Generation IV unit will help efforts to close nuclear fuel cycle Rosatom director-general Alexey Likhachev at the inaugural event on 8 June. Image courtesy Tvel. Russia began construction on Tuesday of the Brest-OD-300 pilot demonstration power plant with pouring of first concrete at the site of the Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk, southwest Siberia, Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer Tvel said.

Brest-OD-300 is a 300-MW Generation IV lead-cooled fast reactor that will run on mixed uranium-plutonium nitride fuel specifically designed for the purpose.

The plant is part of a pilot demonstration energy complex which comes under Russia’s Breakthrough project for the development of closed nuclear fuel cycle technology.

A closed nuclear fuel cycle means spent fuel is reprocessed and partly reused. Closing the nuclear fuel cycle would ease concerns over limited uranium resources and contribute towards making nuclear energy sustainable over the long term.

According to Tvel, the Brest-OD-300 power plant will form an integral part of the so-called Pilot Demonstration Energy Complex (PDEC), a cluster of three main interconnected facilities – a nuclear fuel production plant, the reactor unit itself and a facility for irradiated fuel reprocessing.

Tvel said this will be the first time a fast reactor nuclear plant will be built alongside closed nuclear fuel cycle servicing facilities on a shared site.

According to Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who attended the inaugural event, first concrete for the Brest-OD-300 plant marks a “milestone for nuclear industry” and a step towards a closed nuclear fuel cycle. He said the technology will “help to reduce the final waste burden”.

The Brest-OD-300 will be built at the Siberian Chemical Combine in the Tomsk region, central Russia.

The Brest-OD-300 reactor is expected to become operational in 2026. The fuel production facility will be built by 2023 and the construction of the irradiated fuel reprocessing plant is scheduled to start by 2024.

The total cost of the project has not been announced, but in December 2019, the Siberian Chemical Combine signed a $412m contract with engineering company Titan-2 for construction and installation work for Brest-OD-300.

Contracts have been signed with CKBM for manufacturing and supply of equipment for the refuelling complex, and Zio-Podolsk Machine-Building for the production, supply and installation of steam generators.

All companies involved, including the Siberian Chemical Combine and Tvel, are subsidiaries of Russian state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom.

The start date for the construction of Brest-OD-300 had been postponed several times because of the need for additional testing of key reactor structural elements.