atw 2015-01

atw Vol. 60 (2015) | Issue 1 ı January
62
NEWS
In May 2010, Mr Buzek signed a
declaration which explained the
concept of energy community and
called for “a radical shift” in the way
Europe produces and consumes energy.
One of his proposals was that the
EU must have the ability to pool its
supply capacities and engage in “coordinated
energy purchasing”. In the
long term, if the EU is faced with a major
energy crisis, common strategic
reserves must be available.
In September, when he was still
prime minister of Poland, the new EC
president Donald Tusk urged other EU
leaders to create an Energy Union in
order to reduce Europe’s dependence
upon Russian gas imports.
Poland has decided to build new
nuclear reactors to move away from its
heavy reliance on coal and gas. The
first unit is expected to come into commercial
operation by 2025.
| | europa.eu, www.nucnet.org, 6607
China
Hongyanhe-3 achieves first
criticality
(nucnet) The Hongyanhe-3 nuclear
unit in Liaoning province, northeastern
China, has achieved first criticality,
the China Nuclear Energy Agency
(CNEA) has said.
The Chinese-designed Generation
II CPR-1000 pressurised water reactor
(PWR) unit reached first criticality on
27 October 2014, CNEA said. All parameters
were “normal” and “reasonable”,
CNEA said.
The unit is undergoing physical
testing to validate the performance of
the reactor core and the performance
of the instrumentation and control
(I&C) system.
The next step is to start the turbine
on the secondary, non-nuclear side of
the unit and test whether it can operate
at full speed.
Hongyanhe has two commercially
operational units and two under construction,
all of the domestic CPR-
1000 design.
Hongyanhe-1 and -2 entered commercial
operation in June 2013 and
October 2013. Construction of
Hongyanhe-3 and -4 started in March
and August 2009.
According to the International
Atomic Energy Agency’s Power Reactor
Information System (Pris) database,
China has 22 nuclear units in
commercial operation and 27 units
under construction.
| | www.cnecc.com, 6604
Research
IAEA-led project solves mystery
of how helium enters the
atmosphere
(iaea) How helium – the light noble
gas that sends balloons floating in the
air – enters the atmosphere has
wracked the brains of scientists for
generations. Now the mystery has
been solved, as an unexpected side benefit
of research done by a group of
scientists in an IAEA-led project to
study groundwater in South America.
The Guarani Aquifer is one of the
world’s largest water systems, and
Pradeep Aggarwal, Head of the IAEA’s
Isotope Hydrology Section and a
group of other scientists set out to
study this aquifer to learn how it can
be better managed and protected.
“In effect, this aquifer, under Argentina,
Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay,
is a huge natural laboratory
where we were able to infer for the
first time that helium from deep in the
earth reaches the atmosphere along
with the discharging ground water,”
said Pradeep Aggarwal.
Helium is produced as uranium
and thorium in the earth’s crust decay.
Until this study it was unclear how it
entered the atmosphere.
The results of the findings, following
three years of study, has been published
in Nature Geoscience. Aggarwal
is the lead author with two other
IAEA experts and nine contributors
from five institutions in Brazil, the
United States and Switzerland who
took part in the study. They used a
laser-cooling and atom-trapping technique
at the Argonne National Laboratory
in the United States for measuring
the rare, radioactive krypton isotope
(Kr-81). In this technique, specific
lasers are used to slow down and
count individual Kr-81 atoms, which
are only a few among more than a trillion
atoms of stable krypton (Kr-84).
The reduced number of Kr-81 atoms in
groundwater compared to the atmospheric
krypton allowed the estimation
of the age of water, which established
the link between groundwater
and the passage of helium. Krypton-81
has a half-life of about 229,000 years
and is used for dating old (about
50,000 to one million year-old)
groundwater.
The IAEA Guarani project aimed to
provide more knowledge about the
aquifer.
“The Agency is working with its international
partners to improve our
understanding of groundwater systems
so that we can better protect and
manage this vital freshwater resource,”
said Aggarwal.
“As part of this process we need to
continue to better understand earth’s
physical systems. In pursuing the
Guarani project, we found out more
than we expected, but that is the
nature of scientific exploration.”
Helium is quite rare on earth but is
widely used in industry. The gas is important
to the electronics industry and
for cooling super-conducting magnets
such as those used in magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI). Most helium is
obtained from natural gas drilling in
the United States.
| | www.iaea.org, 6599
FRM II: New hall for cooling
systems of ultra-cold neutron
source
(frmii) South of the Maier-Leibnitz
Laboratory a hall in wood construction
is currently being built. From next year
on, it will house the mock-up for the
cooling systems of the ultracold neutron
source at the FRM II. The hall will
be ready at the end of November 2014.
The hall was necessary in order to
be able to test the large cooling systems
the source of ultracold neutrons
in non-nuclear operation. Only after a
year of testing the compressors and
gas tanks will be taken to the neutron
source for the preparation of ultracold
neutrons.
The foundations for three gas
tanks, filled with the coolants nitrogen
and helium, are already poured.
The 70 square metres wide and 3.70
metres high hall consists of a wooden
structure. It will house the compressors
of the refrigerator, which is
to ensure the cooling of the neutrons.
The ultracold neutrons are slowed
down so much that they have a velocity
of only about 20 kilometers an
hour. Planned experiments with ultracold
neutrons include the measurement
of the lifetime of free neutrons
and the search for an electric dipole
moment of the neutron.
| | www.frm2.tum.de, 6603
Company News
Successful commissioning of
Taishan EPR reactors full-scope
simulator
(areva) CORYS, a company co-owned
by AREVA and EDF, announced the
successful installation and commissioning
of the Taishan plant’s full scope
simulator at the on-site training center,
in the Guangdong province, in China.
News