INSTITUTE NEWS

International Conference "Small-sized Nuclear Power Plants (SNPP) – the Current Direction of the Nuclear Power Development"

On December 3-5, 2013, in Moscow in the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciencesthe International Conference "Small-sized Nuclear Power Plants (SNPP) – the Current Direction of the Nuclear Power Development" was held.

The Conference organizers were the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Nuclear Safety Institute – IBRAE RAN. The Conference was held under support and involvement of the International atomic energy agency – IAEA, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom", the National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute", and CJSC "Rusatom Overseas".

Among 140 Conference attendees were top executives, scientists and specialists from more than 50 worldleading expert agencies and corporations, which activities are related to the SNPP development and promotion, delegates from the RAS branch research institutes, design and production enterprises, representatives of the interested investment-financing bodies.

The Conference opened Academician А.А. Sarkisov; L.A. Bolshov, IBRAE RAN Director and RAS Correspondent Member; Jong-Kyun Park, Director – Division of Nuclear Power Department of Nuclear Energy International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); J.I. Shtrombach, Deputy Director of the NRC «Kurchatov Institute» for nuclear technologies – Director of the Kurchatov Center for Nuclear Technologies.

Inhis opening remarks, Academician A.A. Sarkisov noted that "the evolving world economyneedsand will need moreandmoremodern, autonomous, reliable and environmentally safeand efficientenergy sources, and asthose nuclear installationsof small capacity mightbe claimed. In recent years the interest in the SNPP development and application has progressively increased. Despite real achievements and positive steps, it is obvious that this new direction of the nuclear power development is still only at the stage of preparing a base for large-scale expansion. The successful implementation of this direction still needs resolving a number of problems to ensure high standards of nuclear and environmental safety of the SNPP development projects, to achieve high economic efficiency, settling the development and exploration issues of industrial mass production technology, the ones of centralized SNF and RW management as well as  the SNPP legal and institutional support".

WithintheConferenceframework,over 40 presentationsandreportsweremaderelatedtothefollowingareas:
1. TheSNPPdevelopmentprospects and application scope;
2. Justification of the SNPP conceptual design;
3. Theexistingandperspective SNPP projects;
4. Issuesofnuclearandradiationsafetyensuring;
5. Systemissuesof the SNPP development.

IBRAE RAN was represented by D.O. Smolentsev, reporting on «Analysis of Efficiency Boundaries for Low-Power Nuclear Power Plant Performance Characteristics».
The Conference main objective - namely assessing the current state and prospects of SNPP, support for international cooperation on the exchange of experiences in the definition of configuration, safety, development and designing environment of nuclear power on the SNPP basis - has been successfully achieved.