Nuclear plant of Paks

The Nuclear plant of Paks is located in the central area of the Hungary, to 5 km of Paks.

Description

This power station is the single nuclear plant built in Hungary. It includes/understands four pressurized water reactors (REFERENCE MARK) of type VVER-440/V213 of Soviet design.
  • PAKS 1 : 437 MWe, beginning of construction in 1974, brought into service in 1982.
  • PAKS 2 : 441 MWe, beginning of construction in 1974, brought into service in 1984.
  • PAKS 3 : 433 MWe, beginning of construction in 1979, brought into service in 1986.
  • PAKS 4 : 444 MWe, beginning of construction in 1979, brought into service in 1987.
The cumulated power of the four engines makes it possible to produce more than 40% of the electricity of the pays.
Engines VVER are equipped with cooling systems of help and systems evolved/moved for the treatment of the défaillances.
Each engine contains 42 tons of slightly enriched uranium dioxide fuel. After usebeing used during four years in the engine, the fuel bars are stored during 5 years in an adjacent swimming pool with the engine before being transferred towards a final storage.

Incident in 2003

An incident of level 3 (INNATE) occurred on April 10th, 2003 on the engine n°2. The incident occurred on fuel bars stored underwater in a reserve of cleaning located beside the swimming pool of fuel. The engine had been stopped for its annual recharging and the fuel elements were discharged. The incident came from the assemblies of damaged fuels and presenting fuites.
The incident initially classified in level 2 was reclassified in level 3 by the authorities because with the fuel escapes one could fear to reach the critical mass at the bottom of the reserve of cleaning. This radioactive escape probably endangered the surrounding population. According to Istvan Kocsis, the director of the power station, the obvious cause of this serious incident, which took place during the cleaning of the piles of combustion, is a fault of planning of the control system and cooling produced and operated by Framatome ANP (AFP, May 12th, 2003). To repair the damaged engine, Russian company TVEL was preferred in Framatome ANP.

External bonds

  • (in) Web site on Paks (in English)

See also: List of the nuclear reactors

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