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20 THE BEACON MAGAZINE | FEATURE Making Chernobyl safe Thirty years after the accident, Amec Foster Wheeler is still working at the former nuclear power plant in Ukraine On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered an accident in one of its four reactors that sent a radioactive plume into the atmosphere. In the immediate aftermath, this caused dozens of deaths and contaminated tens of thousands of acres of land with radiation, leading to evacuation of some 35,000 people and the establishment of a 35km radius exclusion zone. The ISF2 facility A substantial quantity of fallout landed in Belarus but some traces of radioactive material reached as far as Finland and Great Britain. The first western European knowledge of the accident was from radiation monitors in Sweden. Since then, international organisations have been active at the Chernobyl site on a number of programmes of nuclear safety enhancement. Amec Foster Wheeler has been working there since the mid-1990s, starting with short-term safety upgrades to the three surviving reactors, ChNPP 1, 2 and 3. We have also provided project management support for the decommissioning of the three undamaged units, and consultancy and project management services for the Liquid Radwaste Treatment Facility, which was completed in 2010, and the Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility 2 (ISF2). These two projects have been funded by international (mainly European) donations through the Nuclear Safety Account, which is managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The initial work was part of an EU-funded programme to address concerns about unsafe design characteristics in Soviet-designed RBMK reactors, similar to those at Chernobyl. Amec Foster Wheeler also carried out a similar programme at Smolensk NPP in Russia, which involved improvements to the safety margins and safety culture and strengthening the skills of operators and managers. “Very few UK-based companies have worked at Chernobyl at all, never mind for more than 20 years” JOHN DYNAN ISF2 is designed for the huge task of storing all the used fuel on the Chernobyl site for at least 100 years. It has the world’s largest ‘hot cell’ – a shielded containment chamber for work on radioactive material – which will be used to dismember 22,000 RBMK fuel assemblies before they are placed in casks for storage and monitoring. Amec Foster Wheeler’s team running the ISF2 Project Management Unit comprises expatriates, locally recruited employees and embedded members of staff from the customer. Project completion is expected in 2017. John Dynan, Operations Manager, Waste Management and Decommissioning, says: “Very few UKbased companies have worked at Chernobyl at all, never mind for more than 20 years as Amec Foster Wheeler has. We have learned a great deal from playing a part in one of the most important nuclear decommissioning projects anywhere in the world.” To find out more: john.dynan@amecfw.com
THE BEACON MAGAZINE | FEATURE 21 Romania: land of opportunity Clean Energy is expanding at a busy time for the country’s nuclear sector Cernavoda NPP T he Romanian business began 2016 with 15 members of staff but Sorin Patrascoiu, Managing Director of Amec Foster Wheeler Nuclear Romania, expects this to increase to 30 by the end of the year. Our main clients are Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica (SNN), the generating company, and Agentia Nucleara si pentru Deseuri Radioactive din Romania (ANDR), the national nuclear agency responsible for dealing with radioactive waste. Sorin says: “There is quite an interesting stream of projects coming up during 2016. I think we are in a very good position because we are the only big international company with a permanent office and well established engineering team in Romania. Our competitors don’t have a presence here, they mainly rely on partnerships with local companies.” Sorin is hiring Romanian specialists for the new Candu Delivery Centre in Bucharest, another collaboration between Clean Energy and Nuclear Canada. The idea of the CDC is that Romanian Candu experts will support Cernavoda and also work remotely on Canadian projects. “We expect to have 10 people in the CDC by the end of this year,” said Sorin, who is sure that the team can meet Canadian standards but at lower cost. Clean Energy is also preparing its participation in an anticipated bid for the owner’s engineer role on ANDR’s planned repository at Saligny. This work would include site and construction licensing, managing the procurement processes for the EPC contractor and operator and supervising their work. And we are embarking on work to secure engineering, licensing and regulatory approval for a pilot plant to establish the technology that will be used at the Tritium Removal Facility at Cernavoda. Romania is planning an ambitious, €7.2bn new build programme – China General Nuclear Power Group has been selected as the key investor in Units 3 and 4 at Cernavoda. Some of the concrete structures have already been built for the new reactors, which will be updated versions of the Candu-6. This will create opportunities for environmental permitting work as well as nuclear licensing. To make sure that Amec Foster Wheeler is in the best position to capitalise, our Environment & Infrastructure business in Romania, which employs five people in Bucharest, will be absorbed by Clean Energy. SNN operates Cernavoda NPP, which generates about 20% of the country’s electricity using Candu-6 reactors – Unit 1 was commissioned in 1996 and Unit 2 in 2007. Two contracts were signed in the first quarter of this year: support for SNN to plan the refurbishment of Cernavoda Unit 1, a large project which is likely to cost between €1bn and €1.5bn; and for independent verification of the design of a nuclear safety system at the plant. Clean Energy is also supporting Amec Foster Wheeler Nuclear Canada to supply a model of the primary heat transfer circuit and to verify its pipes and supports. And we will also be bidding for more independent verification work and tasks related to normal operational and maintenance programmes at Cernavoda. Dr Bill Miller, Clean Energy’s Repository Director, is reviewing Romania’s national radioactive waste strategy in a joint project with a team of experts from CE Romania and ANDRA, the French radwaste agency. ANDR, Romania’s national nuclear agency, expects the work of this multinational team to bring the strategy into line with important changes in European regulations. Alice Dima, ANDR Director, said the review was “of utmost importance considering the important impact of the strategy on redefining national policy objectives, on defining the national inventory, on the longterm investment plan for radwaste and spent fuel disposal and related timelines, and on nuclear-related R&D activities.” Sorin Patrascoiu Sorin, who is on the board of industry trade body Romatom, says: “Combined nuclear and environmental competence will be a big asset when we bid for this work. It will also give us a chance to find new clients in other areas of the power sector such as coal-fired generation and waste-to-energy municipal projects.”
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