The BN-350 is a sodium-cooled,

fast reactor A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV or greater, on average), as oppose ...

located at the ''

Mangyshlak Mangyshlak or Mangghyshlaq Peninsula ( kk, Маңғыстау түбегі, translit=Mañğystau tübegı; russian: Полуостров Мангышла́к, translit=Poluostrov Mangyshlák) is a large peninsula located in western Kazakhstan. It ...

Nuclear Power Plant'', located in

Aktau Aktau ( kk, Aqtau, Ақтау , russian: Актау) is a city in Kazakhstan, located on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. Its current name means "white mountain" in Kazakh, which may be due to its cliffs that overlook the Caspian. From 1964 to ...

(formerly known as Shevchenko under the control of the USSR in 1964–1992),

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

, on the shore of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...

. Construction of the BN-350

fast breeder reactor A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. Breeder reactors achieve this because their neutron economy is high enough to create more fissile fuel than they use, by irradiation of a fertile mater ...

began in 1964, and the plant first produced electricity in 1973. In addition to providing power for the city (350 MW_e), BN-350 was also used for producing

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exh ...

and for

desalination Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in soil desalination, which is an issue for agriculture. Salt ...

to supply fresh water (120,000 m³ fresh water/day) to the city.

Planning and design

The prototypes for the development of the BN-350 reactor were the experimental reactor BR-5 , built in 1959 on the territory of the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE, Obninsk, Kaluga region ), and the research reactor BOR-60 , introduced at RIAR in 1969. (Melekess, now Dimitrovgrad , Ulyanovsk region ) . The development of all power reactors was carried out under the scientific guidance of IPPE. A three-circuit reactor cooling scheme is used. In the first and second circuits, liquid sodium is used as a coolant, in the third circuit, water. The reactor pressure vessel is made of stainless steel with a thickness of 30 mm and a diameter of 2.4 to 6.0 m. The first circuit of the cooling system consists of five active and one reserve loop.

Closure and decommissioning

The project lifetime of the reactor officially finished in 1993, and in June 1994, the reactor was forced to shut down because of a lack of funds to buy fuel. By 1995, the plant's operating license had expired. The facility continued to operate far below capacity until reactor operations ceased in 1999, when plutonium-bearing spent fuel stopped being produced. Disposition of spent fuel was executed with technical and financial assistance of the US government.''Criticality Safety Issues in the Disposition of BN-350 Spent Fuel''.
Argonne National Laboratory, 28 Feb 2000
Abstract
/ref> Some 3000 cubic metres of liquid radioactive waste, mainly sodium and caesium-137 with a

half-life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ...

of 30 years, are stored at MAEK-Kazatomprom. Short-term safe storage will be 10 years, followed by a long-term dry storage of 50 years.''Local residents pay for decommissioning of Kazakhstan’s BN-350 reactor''
NEI, 27 Feb 2020 Total decommissioning cost was estimated in 2020 at $ 330 million to be paid by local residents through the electricity tariff. For the process of decommissioning to remove the radioactive hazard,

Rosatom Rosatom, ( rus, Росатом, p=rɐsˈatəm}) also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that special ...

will assist Kazakhstan on the decommissioning for the BN-350 reactor . As follows from the materials on the

procurement website, Techsnabexport JSC will provide assistance to Kazakh partners . By order of Techsnabexport, the Scientific and Technical Center for the Safety of Nuclear Technologies of Kazakhstan will have to collect and analyze the documents of the regulatory framework of Kazakhstan in the field of decommissioning of nuclear facilities and radioactive waste management and assess the sufficiency of this base for carrying out direct work on decommissioning out of service BN-350. Then it will be necessary to select technologies for solving priority work on transferring the BN-350 to a safe state, develop initial requirements for the structure and composition of technological complexes and infrastructure, develop requirements for space-planning solutions and perform an indicative (aggregated) economic assessment of the decisions made. According to the project, the decommissioning of the BN-350 is planned to be carried out in three stages. First, it is planned to transfer the reactor facility to a state of safe storage within 10 years, then ensure long-term safe storage within 50 years, and then perform partial or complete dismantling of equipment, buildings and structures, and ensure the management of radioactive waste.

References

{{Reflist Nuclear technology in the Soviet Union Soviet inventions Liquid metal fast reactors Nuclear power stations built in the Soviet Union Nuclear power stations in Kazakhstan Former nuclear power stations Former power stations in Kazakhstan

Planning and design

Closure and decommissioning

See also

References