNPP-3 together with previous modification TVS-M, and next years new reloads were added. So the same approach was applied to TVS-W, with one significant difference: in all cases of TVEL–manufactured fuel our request was that the trial operation had to begin first at one of Russian NPP, and they always were at least one year ahead. So in the TVS-W case we brought more risks to ourselves. However the mixed core itself was an important feature of diversification (otherwise any NPP before changing supplier would have to get rid of all partially used fuel which would not bring proper motivation for a real diversification). And taking into account that TVS-M, which was correctly stated as similar to TVS-W by design in your article, had already successful story of operation in mixed core with TVS-A, major problems were not expected. Yet when NAEC Energoatom signed the contract with Westinghouse on commercial supply of TVS-W long before the end of trial operation, State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate expressed its concerns, as they would be expressed in any case of commercial supply of fuel which had not got clearance for commercial operation irrespective of manufacturer or any political or economic considerations, because paying priority to safety is expected at least of regulator. Also we kept cautious position on extending the trial operation on additional units on the same grounds. In 2012 it was the operator (NAEC Energoatom) who detected mechanical damage to a number of TVS-W assemblies following an established procedure of visual inspection at both units (by the way, according to the latest updates from the South Ukraine NPP, another 3 damaged TSV-W were detected on July 6-11 2013, under scheduled core unloading at Unit 2). Then following a standard procedure of investigation a root-cause of event was defined by the commission, namely some constructive drawbacks of TVS-W, and taking into account that Westinghouse made a significant effort to adopt assemblies, this conclusion was accepted by manufacturer. Now we are in the process of regulatory review of NAEC proposal to restart the trial use of modified TVS-W, and I sincerely hope it will be successful. As for “21 cases last year along the Russian assemblies even leaked radiation”, there were only 2 events, both at Khmelnitsky NPP, involving the fuel issues (in which the assemblies have reached the fuel damage criterion), however in both cases the root cause was not related to the fuel itself. To state otherwise would mean to propagate misinformation. Basically TVS-A is considered as an advanced fuel design which resolved some mechanical drawbacks of TVS-M. Finally I would like to emphasize that the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate performs its duties in open and transparent manner and following the same approach as European regulators, which was confirmed by numerous peer review missions during last years. Our primary and the only concern is nuclear safety, attention to which can never be overestimated in the country that experienced the Chernobyl disaster. I remain open for media and public dialogue and scrutiny on the subject of our competence; however technical problems could be solved by technical means only but not by any kind of witch–hunting. SNRIU Chairperson Olena Mykolaichuk
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:33:37 +0000