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UNGG
The UNGG (''Uranium Naturel Graphite Gaz'') is an obsolete nuclear power reactor design developed in France. It was graphite moderated, cooled by carbon dioxide, and fueled with natural uranium metal. The first generation of French nuclear power stations were UNGGs, as was Vandellos unit 1 in Spain. Of the ten units built, all were shut down by the end of 1994, most for economic reasons due to staffing costs. The UNGG and the Magnox are the two main types of gas cooled reactor (GCR). A UNGG reactor is often referred to simply as a ''GCR'' in English documents, or sometimes loosely as a ''Magnox''. It was developed independently of and in parallel to the British Magnox design, and to meet similar requirements of simultaneous production of electric power and plutonium. The first UNGG reactors at Marcoule used horizontal fuel channels and a concrete containment structure. Chinon A1 used vertical fuel channels, as did the British Magnox reactors, and a steel pressure-vessel. The f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinon Nuclear Power Plant
The Chinon Nuclear Power Plant (french: Centrale nucléaire de Chinon) is near the town of Avoine in the Indre et Loire ''département'', on the river Loire (approximately 10 km from the town of Chinon) in central France. The power station has seven reactors, of which three have been closed. Operation It employs approximately 1,350 full-time workers. The operator is Électricité de France (EDF). Performance The site houses three of the first generation of French plants, of UNGG-type (similar to the Magnox design), which have now closed. Four of the first French PWR series were later built on the site. The site has four cooling towers, designed to be low-profile in order to minimise the visual impact on the Loire. It is larger than most French plants and feeds approximately 6% of French electricity demand. Events *During the unusually cold 1986-87 winter, the water intake from the river, as well as several other important pieces of equipment and machinery, froze. *On 21 D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcoule
Marcoule Nuclear Site (french: Site nucléaire de Marcoule) is a nuclear facility in the Chusclan and Codolet communes, near Bagnols-sur-Cèze in the Gard department of France, which is in the tourist, wine and agricultural Côtes-du-Rhône region. The plant is around 25 km north west of Avignon, on the banks of the Rhone. Operational since 1956, Marcoule is a gigantic site run by the atomic energy organization Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (CEA) and Areva NC and is known as CEA VALRHO Marcoule. The first industrial and military plutonium experiments took place in Marcoule. Diversification of the site was started in the 1970s with the creation of the Phénix prototype fast breeder reactor, which was operational until 2009, and is nowadays an important site for decommissioning nuclear facilities activities. the Phénix reactor was planned to be succeeded by the sodium-cooled fast reactor ASTRID (Advanced Sodium Technical Reactor for Industrial Demonstration), foreseen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gas Cooled Reactor
A gas-cooled reactor (GCR) is a nuclear reactor that uses graphite as a neutron moderator and a gas (carbon dioxide or helium in extant designs) as coolant. Although there are many other types of reactor cooled by gas, the terms ''GCR'' and to a lesser extent ''gas cooled reactor'' are particularly used to refer to this type of reactor. The GCR was able to use natural uranium as fuel, enabling the countries that developed them to fabricate their own fuel without relying on other countries for supplies of enriched uranium, which was at the time of their development in the 1950s only available from the United States or the Soviet Union. The Canadian CANDU reactor, using heavy water as a moderator, was designed with the same goal of using natural uranium fuel for similar reasons. Design considerations Historically thermal spectrum graphite moderated gas cooled reactors mostly competed with light water reactors, ultimately losing out to them after having seen some deployment in Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphite Moderated Reactors
:''"Graphite reactor" directs here. For the graphite reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, see X-10 Graphite Reactor.'' A graphite-moderated reactor is a nuclear reactor that uses carbon as a neutron moderator, which allows natural uranium to be used as nuclear fuel. The first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, used nuclear graphite as a moderator. Graphite-moderated reactors were involved in two of the best-known nuclear disasters: an untested graphite annealing process contributed to the Windscale fire (but the graphite itself did not catch fire), while a graphite fire during the Chernobyl disaster contributed to the spread of radioactive material. Types Several types of graphite-moderated nuclear reactors have been used in commercial electricity generation: *Gas-cooled reactors **Magnox **UNGG reactor ** Advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) *Water-cooled reactors **RBMK **MKER **EGP-6 *High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (past) **Dragon reactor ** AVR **Pea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bugey Nuclear Power Plant
The Bugey Nuclear Power Plant is located in Bugey in the Saint-Vulbas commune (Ain), about 75 km from the Swiss border. The site occupies 100 hectares. It is on the edge of the Rhône River, from where it gets its cooling water, and is about 35 km upstream from Lyon and 72 km from Grenoble. About 1,200 people work at the site. The site houses 4 currently operating units, all being pressurized water reactors. The 5th reactor (unit 1) is currently being dismantled. It was the last UNGG reactor built in the world. Some of the cooling comes from direct use of the Rhône water (units 2 and 3) while some is done by the use of cooling towers (units 4 and 5). Seismic activity The area is not known for its seismic activity. In the last few years, the plant was modernized to updated earthquake resistance standards. Heat dumping During the heat wave on 20 July 2003, waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnox
Magnox is a type of nuclear power/production reactor that was designed to run on natural uranium with graphite as the moderator and carbon dioxide gas as the heat exchange coolant. It belongs to the wider class of gas-cooled reactors. The name comes from the magnesium-aluminium alloy used to clad the fuel rods inside the reactor. Like most other " Generation I nuclear reactors", the Magnox was designed with the dual purpose of producing electrical power and plutonium-239 for the nascent nuclear weapons programme in Britain. The name refers specifically to the United Kingdom design but is sometimes used generically to refer to any similar reactor. As with other plutonium-producing reactors, conserving neutrons is a key element of the design. In magnox, the neutrons are moderated in large blocks of graphite. The efficiency of graphite as a moderator allows the Magnox to run using natural uranium fuel, in contrast with the more common commercial light-water reactor which re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant
The Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Station is located in the commune of Saint-Laurent-Nouan in Loir-et-Cher on the Loire – 28 km upstream from Blois and 30 km downstream from Orléans. The site includes two operating pressurized water reactors (each 900MWe), which began operation in 1983. They are cooled by the water of the Loire River. Two other UNGG reactors used to exist at the site, which were brought into service in 1969 and 1971 and were retired in April 1990 and June 1992. The site employs approximately 670 regular workers. Incidents On 17 October 1969, 50 kg of uranium in one of the gas-cooled reactors began to melt. This event was classified at 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), and is, as of December 2011, the most severe civil nuclear power accident in France. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Power In France
Since the mid 1980s, the largest source of electricity in France is Nuclear power, with a generation of 379.5 TWh in 2019 and a total electricity production of . In 2018, the nuclear share was 71.67%, the highest percentage in the world. Since June 2020, it has 56 operable reactors totalling 61,370 MWe, one under construction (1630 MWe), and 14 shut down or in decommissioning (5,549 MWe). In May 2022, EDF reported that twelve reactors were shut down and being inspected for stress corrosion, requiring EDF to adjust its French nuclear output estimate for 2022 to 280-300 TWh; the estimate of the impact of the decrease in output on the Group's EBITDA for 2022 was assessed to be -€18,5 billion. Électricité de France (EDF)the country's main electricity generation and distribution company – manages the country's 56 power reactors. EDF is substantially owned by the French Government, with around 85% shares in government hands. "Shareholding policy". Électricité de France ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant
The Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Vandellòs located close to the Coll de Balaguer pass (Baix Camp comarca) in Catalonia, Spain. Unit one was a 508 MWe carbon dioxide gas cooled reactor modeled on the UNGG reactor at the Saint Laurent Nuclear Power Plant in France. It was shut down on July 31, 1990, following an accident that damaged one of its two turbogenerators on 19 October 1989. Important nuclear safety functions in the plant were impaired by the fire, and the event was later classified as a level 3 event in the International Nuclear Event Scale. Unit two is a 1087 MWe PWR. The station's owners are: 72% Endesa and 28% Iberdrola. See also *Nuclear power in Spain References External links Nuclear Power Plants - Spainat the Nuclear Tourist website. NEA Profile - Spain INES International Nuclear Event Scale. Vandellos 1 NPP dismantling at the level 1(PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format devel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Reprocessing
Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled back into MOX nuclear fuel for thermal reactors. The reprocessed uranium, also known as the spent fuel material, can in principle also be re-used as fuel, but that is only economical when uranium supply is low and prices are high. A breeder reactor is not restricted to using recycled plutonium and uranium. It can employ all the actinides, closing the nuclear fuel cycle and potentially multiplying the energy extracted from natural uranium by about 60 times. Reprocessing must be highly controlled and carefully executed in advanced facilities by highly specialized personnel. Fuel bundles which arrive at the sites from nuclear power plants (after having cooled down for several years) are completely dissolv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vandellòs I Nuclear Accident
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* Vandellòs town *Vandellòs i l'Hospitalet de l'Infant municipality *Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant The Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant in Vandellòs located close to the Coll de Balaguer pass (Baix Camp comarca) in Catalonia, Spain. Unit one was a 508 MWe carbon dioxide gas cooled reactor modeled on the UNGG reactor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loir-et-Cher
Loir-et-Cher (, ) is a department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. Its name is originated from two rivers which cross it, the Loir in its northern part and the Cher in its southern part. Its prefecture is Blois. The INSEE and La Poste gave it the number 41. It had a population of 329,470 in 2019.Populations légales 2019: 41 Loir-et-Cher INSEE History The department of Loir-et-Cher covers a territory which had a substantial population during the prehistoric period. However it was not until the that local inhabitants built various castles and other fortifications to enable them to withstand a series of invasions of |
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