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Russia 10 years ahead of whole world with research into 4th generation nuclear power

The BREST-300 fast neutron reactor is due to be launched in 2026-2027 and to go on stream in 2028

SEVERSK /Tomsk Region/, December 25. /TASS/. Russia is comfortably ahead of its competitors by at least 10 years in the development of the 4th generation nuclear power industry, Yevgeny Adamov, the research director of Rosatom’s Proryv (Breakthrough) project, told the media after the ceremony of putting into pilot operation a plant for the production of nuclear fuel for the innovative BREST-OD-300 reactor.

"What happened today definitely puts us comfortably 10 years ahead of our competitors," Adamov said, answering a TASS question.

The BREST-300 fast neutron reactor is due to be launched in 2026-2027 and to go on stream in 2028.

The 4th generation pilot and demonstration power complex, being built as part of the strategic industry project Breakthrough on the premises of the Siberian Chemical Combine (an enterprise of Rosatom's fuel division), will include three interconnected facilities unparalleled in the world: a module for the production (fabrication/refabrication) of dense uranium-plutonium nitride nuclear fuel, a power unit with the innovative BREST-OD-300 fast reactor, and a module for reprocessing irradiated fuel.

For the first time in the world an NPP with a fast reactor and a stationary closed nuclear fuel cycle will be created at one site. After reprocessing irradiated fuel will be sent for refabrication, i.e. for the production of fresh fuel. This system will become practically autonomous and independent of external supplies of energy resources.

BREST-OD-300 will be the world's first reactor with a lead coolant. Its architecture is based on the principles of natural safety. The reactor will owe its efficiency to the innovative SNUP fuel, which consists entirely of secondary products of the nuclear fuel cycle - depleted uranium and plutonium. Its production and implementation will make it possible to expand the resource base of the nuclear power industry many times over, to reprocess irradiated fuel assemblies (instead of storing them) to produce fresh fuel, and to dramatically reduce the generation of nuclear waste and its activity.

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