Pál Kovács, the director of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant (Paks NPP), Hungary’s sole NPP, talked about the Hungarian government considering building Hungary’s third nuclear power plant with Russian technology. However, its location will probably not be Paks. He discussed that in an interview with Ria Novosti, the Russian state-owned domestic news agency.
Groundbreaking Russian technology for Hungary’s third nuclear power plant?
According to portfolio.hu, the government will select the third nuclear power plant’s technology only after they find its location. Theoretically, it would be a small modular reactor (SMR), and the Russians would build it since only Moscow has the technology to make it operable.
Csaba Lantos, Hungary’s energy minister, talked about a possible new NPP in Hungary, adding the SMR technology, so Kovács’s interview does not come out of the blue.
Kovács said that before the building process starts, Hungary must find a seismically resistant venue for the new block(s) and get all the necessary permissions. He highlighted that only one SMR block is operable now. The floating NPP in Pevek is in the Chukotka region of northeast Russia.
Will the new NPP be ready by 2035?
The power plant, named Akademik Lomonosov after the 18th-century Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov, is providing heat and power for the town with two KLT-40S reactors generating 35 MW each, power-technology.com wrote. Thus, it can supply a population of up to 100,000 people. Rosatom’s fuel division, TVEL delivers the fuel, but refuelling takes place only once every few years. There can be up to three and a half years between refuelling.
The SMR reactor started operation in December 2019 as a pilot project. It is said to be the first of a fleet of floating NPPs in Russia. Rosatom was constructing four other SMR power plants at the end of 2023 and plans to export them.
Interestingly, the MVM Group mentioned installing an SMR NPP by 2035 in a paper, but they were writing about 300 MW performance.
Paks NPP supplies almost 50% of Hungary’s electricity production. The two new blocks, equipped with Russian VVER-1200 III+ reactors, will double that share, Ria Novosti wrote. They also highlighted that Hungary regards nuclear energy as key to the country’s energy safety.
Read also:
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Of course they will. Has everyone forgotten Chernobyl?
Elsewhere, even without a history of nuclear facilities and related, nuclear is being aggressively promoted by fossil fuel types, to cynically delay transition to renewables sources, batteries and EVs.
@londonsteve
I cannot imagine more brainlet comment than yours