During their visit to the Beloyarsk NPP, a delegation of Russian scientists headed by Victor Sagaradze, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke highly of the prospects that fast-neutron reactors hold for the future of the Russian nuclear power industry.

Victor Sagaradze, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted: ‘The Beloyarsk NPP is serviced by exceptional specialists who facilitate reliable equipment operation. I was greatly impressed by the power block with a BN-800 reactor. There was a time when we worked together with the Beloyarsk NPP and the Reactor Materials Institute on the BN-600 prototype to improve the endurance of fuel containers. I’m sure that the BN reactors are the future of nuclear power plants’.

The delegation of scientists visited the Beloyarsk NPP as a part of the RAN’s Solid Radiation Physics Research Board field visit, which is taking place these days at the Reactor Materials Institute (city of Zarechnyy, Sverdlovsk region).

Apart from a trip to the BN-800 power block, the scientists had a meeting with the Beloyarsk NPP’s chief engineers deputies responsible for safety and reliability (Valeriy Shamanskiy) and 4th power block operation (Ilya Filin).

During the common meeting, it was noted that the cooperation with the scientific organizations of the RAN with the BN-600 power block team has helped to increase the fuel burn-up, which resulted into better technical and economic parameters of the power block.

BN-800 is building on top of its predecessors and indicates a transition phase to the ‘masterpiece’ in the realm of fast nuclear reactors – the future BN-1200 power block. This one will serve as a basis for the two-component nuclear power – a combination of thermal-neutron reactors and fast-neutron ones in proportion of 4 thermal-neutron per 1 fast-neutron reactor. A BN-1200 power block building will be more compact in size, while its economic efficiency will grow.