Russia ranks second in the world in terms of NPP safety

Nuclear power plants in the Russian Federation are reliable and safe, as confirmed by regular checks of independent entities (Rostekhnadzor) and international organizations, BelTA learnt from Rosatom.

Over the last five years Russian nuclear power plants have had no serious security failures classified above zero (lowest) level on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). In terms of reliability, nuclear power plants in Russia are second among countries with advanced nuclear power, ahead of such developed countries as the United States, United Kingdom and Germany.

“High degree of safety of nuclear power plants in Russia is achieved through many factors. The main of them are the principle of self-protection, reactor multiple security barriers and multiple duplication of security channels. There are active safety systems (i.e. requiring human intervention and a source of electricity) and passive safety systems (requiring no operator’s intervention and a source of energy),” said Rosatom.

In addition, all plants operate a system of safety culture at all stages of the life cycle: from site selection (only the safest sites are considered) to decommissioning. Largely thanks to the combination of these elements the track record of stable operation of pressurized water reactors (PWR) already numbers more than 1400 reactor-years.

The active zone in PWR reactors is designed in such a way as to ensure “reactor self-protection” and its “self-regulation”. If the stream of neutrons increases, the temperature in the reactor rises, so does the steam-content. But the reactor installation is designed in such a way that the hotter the coolant becomes, the less reactive the plant becomes, shutting itself down slightly to compensate. This property is known as the negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. Thus, the physics of the reactor itself ensures self-protection on the basis of natural feedback mechanism (“negative reactivity”).