CONSULTING

its rated power 374 and until 26 May 2016 to enter commercial operation. 375 The delays in the
startup procedures echo the 33-year construction time.
In early May 2009, Julio de Vido, then Argentina’s Minister of Planning and Public Works, stated
that planning for a fourth nuclear reactor would begin and that construction could start within a
year. 376 Seven years later, work has not started. In February 2015, Argentina and China ratified an
agreement to build an 800 MW CANDU-type reactor at the Atucha site. Construction is to take
eight years, but it has not been announced, when work will start. 377 In October 2014, Nuclear
Intelligence Weekly noted that “while it’s unclear when construction on Atucha-3 might start, the
goal is to commission the reactor by July 2022”. Atucha-3 is expected to cost US$5.8 billion. 378 In
November 2015, a contract was signed between state-controlled Nucleoelectrica and CNNC for
assistance on building Atucha-3. While only supplying about 30 percent of the work, CNNC is
expected to bring along 85 percent of the financing and Nucleoelectrica would act as designer,
architect, engineer, builder and operator of the plant. This is quite a novel arrangement.
A framework agreement was also signed between the two companies for the construction of a
Hualong One reactor, China’s new, and as yet untested, Generation III design. 379 A commercial
contract was scheduled to be signed by the end of 2016. 380 But in May 2015, as a result of delays
in the Hualong One construction at Fuqing in China, it was reported that signature was likely to
be pushed into 2017. 381
After repeated delays, construction of a prototype 27 MWe PWR, the domestically designed
CAREM25 (a type of pressurized-water Small Modular Reactor with the steam generators inside
the pressure vessel) began near the Atucha site in February 2014, with startup planned for 2018.
The reactor is said to cost US$450 million, 382 or about US$17,000 per installed kWe, a record for
reactors currently under construction in the world.
Brazil operates two nuclear reactors that provided the country with 13.9 TWh or 2.8 percent
of its electricity in 2015 (down from a maximum of 4.3 percent in 2001).
As early as 1970, the first contract for the construction of a nuclear power plant, Angra-1, was
awarded to Westinghouse. The reactor went critical in 1981. In 1975, Brazil signed with Germany
374 WNN, “Atucha 2 reaches 100% rated power”, 19 February 2015, see http://www.world-nuclearnews.org/NN-Atucha-2-reaches-100-percent-rated-power-19021502.html,
accessed 16 June 2016.
375 WNN, “Atucha 2 receives full operating licence”, 31 May 2016, see http://www.world-nuclearnews.org/RS-Atucha-2-receives-full-operating-licence-3105165.html,
accessed 4 June 2016.
376 Marketwire.com, “Argentina to Reinforce Nuclear Energy by Adding 700 MW and Building Fourth
Nuclear Plant”, 7 May 2009.
377 WNN, “Argentina and China plan fourth reactor”, 3 February 2015, see http://www.world-nuclearnews.org/NN-Argentina-and-China-plan-fourth-reactor-03021501.html,
accessed 16 May 2015.
378 WNN, “Argentina-China talks on new nuclear plants”, 8 May 2015, see http://www.world-nuclearnews.org/NN-Argentina-China-talks-on-new-nuclear-plants-08051501.html,
accessed 16 June 2016.
379 NIW, “Moving closer to Atucha-3 and HPR1000 Newbuilds”, 6 November 2015.
380 WNN, “Hualong One selected for Argentina”, 5 February 2015, see http://www.world-nuclearnews.org/NN-Hualong-One-selected-for-Argentina-0502154.html,
accessed 16 May 2015.
381 WNN, “Argentina-China talks on new nuclear plants”, 8 May 2015, op.cit.
382 NIW, “Cost Overruns Put Mobile Breeder Project in Quandary”, 7 November 2014.
Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al. 120 World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016