2023-05-24 04:58:00
The first day of August 2022 started with an alarm signal in the nuclear power plant Atucha II. The reactor, the largest in the country, had come from a scheduled shutdown and had been running for a short time when the early warning system detected that the fuel channel coolant flow rate was less than expected. Given the irregularity, it was necessary to make a quick decision: go from full power to 60% operation. And of course, find out what was wrong.
Atucha II bears the name of Nestor Kirchner and is located in the town of Limain the party of Zarate, about 100 kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires and on the edge of the Paraná de las Palmas river. When the fault was detected, experts from Nucleoeléctrica Argentina, the state company that controls it, concentrated their efforts on determining what it was. It didn’t take long.
They detected that under the reactor tank, in the core, a cylinder metal block of about 15 kilos called “separator”. In doing so, the movement, added to the pressure of the fuels, partially blocked one of the nozzles through which one of the liquid components of the reactor rises. Although for the experts it was “a minor flaw”From the outset they knew that fixing it was going to be difficult. The block had to be removed yes or yes because leaving it involved a significant risk.
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The big question: how to remove it from a place where human presence is impossible, at a depth of 14 meters and in the case of an element larger than the channel through which it could be removed. Possible solutions began to emerge almost like a brainstorm.
Disassemble the reactor, remove the separator and reassemble it: between 5 and 6 years with the plant paralyzed without producing energy and generating the need to import it, unfeasible. Discarded.
Cut the separator into pieces and remove it? Better.
four months of development
This is how we worked for four months on the development of an underwater cutting tool, with a method known as EDM. But also they had to develop other tools to manipulate the metallic piece that generated the problem.
For this reason, they set to work on a suction cup to be able to grasp it, a table to fix it and, once cut, a clamp to place the metal bars in a basket and remove them. All instruments robotically operated from above the corewith the images of the submerged cameras as a reference to execute the millimeter movements.
The tools, which were adapted to the difficulties of the reactor, have been tested for weeks at Atucha II, where they not only take into account their operation, but also place special emphasis on the transmission of knowledge and constant training of the plant operators. There are cases of workers who participated in the repair of Atucha I in 1988 and today they transferred the knowledge to their children who will start repairing Atucha II from June.
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“There is a whole group created that can develop tools in this company that not only operates, but is also responsible for the design. And that is why we know what to do, how to do it. That’s important with all the new frames we have, both technical and professional, which I think need to be maintained. My hope is that you don’t take a step back from all of that.”, he expressed to PROFILE Jorge SidelnikVice President of Nucleoeléctrica Argentina.
Last details for Atucha II
The internship phase is underway. To test the tools and mastery of the operators, a tank known as the “Mock Up”. It works as a model and simulates being the core of the reactor on which they have to work, at a 1:1 scale. It is the same one they used when Atucha I went out of service in 1988.
“There is nothing impossible when you work with passion, dedication and as a team”, is the legend stamped on a plate attached to that test tank, in the middle of an imposing building full of machines and pipes. As difficult as it may be, each and every one of the workers at the power station who are involved in the repair arrive every day excited to achieve that solution, to restart the reactor and get the turbine working again, in another example of energy sovereignty.
In the current crisis due to a shortage of dollars that the country is going through, that end becomes even more imperative. “If Atucha II is not there, energy has to be compensated with fuels, with gas, with liquidwhich means dollarized imports for the country, while Atucha’s idea is to generate ourselves and supplant those sources to have a lower cost for the country,” added Sidelnik.
Thus, the state firm is preparing to intervene in the reactor and carry out the maneuvers to remove the block in question. From the company they affirm that these tasks will begin in June and that by July the start-up process of the plant will be underway to return to production. That will be after the Nuclear Regulatory Authority complete review and approval of all designs and maneuvers proposed by the company for the repair.
The next projects in Atucha
Meanwhile, in the complex they are preparing to face the process of extending the useful life of Atucha I, the plant inaugurated in 1968 and which currently produces 362 MW. This will require a 30-month overhaul stop, between 2024 and 2026, with an investment estimated at 450 million dollars.
The other point that keeps the authorities of the nuclear complex expectant is the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant in Argentina: Atucha III.
The new plant will be located on the same property as Zárate and it is projected that will generate a gross power of 1,200 MW. Its construction was announced at the beginning of 2022, when the Argentine authorities reported a Chinese investment of 8.3 billion dollars.
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“Our expectation is that they can finance it 100%, that credit has to be taken by the National State because it is not an agreement between Nucleoeléctrica and its Chinese counterpart, but rather it is framed within a country-country agreement. So, the one that has to take the credit, paid later with the energy we produce, is the National State and the process has its difficulties“Sidelnik said when asked about the paralysis of the construction.
The intimidating American presence
The construction with financing from China clearly does not go unnoticed in geopolitical terms. The United States did not like the fact that Argentina agreed to the investment and since its announcement there have been a series of almost surprise visits by US officials to the plant located in the province of Buenos Aires, with the aim of discrediting the construction.
The last visit was in early April, when a nuclear representative from Washington He went to the place together with agents of the FBI.
Sources from the firm said that in one of those visits an alleged reserved report was brought as a novelty that endorsed, through newspaper clippings, the Yankee theory that the nuclear power plant projected and financed by China would present serious deficiencies. “All lies, we refute each of the proposals that were made to us “said a source from the firm to this medium.
“The American presence It was nothing more than an act of pressure, intimidation”he opined.
“As far as I know, Argentina is a sovereign country”, One of the members of Nucleoeléctrica would have responded to the US delegation.
AS / ED
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