Five failed fuel rods at Franco/China’s Taishan Unit 1
Wikipedia: Taishan Units 1&2 Chinese nuclear authorities are disputing a June 14, 2021 CNN news service story that reported the world’s first operational Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) eighty-five miles west of Hong Kong experienced a radioactive leak of noble gases (principally radioactive xenon and krypton) from the reactor’s cooling water system. China claims the radioactive release from leaking fuel rods was contained within the reactor's closed-cycle cooling system and did not occur in the atmosphere. However, China admits that the state-run 1750 megawatt-electric Taishan Unit 1 reactor, the new French-designed pressurized water reactor, did experience fuel damage to ithe core following startup from its first refueling operation.
Taishan-1 first started producing power in December 2019 on 18 to 24 month operating cycles. CNN had further reported that a U.S. contractor to Framatome, the reactor supplier to the designer and France-owned power company, Électricité de France (EdF), had contacted the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking an exemption from export restrictions to warn of an “imminent radiological threat” at the reactor. Throughout the event’s disclosure, Taishan-1 has remained operational supplying electricity to the grid. Multiple news sources reported that Chinese reactor authorities raised the “allowable” limits of radioactivity in the reactor coolant system above the design’s operational specifications to keep the reactor from a technical shut down. The cause of the increase in radioactivity is not precisely known but believed to have occurred through tiny cracks in at least five or more of the tens of thousands of enriched uranium fuel rods in Unit 1’s reactor core.
The nuclear trade journal Platts Inside NRC reported on the event June 21, 2021, quoting Martial Chateau, a technical advisor to the French antinuclear nongovernmental organization, Sortir du Nucleaire, to say, “’We know there is a small crack in the tubes containing the fuel elements in the primary circuit. We don’t know what caused it. It could have been a foreign object like a screw or a bolt circulating in the water under pressure. Or it could be a design fault,’ Chateau said. ‘There have been incidents like this in France.’" There could be more fuel failure events if the failure is due to the loss of quality control of the fuel fabrication process. According to Chateau, Taishan-1 could still face an extensive shut down to fix more complicated defects should they come to light.
There are four other EPR projects still under construction around the world, each billions of dollars over budget and many years behind schedule, at Flamanville-3 (northern France), Olkiluoto-3 (Finland) and two units at Hinkley Point-C (western England). A joint application to the the NRC by EdF and US-based Constellation Energy to construct a "reference" EPR reactor on the Chesapeake Bay in Lusby, MD for six more units across the US was withdrawn by EdF in 2013 following a successful legal intervention by a coalition of antinuclear groups that included Beyond Nuclear.
Ironically, just two days after revelations of the Taishan-1 reactor fuel failure event, multiple news sources reported that one of China’s top nuclear scientists died after a suspicious accident. Professor Zhang Zhijian, former vice-president of Harbin Engineering University (HEU), died after “falling off a building.” Professor Zhang was a top nuclear scientist at HEU College of Nuclear Science and Technology and served as Vice President of the Chinese Nuclear Society. HEU is one of two Chinese universities recognized with close ties to China's nuclear weapons program and banned from receiving advanced computer software from the United States.
China Denies Radiation Leak at Reactor but Admits Fuel Rod Damage
Several of the reactor’s more than 60,000 fuel rods have been damaged, prompting regulators to reassess the levels of radioactive gases around them.
The Hazards of Transporting Radioactive Waste from Vermont Yankee
Margaret HarringtonNuclear-Free Future, hosted by Margaret Harrington (photo, left), on Channel 17/Town Meeting TV, Burlington, Vermont.
Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist ‘watchdog’ from Beyond Nuclear, talks with host Margaret Harrington about the hazards of transporting radioactive nuclear waste from nuclear reactors, whether Vermont Yankee or Indian Point in New York State. Reactors make plutonium in waste. Wherever nuclear power goes, nuclear weapons follow.
Production date: June 14, 2021
US assessing reported leak at Chinese nuclear power facility
As reported in an exclusive by CNN.
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This article in Nuclear Engineering International, dated June 21, 2018, shows that Taishan nuclear power plant's Unit 1, an Areva EPR (Evolutionary Power Reactor, or European Pressurized Reactor), has been very troubled for several years, including defects in the reactor pressure vessel head (lid) and piping.
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The Washington Post has also reported on this story. So too has the New York Times.
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China Denies Radiation Leak at Reactor but Admits Fuel Rod Damage
Several of the reactor’s more than 60,000 fuel rods have been damaged, prompting regulators to reassess the levels of radioactive gases around them.