Nuclear heat supply station. Heat from the nuclear power plant

The use of nuclear heat sources in heat supply systems will significantly save scarce organic fuel. At the same time, an improvement in the environmental situation in areas of heat consumption from nuclear power plants is achieved, an increase in the competitiveness of centralized heat supply systems, due to the low cost of heat at nuclear power plants, an increase in the reliability of heat supply systems due to the displacement of outdated equipment.

According to the type of energy supplied, nuclear power plants can be divided into:

Nuclear power plants (NPP) designed to generate electricity only

Nuclear combined heat and power plants (CHPP) generating both electricity and thermal energy

Nuclear Heat Supply Plants (AST) generating only thermal energy

All nuclear power plants in Russia have heating installations designed for heating network water.

Nuclear power plants in Russia.

Currently, the Russian Federation operates 31 power units with a total capacity of 23,243 MW at 10 operating NPPs, of which 15 pressurized water reactors - 9 VVER-440, 15 channel boiling-water reactors - 11 RBMK-1000 and 4 EGP-6, 1 reactor for fast neutrons.

Information about nuclear power plants of heat supply. Voronezh AST (not to be confused with Novovoronezh NPP) is a nuclear heat supply station (VAST), consisting of two power units with a capacity of 500 MW each is designed for year-round operation in the basic mode in the district heating system of Voronezh in order to cover the existing heat deficit in the city (VAST must was to provide 23% of the city's annual demand for heat and hot water). The construction of the station was carried out from 1983 to 1990 and is currently frozen.

Russia is the only country where options for the construction of nuclear heat supply stations are seriously considered. This is explained by the fact that in Russia there is a centralized system of water heating of buildings, in the presence of which it is advisable to use nuclear power plants to obtain not only electrical, but also thermal energy. The first projects of such stations were developed back in the 70s of the XX century, however, due to the economic shocks that came in the late 80s and tough public opposition, none of them was fully implemented. The exception is the Bilibino nuclear power plant of small capacity, which supplies heat and electricity to the Bilibino settlement in the Arctic (10 thousand inhabitants) and local mining enterprises, as well as defense reactors (the main task of which is the production of plutonium):

Siberian NPP, which supplied heat to Seversk and Tomsk.

Reactor ADE-2 at the Krasnoyarsk Mining and Chemical Combine, which since 1964 has been supplying heat and electricity for the city of Zheleznogorsk.

The construction of the following nuclear power plants based on reactors, in principle similar to VVER-1000, was also started:

Voronezh NPP (not to be confused with Novovoronezh NPP)

Gorky AST

Ivanovskaya AST (only planned).

Construction of all three ASTs was halted in the second half of the 1980s or early 1990s.

Currently (2006) Rosenergoatom is planning to build a floating AST for Arkhangelsk, Pevek and other polar cities on the basis of the KLT-40 reactor unit used on nuclear icebreakers. There is a variant of a small unattended AST based on the Elena reactor, and a mobile (by rail) Angstrem reactor installation. Source: Energatom (www.abkord.com).

The solution of issues related to taking into account the role of nuclear power plants in heat supply (primarily steam) to industrial consumers is at an early stage. This is due to the fact that steam supply from nuclear sources is associated with more significant difficulties than the supply of heat in hot water.

These difficulties are mainly determined by the requirements of nuclear safety, the significant diversity of industrial technologies, the peculiarity of steam transportation, etc. and, therefore, more stringent requirements for nuclear power sources, both in terms of circuit solutions and in terms of heat supply. In principle, nuclear sources of heat supply, as well as sources used in traditional "fire" power engineering, can be intended either for heat production or for combined production of heat and power energy. Recently, studies have begun on projects for nuclear power plants for industrial heat supply, designed to supply consumers with both hot water and steam; nevertheless, taking into account the higher energy and technical and economic efficiency of the combined production of heat and electric energy, it seems economically more expedient to build specialized industrial heating plants.

A distinctive feature of nuclear sources used to meet the needs of industrial enterprises in technological steam is the need to satisfy two difficultly compatible requirements. On the one hand, according to the conditions of steam transport, the heat source should be as close as possible to consumers. The maximum distance from the source to consumers is determined by technical and economic calculations and depends on the parameters of steam required by the technical conditions of production, the parameters of steam supplied by the source, and other indicators and does not exceed 8-15 km, even with a significant design load of the region (1500 MJ / with). On the other hand, it is desirable to locate the source at a considerable distance from consumers, since the closer the source is to the district of heat supply, the more stringent are the radiation safety requirements and, accordingly, the more difficult it is technically and more expensive to provide them. These requirements make it practically impossible to supply a significant amount of steam in the traditional way from the planned to construction and operating NPPs of the first generation.

In Russia, steam is supplied in small quantities for the needs of the industrial site and construction base from operating nuclear power plants. However, the sanitary rules [ST TAS 84. Sanitary requirements for the design and operation of district heating systems from nuclear power plants. - M., 1984.] and general provisions for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants [OPB 82. General provisions for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants in the design, construction and operation. - M., 1982.] regulates the supply of heat in steam to external consumers. For example, at NPPs with VVER reactors, steam can be supplied from an auxiliary collector or directly from turbine waste, which contradicts clause 3.7 of the sanitary rules: - the communal sector and other consumers) is not allowed ... ". At NPPs with RBMK reactors, steam is released through an intermediate circuit from a “pure” steam generator connected to the first uncontrolled bleed of a high-pressure cylinder. From the steam generator in the nominal operating mode of the turbine, 16 MJ / s of heat and steam with a pressure of 0.6 MPa can be supplied. In this case, the p / p is violated. 4.4.3.1.3 general provisions for ensuring safety: "... The pressure of the heating medium must not be lower than the pressure of the heating medium ...". In modern two-circuit NPPs, such properties are possessed by the main steam flow in the turbine unit after passing through the separators - steam superheaters (SRH). However, its use as a heating medium leads to a significant underproduction of electricity, therefore, the feasibility of creating such steam supply schemes is not obvious, and detailed technical and economic studies are necessary.

In this regard, the search for new solutions that make it possible to use already mastered nuclear energy sources for the purposes of industrial heat supply is of particular relevance. One of the ways to create systems is to use a coolant in the industrial circuit that is different from water, for example, an inert gas or an organic compound. In this case, it is necessary to conduct both technical and economic studies to determine their competitiveness in comparison with alternative options for steam supply, and special studies confirming the technical feasibility of creating and operating these systems for supplying steam from nuclear power plants.

Another solution, the most technically prepared at present, is the use of high-temperature network water for the transport of heat from nuclear power plants with subsequent production of steam in local steam generators. The role of such a steam generator can be water vapor converting installations. The use of this scheme makes it possible to cover a significant number of consumers, however, even at a sufficiently high temperature of the network coolant supplied from the station (≈ 170 ° C), saturated steam with a pressure of no more than 0.6 MPa can be obtained in the local loop of the enterprise, which significantly limits the possibilities the use of such a steam supply scheme. The use of this steam supply scheme is currently difficult for a number of reasons:

❏ lack of technological equipment of the required capacities;

❏ insufficient study of the regime issues of heat supply from nuclear power plants;

❏ the need to select the appropriate ratio of steam and water loads in the register, etc.

The method of satisfying the steam load from the NPP according to the scheme with "Fire" heating... A prerequisite for considering such schemes is the widespread use of fossil-fueled steam boilers in steam supply systems for industrial consumers. In this case, the nuclear power plant releases heat in the form of hot water. Part of it goes to the municipal heating system, part - to the modified steam boiler houses on organic fuel. There it evaporates, if necessary, the resulting steam is overheated and supplied to consumers. With such an organization of a steam boiler house, there is no need to use organic fuel for heating water in regeneration systems and economizers. In the widespread DKVR steam boilers, the supply of feed water with a temperature of 170 ° C to the boiler unit with the simultaneous replacement of the economizer with an air heater saves up to 25% of the consumption of fossil fuel.

In fig. 3.2 shows a schematic diagram of a heat treatment plant for a nuclear power plant with a VVER reactor. An intermediate circuit is connected between the reactor 17 and the superheater. The superheater produces "clean" steam. This greatly simplifies the scheme and equipment of the heat-heating unit of the NPP, since the steam spent in the turbine can be directly used in heating water heaters 5-7. In connection with the placement of nuclear power plants at considerable distances from cities, it is economically justified to significantly increase the design temperature in the supply line of the transit main (collector 16) in order to reduce the design flow rate of the coolant, the diameters and the number of heat pipelines. Therefore, in a number of cases, for heating the network water, steam of a higher pressure (0.6 0.8 MPa) is used from the separation compartment, in which a steam separator 21 and an intermediate superheater 36 are installed on the main steam flow.

Rice. 3.2 Schematic diagram of a heat treatment plant for a nuclear power plant (NTPP) with a VVER reactor: 1 - steam generator; 2 - steam turbine; 3 - electric generator; 4 - capacitor; 5 - 7 - cogeneration heaters, respectively, of the lower, middle and upper stages; 8 - booster pump; 9 - network pump; 10 - chemical water treatment; 11 - make-up water deaerator; 12 - make-up pump; 13 - make-up regulator; 14 - chemical water treatment pump; 15, 16 - return and supply manifolds of network water; 17 - nuclear reactor; 18 - volume compensator; 19 - intermediate circuit pump; 20 - condensate pump; 21 - moisture separator; 22 - regenerative low pressure heaters; 23 - deaerator; 24 - feed pump; 25 - - high pressure regenerative heaters; 26 - superheater; 27 - reducers; 28 - - medium pressure regenerative heaters.

A schematic diagram of the heat treatment plant of a nuclear heat supply station (AST) is shown in Fig. 3.3.

Rice. 3.3. Schematic diagram of a heat treatment plant of a nuclear heat supply station (AST): 1 - nuclear reactor; 2 - the second circuit; 3 - heating water heater; 4 - volume compensator; 5 - secondary circuit pump: 6 - mains pump; 7 - make-up water deaerator; 8 - heating network; 9 - second loop blowdown system; 10 - purified water heater; 11 - blowdown water cooler; 12 - filter; 13 - blowdown system pump; 14 - feed pump of the heating network.

The Gorky nuclear heating plant is one of two nuclear heating plants in our country, the construction of which started in the early 1980s, but was never completed for a number of reasons, including public protests and, of course, the collapse of the Union.
The station was not completed, the reactor plant was not assembled, the fuel was not even thought to be brought ... That is why visiting the facility is completely safe from the point of view of the fear of radiation
Of course, if you do not lose common sense ... because we still managed to find something radioactive =)

Personally, my opinion is that the protests had much less influence on the decision to halt construction than the banal "out of money" characteristic of tens of thousands of unfinished projects throughout Russia and the former republics of the USSR. Because the construction was very active in the post-Chernobyl years (judging by the numerous inscriptions left by the builders), and part of the administrative and laboratory premises of the station had already been put into operation and functioned until the early 90s (calendars and posters on the walls)

I imagined that GAST is a classic unfinished building in the classical sense: metal, concrete and monotonous corridors with ladders (or without ladders). But during the visit, it turned out not quite so.

The construction of the Gorky AST (GAST) began in 1982.
The station was built according to the design of GI VNIPIET and included two power units with AST-500 reactor units with a unit thermal capacity of 500 MW. Each unit was supposed to provide heat supply in the amount of 430 Gcal / h in the form of hot water with a pressure of up to 1.6 MPa and a temperature of up to 150 ° C. It was planned that GAST would supply thermal energy to the Upland part of Gorky. When the GAST was put into operation, it was planned to close about 300 low-efficiency boiler houses of various capacities in the Nagornaya part of the city.

The structure of the DH system based on the main heat source GAST looked as follows:
■ basic heat source - GAST with installed thermal capacity of 1000 MW (2x500 MW);
■ peak boiler houses (PC) - five existing industrial and heating boiler houses with thermal power from 35 to 750 MW;
■ main heating networks - circular with dead-end branches;
■ Distribution heat supply stations (RST) for connecting main heating networks according to dependent and independent schemes.
The total heat load of the upland part of the city, provided by the DH system, was approximately 2380 MW.
Heat output in the DH system based on GAST was planned in the amount of approximately 7.4 GWh, including 5.8 GWh from GAST (78%).
The heat output from the AST to the transit heating networks was provided by a heat carrier - network water with a maximum temperature of 150 ° C at an inlet temperature of 70 ° C in the return pipeline.
Large PCs were provided for "semi-peak" ones with the possibility of issuing free heat power to transit heating networks in parallel with AST
The total length of transit heating networks from GAST is about 30 km. The terrain is variable with absolute marks from 90 to 200 m. The diameters of transit pipelines are 800, 1000 and 1200 mm. Pumping stations were located in the PCT.
When developing a DH system based on GAST, several new technological solutions were applied, including:
1.Quantitative regulation of heat supply in transit heating networks with a constant temperature of the coolant in the supply pipelines: during the heating period - 150 ° C, in the summer - 90 ° C;
2. sequential switching on (off) and changing the thermal power of the PC at heat consumption levels of more than 1000 MW at outdoor air temperatures below +3 ° C;
3. The scheme for connecting a PC to an AST through transit heating networks is parallel, and not traditional sequential for distant heat supply;
4. Accumulation of heat in the make-up water storage tanks (2 tanks 10,000 m3 each) for the stable operation of the GAST.

It should be noted here that for heat supply of the trans-river part of the city of Gorky, taking into account the fact that there are several small industrial cities nearby, the construction of a nuclear power plant with VVER-1000 reactors was proposed for power supply not only of the trans-river part of the city, but also of Dzerzhinsk, Zavolzhye, Pravdinsk, Balakhna and other settlements. Three options for the placement of the nuclear power plant were adopted and a full range of survey work was carried out at all three sites. The corresponding feasibility study was developed by GoTEP in 1986, but these plans remained on paper.

The decisive stages in the construction of the GAST coincided with the Chernobyl events, the subsequent "breaking" of the power structures and a fierce political struggle during the "perestroika" period.
In mid-1988, a public movement began in Gorky to stop the construction of the GAST (articles in the local press, demonstrations and rallies with slogans banning the construction of the AST, demands for a referendum).
Could not change the general attitude against GAST and positive conclusion of the international expert examination of the project and the station itself, carried out by the IAEA in 1989. although this examination was undertaken at the request of the public.
The Nizhny Novgorod Regional Council of People's Deputies, taking into account the opinion of the population, opposed the continuation of the construction of the station and in August 1990 made a decision “On the termination of the construction of the GAST”.

In 2006 and 2008, the current Government of the Nizhny Novgorod region made several unsuccessful attempts to initiate the construction of a combined cycle CHPP (electric capacity 900 MW (2x450 MW), heat - 825 Gcal / h) based on the unfinished AST.
Until now, the heat supply of the Nagornaya part of the city, which makes up half of Nizhny Novgorod, is carried out from one large boiler house with a heating capacity of about 700 Gcal / h, two boiler houses of 150 Gcal / h (which were planned to be switched to peak mode when GAST was put into operation) and many small boiler houses. In connection with the intensive construction of housing in recent years, there is a shortage of heat capacity in this part of the city.

But almost immediately, security doors begin to come across - dozens of various security doors, from small hatches to full-size massive seals

Some rooms welcome visitors with complete emptiness or a few lonely pipes somewhere in the corners, but others are filled to capacity.

Each subsequent door seems to lead to a new place - but then suddenly you catch yourself feeling déjà vu. Are we really back to the starting point, or just so it seems?

Again a spacious hall filled with tangles of their rusty pipes, fiberglass and shining stainless steel tanks and valves

A sudden bright spot against the background of gray-rusty corridors

And again the shine of a stainless steel

Many corridors suggesting a giant boiler house (although, in fact, this is it), lead to the part of the complex that had already been put into operation at the time of the freeze of the project

And then there are dozens of rooms for various purposes: from utility rooms and offices to workshops, laboratories and halls with endless rows of gutted computer cabinets. On the walls - posters of those years, on the windows - dry flowers, underfoot - postcards and Soviet agitation.

Shooting at night is not very comfortable because of the risk of being seen from the street: after all, all offices have wide windows ... Therefore, I stop to shoot only control panels, hoping to return again and inspect everything here in detail.

Then, passing posters telling about the necessity and safety of the station, we get to its central hub

The reactor hall is a construction site in the classical sense: it can be seen that something complex and cumbersome should have been assembled here, but the activity ceased at the stage when various elements of the reactor and thermal installations were actually randomly scattered around the hall.

Not having a good idea of ​​the device of just such an installation, it is rather difficult to figure out which of this is what, what purpose it has and what it is screwed on.

But here there are a number of convenient viewing platforms that allow you to look around (and with a flashlight beam) all the available space.

Some parts are still in the packaging - covered with polyethylene or tarpaulin, they attract even more attention than they would just lie there at random

What is usually taken by visitors for, in fact, a reactor is nothing more than just a lid resting on an albeit strange, but completely building stand (you can approach it from below and see it)

This is the so-called "gammarid" type flaw detector head - it is a steel container, in the center of which is a hollow cylinder of depleted uranium (45 mm thick), and an iridium isotope must be placed inside. The thing is pretty fonit, and touching it with your hands (and even more so - dragging it home) is highly discouraged.

Gammarides are still used (in a somewhat more organic design) in the construction of objects such as power and heat plants for "scanning" structures and welds, for early search for defects

So, being satisfied in full and even finding "something firing", but still leaving a firm intention to return, a group of climbers safely, under the barking of dogs and a guard scurrying around somewhere, leaves the complex of the unfinished Gorky nuclear heating plant, thanks to each other for the company and a pleasant time.

Thank you for attention!

At one time, the president of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, Aleksandrov, said that the RBMK reactor (high-power channel reactor) could be installed even on Red Square in Moscow. But they put it in Chernobyl. In this sense, Moscow was simply lucky, because the nuclear scientists were absolutely sincerely convinced of the safety of this type of reactor.

Voronezh seems to be less fortunate. The first nuclear power plant in Russia was built thirty kilometers from the city, the reactors of which have practically reached their end of life and must be shut down within two years.

Back in 1979, another project appeared - to build in Voronezh, eight kilometers from the historical center of the city, the world's first nuclear heating plant. Then the residents of Voronezh came out with a sharp protest, held a referendum and achieved the termination of construction. However, this fall, at the same time as the beginning of the heating season in Voronezh, representatives of the city authorities again started talking about resuscitation of the project for the construction of a nuclear heat supply station.

Our Voronezh correspondent Mikhail Zherebyatyev tells about the history of construction.

Mikhail Zherebyatyev:

In 1979, by the decision of the Union Council of Ministers, the construction of a nuclear boiler plant was launched on the outskirts of Voronezh. At that time, the AST-500 project, developed by the Research Institute of the Atomic Industry in Gorky, was going to be replicated throughout the USSR. Ten years later, on a wave of glasnost, the democratic community of Voronezh demanded that the local authorities abandon the completion of the facility, which caused anxiety among the townspeople, and the authorities sanctioned a plebiscite. On May 15, 1990, a referendum was held in Voronezh on the fate of the atomic stoker. 96 percent voted for the construction and reconstruction of CHP and boiler plants without the construction of a nuclear power plant. But even after the referendum, until the end of 1992, construction work continued at the station.

The 2000 Russian energy crisis led to the intensification of Rosenergoatom's activities in the Voronezh sector. The concern again offered its services to the city. Two billion rubles for the completion of a nuclear boiler house. Another billion - for the development of the infrastructure of heating networks - the city and the region should get themselves.

At the same time, fundamental issues of both economic and environmental nature remain unclear. For example, who will own the facility, under what conditions will the city consume the heat produced by the station? After all, if the AST is a nuclear facility, then, according to the current regulations, it should be located at a distance of thirty kilometers from large settlements.

The most active supporters of the project in Voronezh intend to annul the results of the ten-year-old referendum in court after the December mayoral elections on the pretext that the population voted not against AST, but for the development of a network of boiler houses.

Marina Katys:

To at least a little clarify the position of representatives of local authorities, I called the Deputy Chairman of the Voronezh Municipal Council Vyacheslav Bachurin. Vyacheslav Ivanovich agreed that at present there is no shortage of heat supply in Voronezh. This is due to the economic downturn and the fact that most of the city's large enterprises do not work. However, in the future, when economic growth begins in the region, heat will not be enough.

Are you not embarrassed by the fact that this is the world's first thermal nuclear power plant and there were no trial models, and is immediately being built in the city center?

Vyacheslav Bachurin:

This is far-fetched: that she is the first in the world. In Tomsk-27, or whatever it is, 67, there is an already experimental station that is working. But what is the most important thing in a nuclear power plant? This is a reactor. And this reactor is on the same Kursk nuclear submarine. But he didn’t explode. In an extreme situation, it didn’t explode, did it? But only this is a reactor, the power of which has been reduced tenfold. That is, its reliability increases tenfold.

Marina Katys:

Most of the specialists I have contacted do not see a direct relationship between a decrease in reactor power and an increase in its reliability. But it is quite possible that Vyacheslav Ivanovich has other sources of information.

Alexey Yablokov, President of the Center for Environmental Policy of Russia, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that the Voronezh nuclear power plant has no analogues.

Alexey Yablokov:

There are no nuclear heating plants anywhere in the world. The closest analogue is the use of industrial reactors for the production of plutonium in Tomsk-7 for heating residential areas. A specially made nuclear heating plant does not exist anywhere, nowhere. This is the first project.

Marina Katys:

This is also confirmed by Professor Stanislav Kadmensky.

Stanislav Kadmensky: It was initially planned to build about four nuclear power plants of this type. In a memorandum on this it was written that it would be useful to take the Moscow region as the location of these stations, because Moscow has a shortage of heat, ordinary boiler houses connected with gas or coal cannot cope with this. And even in a political sense, it was useful to build one of the first stations in the Moscow region. But, of course, this project was not implemented, and the first two stations began to build one in Gorky, in Nizhny Novgorod, and the other in Voronezh.

In Gorky, after Nemtsov's victory in the elections, construction was stopped and the station was completely redesigned. This station was under construction in Voronezh, and although a referendum was held in Voronezh, nevertheless, the construction of the station was not stopped.

Marina Katys:

And one of the reasons for this is the hostile attitude of the Voronezh authorities towards environmentalists. Vyacheslav Bachurin simply considers them to be illiterate people and hopes that in this case the Voronezh region will follow the example of France.

Vyacheslav Bachurin:

In France, they took - and legally, these environmentalists were removed. And the future must be judged by the end result. The end result of ecologists is to return to the primitive order. Vernadsky they need to read more. Everything is bad for them. Isn't food bad if you overeat? Yes? And isn't it harmful to drink too much? Isn't smoking harmful?

What is the optimization? Maximum pleasure at minimum cost, right?

Marina Katys:

It is difficult to argue against such a principle of optimizing all processes, however, Mr. Bachurin surprisingly reminds me of one of the characters of the Strugatsky brothers, namely, a professor who worked as a scientific consultant at the Institute of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

As for the cost of building a nuclear heat supply station in Voronezh, this issue has not yet been finally resolved. According to Vyacheslav Bachurin, the project will require ...

Vyacheslav Bachurin:

Probably, with all recalculations - about 3 billion.

Marina Katys:

Is this money from the federal budget, or is the local budget also involved?

Vyacheslav Bachurin:

Well, that's how we agree. If, as you say, this is an experiment that is needed for the whole country, and the whole country should take care of it. If this is our problem, Voronezh, well, we need to get together with Voronezh ... But then we from this nuclear power plant should spend all our energy only on Voronezh. And we don't have to pay any taxes on this station ... Do you understand? So that we do not make extortions from the nuclear power plant later.

Marina Katys:

That is - you want to say that the issue of financing has not yet been finally resolved?

Vyacheslav Bachurin:

Well, he dared. Decided - how? You can finance: Voronezh, for example, Minatom and the country's budget. Like this. Divide all these expenses into three.

Because, well, you understand: Voronezh alone will never be able to handle such construction. What is there to talk about? This has to be extended again for ten years. And it needs to be completed in two and a half years.

Marina Katys:

That is, 2003.

Vyacheslav Bachurin:

Yes, so that the next elections will be warm. Because the nuclear power plant provides one hundred million dollars in savings. One billion cubic meters of gas. Can you imagine what it is? One billion cubic meters of gas.

Marina Katys:

Saving natural gas is, of course, good, although for a start it could well have been limited to repairing urban heating networks, where heat losses currently exceed 50 percent.

Here is what Academician Alexei Yablokov says about this.

Alexey Yablokov:

Novovoronezh nuclear power plant is the oldest nuclear power plant in Russia, well, if not to talk about Obninskaya, which was experimental there. It has two nuclear reactors that were put out of action almost 12 years ago. Now Minatom has made such a decision in the government - to extend the life of existing reactors.

There were several commissions, expert groups with the IAEA (this is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is different in that it never gave any conclusions about the closure of nuclear power plants). IAEA experts said: "It is impossible to bring their security to the level of acceptable Western security by any alterations."

Marina Katys:

This whole venture with a nuclear heating plant, is it caused by a shortage of energy in this region? Why, in fact, they suddenly started talking about the need to build a nuclear heating plant? What, Voronezh cannot be heated in other ways?

Alexey Yablokov:

Analysis of heating systems showed the terrible state of heating systems. Just yesterday I spoke with my colleagues from Voronezh. In heating networks, up to half of the heat that is sent to these heating networks disappears.

The normal economic decision is to repair heating systems. This will save half of the heat that is currently being consumed. And no heating station is needed. This will probably cost ten times less than the construction of a nuclear heat supply station.

Marina Katys:

By the way, in assessing the cost of construction, Academician Alexei Yablokov significantly differs from the Deputy Chairman of the Voronezh Municipal Council Vyacheslav Bachurin.

Alexey Yablokov continues.

Alexey Yablokov:

It will be even more expensive than a conventional nuclear power plant. This means that then it turns out that the construction of an ordinary nuclear power plant is just two or three billion dollars. Dollars, not rubles!

Marina Katys:

These are huge costs. Can the leadership of the Voronezh region participate in such an expensive project?

Alexey Yablokov:

Of course not. We know that Adamov came to Voronezh several times. We know that the governor of the Voronezh region, Shabanov, is the most "pro-nuclear" governor in all of Russia. They want to convince us that there is money, that construction can be started. And when construction starts, they will have an argument: well, construction has begun. Give us more money to continue this construction. This is a typical Soviet-style approach.

Marina Katys:

They would like to complete the construction of a nuclear heating plant and put it into operation by 2003. Is it real at all?

Alexey Yablokov:

This is absolutely unrealistic, 2003. In this regard, I have only one ... in 2003, the service life of these very old nuclear reactors that they have is coming to an end. This is the years 2002-2003. This is what I know.

Marina Katys:

But do not forget that the real cost of this project should include waste disposal. According to experts, the apparent cheapness of nuclear energy in Russia is explained precisely by the fact that Minatom does not take into account the cost of disposing of spent nuclear fuel in its calculations. However, the municipal authorities of Voronezh are not embarrassed by this.

Here is what the deputy chairman of the municipal council Vyacheslav Bachurin says about this.

Vyacheslav Bachurin:

Not only Voronezh is working on these problems, but the whole world. And all the submarines ... How many of them do we have? 150. After all, they are being disposed of, and even more so, now the submarine fleet is being reduced. Disposed of.

Well, there will be one more boat. So what? This is problem? They just artificially inflate the problem and draw attention to it.

Marina Katys:

Professor of Voronezh University, nuclear physicist Stanislav Kadmensky disagrees with this.

Stanislav Kadmensky:

This station replaces conventional fuel (gas, fuel oil) with nuclear fuel. When it started to cost, nuclear fuel was pretty cheap and seemed to be economical. Nowadays nuclear fuel has a rather high price. The very economic profitability of such boiler houses, it is under a very strong question.

The whole world is heated by non-nuclear energy. The whole world is heated with conventional fuel. In America, based on Danish projects, coal-fired thermal stations have been built, which are quite environmentally friendly in the sense that there is preparation of fuel for combustion, filters ... The entire western world is heated - with ordinary fuel.

Marina Katys:

The local authorities are not embarrassed by the results of the referendum held ten years ago.

Professor Kadmensky continues.

Stanislav Kadmensky:

More than 90 percent of those participating in the referendum spoke out against the nuclear power plant. For the time being, its construction was stopped, although not completely. This was the first referendum, perhaps of this nature in Russia, but it was held entirely within the framework of the law.

Now they explain to us that when the referendum was held, there was no law on referendums ...

Marina Katys:

Have your public organizations tried to appeal to the Supreme Court with a demand to stop construction?

Stanislav Kadmensky:

No. The fact is that in our country this is, of course, very ineffective. Such appeals, they are good in order to depict a certain pose or position, or to attract attention to yourself. It doesn't really work.

Marina Katys:

Although, as Academician Yablokov is convinced, the results of the last referendum can only be canceled by another referendum.

Alexey Yablokov:

Recently Putin, speaking about the construction of the Rostov nuclear power plant, said: "Well, of course, you cannot build a plant if there is no full consent of the population." He said something like that.

The results of a referendum can only be canceled by a referendum, and nothing else. Of course, in 1990 there was no law on referendums. The law on referendums appeared in 1995, but nevertheless, since the referendum was held, we have a powerful reason to say: the people are against, the people will not allow the construction of this very station.

Marina Katys:

Moreover, the process of construction of the station, which was repeatedly interrupted, led to inevitable in this case errors in the technology of this construction, and communication equipment has become obsolete over the past decade. In addition, during the construction, significant changes were made to the project, which, from the point of view of Professor Stanislav Kadmensky, is simply unacceptable during the construction of nuclear facilities.

Stanislav Kadmensky:

From the standpoint of the reasonable development of nuclear energy, there should be such a sequence: first, this type of station is built in some city, a nuclear city like our Novo-Voronezh, for example, where this option is being worked out, experience is obtained, and then this station begins to be replicated inside large settlements.

The fact is that, for objective reasons, a nuclear heat supply station should be close enough to the facility that it supplies, otherwise there will be large heat losses on the routes, and so on. Our nuclear power plant should be, well, about eight kilometers from the city center.

But, on the other hand, these stations had no complete analogues in their structure. They say that the analogs of these stations were reactors on nuclear submarines. They brought us as an analogue the VK-50 reactor, which worked or is operating in Dimitrovgrad, but the operating mode of the VK-50 is boiling, but the reactor that is being built in Voronezh is not boiling. There is a difference in pressure, and therefore there is a difference in thermal conditions and so on. The station, as an experimental one, the first station in the world was built without testing in its full version ...

We found out a lot of details related to violation of environmental standards, technological regulations. And most importantly, during the construction process, a change in the project began, which, of course, made an amazing impression on us. This is not a cannery where you can replace one tank with another. And the change in the regime during the construction process is simply a tragic situation, I think, for the construction of the world's first facility of this class.

Marina Katys:

In addition, the construction of a nuclear heating plant in a residential area of ​​the city, and even less than a kilometer from the reservoir, is a direct violation of Russian legislation.

The floor is given to Academician Alexei Yablokov.

Alexey Yablokov:

The heat supply station is located eight kilometers from the center of Voronezh. Well, it's ridiculous to say that it is possible to build a nuclear reactor eight kilometers from the center of a million-strong city. This is prohibited by all existing regulations. Forbidden.

We have a law on atomic energy, a law on radiation safety. There is a law on environmental protection, which spelled out ... There are rules and regulations on how to build nuclear power plants. It stands on the banks of the Tsymlyansk reservoir (a reservoir of federal significance). Nuclear power plants cannot be built on the banks of federal water bodies.

Marina Katys:

However, nuclear heating plants are still somewhat different from conventional nuclear power plants.

Professor Stanislav Kadmensky talks about the fundamental differences between these objects.

Stanislav Kadmensky:

The first difference is that these stations are located inside large cities. The second difference is that the water reactors of the base station, which is the Novovoronezh station, these reactors were quite consistently and intensively tested in these cities. And then they were gradually replicated to other cities and other objects.

We have not seen anything like this in a heat supply station or a nuclear power plant. It immediately began to be built in the city of Voronezh.

Generally speaking, it is safer in design than an electric station. It is less powerful, it contains more outlines, and so on. Well, and, of course, there are differences in the processes themselves that occur in nuclear reactors, and in all heat systems, and not only in the heat systems of reactors. They are different. Safety is enhanced by the fact that - a three-circuit system. (In nuclear power plants - a two-circuit system.)

Nevertheless, the world's first station for operation cannot be built in a city. During the construction process, the project was intensively refined and changed, which, generally speaking, does not fit into any gate.

This is a dangerous facility.

Marina Katys:

But in the Russian Federation there is Gosatomnadzor, whose duties include precisely monitoring compliance with all norms that guarantee the safety of operation of nuclear facilities.

Why does this body not pay attention to the construction in Voronezh? I am talking about this with the President of the Center for Environmental Policy of Russia, Academician Yablokov.

Now, in principle, all processes related to the construction of the Ministry of Atomic Energy are monitored by Gosatomnadzor. Why does he not express any opinions about the construction of a nuclear heating plant in the city of Voronezh?

Alexey Yablokov:

Gosatomnadzor is now in a very difficult situation. A colossal attack is underway on him. The destruction of the State Committee for Ecology and the Forest Service is only the beginning. Now they are trying to take away licensing and control from Gosatomnadzor, according to the draft law, which has already passed government discussion and is in the Duma. Now licensing of nuclear facilities is the prerogative of Gosatomnadzor. Control over nuclear facilities, too. Well, of course, that's what it was created for.

With the amendment to the law on atomic energy, which is now in the State Duma, these functions are transferred to Minatom. Just as it was done in 1995, the functions of Gosatomnadzor control over military reactors were transferred to the Ministry of Defense.

They want to bleed him, this Gosatomnadzor, and then turn it into the administration of the Minatom.

Marina Katys:

Do you want to say that the situation is repeated when the Ministry of Natural Resources was entrusted with the functions of control over its own activities? The same will happen with the Ministry of Atomic Energy, which will control its activities?

Alexey Yablokov:

Well, of course, this scheme is the same.

Marina Katys:

Doesn't the Russian leadership really understand that the closure of Gosatomnadzor, an independent agency that controls all the country's nuclear facilities, will lead to a rather negative reaction in the West?

Alexey Yablokov:

Of course, the West will not remain silent. I even think that the IAEA will oppose it.

By the way, when this issue was just beginning to be discussed, do you know who spoke out in the strongest possible way for the preservation of Gosatomnadzor? The Foreign Office is ours.

Marina Katys:

In conclusion, I will cite a few lines from Alexey Yablokov's book "The Myth of the Safety of Nuclear Power Plants."

"On average on the planet, one person in a million is at risk of dying from a lightning strike every year. This risk is 10 to -6 degrees and is considered acceptable for man-made accidents. According to IAEA Deputy Director General Mr. Murogov, if there are 1,000 operating reactors in the world," then every ten years at nuclear power plants with a fairly high probability there will be severe accidents. Now there are 440 nuclear reactors in the world. "

This is explained by the fact that in Russia there is a centralized system of water heating of buildings, in the presence of which it is advisable to use nuclear power plants to obtain not only electrical, but also thermal energy.

The first projects of such stations were developed back in the 70s of the last century, however, due to the economic shocks that came in the late 80s and tough public opposition, none of them was fully implemented.

Technology issues

At the same time, there is a rational kernel in such an idea. The production of hot water and steam (low-temperature heat) for the needs of cities and industry requires one and a half times more fuel than for generating electricity, while a significant part of the heat is generated by small, inefficient installations that burn the most valuable fuels - oil and gas.

According to some estimates, it is assumed that in the near future the annual consumption of low-temperature heat (it is also called low-grade) will reach very impressive figures. To generate this amount of heat, a huge amount of fuel will have to be burned.

The solution to the problem could be nuclear heating plants - AST. Their main feature is that such a high temperature potential of the primary coolant is not required here, as at a nuclear power plant, because an AST does not need to receive electricity, to receive steam on a turbine, only heat is needed. This, naturally, simplifies the reactor and makes it cheaper to operate. If we talk about water-cooled reactors, then the pressure in them decreases: you need not 160 atmospheres, for example, but 30, that is, much less. This is the first distinctive feature.

In addition, the AST should have such a number of heat-removing circuits so that the radioactive coolant could not get into the heating network in any way. For this, intermediate heat exchangers are built, etc. The parameters and modes of their operation are designed so that the stations fit into the existing networks as additional sources of heat. The creation of such powerful centralized sources makes it possible to dismantle outdated installations operating on fossil fuel, and rather technically advanced, but small ones, to be used at peak loads, which most often occur during the cold season. The ACT itself can take on the basic part of the load.

In terms of controllability, the ACT is a very flexible unit that does not impose any specific requirements on the management of heating networks in terms of regulating heat distribution, which is very important. In principle, ACT can cover the peak load, but for a nuclear power plant, as for any capital-intensive equipment (capital investments are large, and the fuel component is small), the most economical mode of the maximum possible constant power, that is, the basic one.

As experts note, when this issue was discussed in the 70s of the XX century, everyone was in great enthusiasm. It is clear that the use of atomic energy to produce low-temperature heat can have a huge effect. However, such projects had and still have a significant drawback. The fact is that if electrical energy can be transmitted over tens and even hundreds of kilometers without significant losses, then for hot water this is impossible: heat losses in heating mains (especially in ours) are very large. This means that it is advisable to build AST in the immediate vicinity of cities or even within their boundaries. This implies an important requirement: nuclear heating plants must have a much higher level of safety than nuclear power plants.

However, the features of the ACT reactor (the use of natural circulation and integral layout, as well as low pressure inside the vessel) make it possible to successfully solve the safety problem without excessive costs by means of a rather simple design: the presence of a second, safety housing, which does not exclude the possibility of inspecting the main, supporting body, does not weakens the requirements for its reliability, but allows, in case of extreme, unforeseen violations, to completely keep in its volume the entire filling of the reactor and the entire coolant containing radioactive substances.

Experts cite a model of such an extreme event: if the main body ruptures, the internal volume now occupied by the coolant will increase slightly, respectively, the pressure will drop (by about 30 percent), although the water level will decrease, it will still cover the entire core and provide cooling it down. Due to this correspondence between the characteristics of the operating and protective equipment, reliable cooling of the core is ensured.

This technology makes AST more environmentally friendly sources of heat supply than traditional CHP. Therefore, a whole series of such stations was planned in the Soviet Union, and work has already begun on the first stage. However, then Chernobyl struck, later the Soviet Union collapsed, and the plans were not implemented.

Unrealized plans and modern perspectives

The first nuclear power plant to supply heat was the Siberian nuclear power plant in Seversk, Tomsk region. Since 1961, it has supplied, in addition to electricity, and heat. As of the 2000s, reactors provided 30-35 percent of the heat required for heating one of the residential areas of Tomsk, and more than 50 percent for the city of Seversk and the Siberian Chemical Combine. In addition, the ADE-2 reactor operated in our country at the Krasnoyarsk Mining and Chemical Combine, which from 1964 until its shutdown in 2010 supplied heat and electricity to the city of Zheleznogorsk.

Today, only a low-power (48 MW) Bilibino nuclear power plant in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug operates as a nuclear source of heat supply, supplying heat and electricity to the city of Bilibino (about 6 thousand inhabitants) and local mining enterprises.

In the Soviet Union, the construction of two more ASTs began: Voronezh and Gorkovskaya (in present-day Nizhny Novgorod), and the project of the Ivanovskaya AST was completed, the construction of which did not have time to begin. Work ceased at the turn of the 1980s - 1990s. The main thing that they rested on during the closure of the almost completed Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod nuclear heat supply stations was public protests in the face of post-Chernobyl radiophobia. As a result, cities were left without normal heat sources. It is noteworthy that the now late Boris Nemtsov closed the Nizhny Novgorod AST, transferring part of its premises to a distillery.

By the way, these nuclear power plants belonged to the then innovative AST-500 project. In order to ensure high reliability and safety of the reactor plant, the following main technical solutions were laid: natural circulation of the coolant in the primary circuit and a three-circuit diagram of the reactor plant. The integral layout of the primary circuit equipment made it possible to minimize the branching of the circuit and avoid the use of large-diameter pipelines, and the low specific power density of the core contributed to an increase in the reliability of core cooling and a decrease in the level of emergency consequences. In addition, technical solutions ensured the preservation of the core under water during depressurization of the main reactor vessel and the containment of radioactive products due to the use of a double vessel. A high degree of protection of the reactor from accidents was ensured by the use of a new scheme of the heat removal system, in which it is possible to remove the residual energy release even in the event of failure of two out of three loops, as well as through a number of other circuit and layout solutions.

Reincarnation of an idea

So what is it? Can we say that the AST was abandoned solely because the circumstances were unfortunate? Not really. An impartial analysis of the technical and economic indicators of nuclear heat supply stations revealed that they are poorly competitive with fossil-fueled heat sources, because prices for thermal energy are much lower than for electricity. And the payback period of such a station, if built on the terms of a commercial loan, turns out to be very long. In modern Russian conditions, this is a serious disadvantage. But it cannot be said that the creation of nuclear heat supply stations in Russia has been completely abandoned.
There is a variant of a small unattended AST based on the Elena reactor and a mobile (by rail) Angstrem reactor installation.

Finally, now in our country the head floating nuclear power plant "Akademik Lomonosov" is being built, which is planned to be commissioned this fall. Located off the coast of Chukotka, it will replace the capacity of the Bilibino nuclear power plant, which will be decommissioned in 2019. Rosenergoatom plans that Akademik Lomonosov will become far from the only floating power plant, and in the future, similar floating nuclear power plants will appear in other cities of the Far North and the Far East. So the idea of ​​nuclear heat supply stations is alive and well and there are certainly prospects for this direction.

Page 1

Nuclear heat supply stations (ACT) are designed to supply heat for heating, ventilation and hot water supply and are performed according to a three-circuit scheme. In the first (reactor) circuit and in the heating network, a pressure of 1 5 - 2 MPa is maintained, and in the intermediate circuit it is 1 2 MPa. At the same time, overflows of both radioactive water into the heating network and saline water into the reactor circuit are excluded. The intermediate circuit water mode is maintained by purging it in combination with purging the purge water.

Developed domestic nuclear power plants (ACT) consist of two units with a total thermal power of 1000 MW with AST-500 reactors. In order to eliminate the possibility of radioactive substances getting into the hot water flow directed to the heat consumer, the ACT circuit is made in three circuits. In the first loop (reactor), heat exchange occurs with natural circulation of water, the pressure is maintained at 1 6 - 2 MPa. In the second and third circuits, circulation is, of course, forced.

The construction of the first nuclear heating plants (AST) with a thermal capacity of 3600 GJ / h (860 Gcal / h) in Gorky and Voronezh is underway.

At present, nuclear power plants for industrial heat supply are being developed to supply enterprises with process steam with a pressure of 2 MPa and hot water.

In order to cover industrial and mixed industrial heating loads, it is necessary to create special nuclear power plants for industrial heat supply (ASPT), which can receive heat in the form of process steam and hot water.

The energy program of the USSR provides for the creation of nuclear thermal power plants, nuclear heat supply stations and nuclear industrial heat supply stations (ASPT), which will provide significant savings in expensive fossil fuel, on which most CHP plants currently operate.

Nuclear heat supply stations (ACT), which are essentially nuclear steam generators, will apparently begin to be widely introduced as heat sources in the coming years. Currently, two head ACTs are already under construction - near Gorky and Voronezh, each with two reactors (for reasons of redundancy) of 500 MW each. Construction sites are located at a distance of 1 5 - 2 km from the city. These ACTs will provide heat to areas of cities with approximately 300 - 400 thousand inhabitants. By 1990, the construction of such stations will be economically justified for hundreds of settlements in the USSR. ACT will save a large amount of oil, equal to a third of its current production in the country. It is assumed that atomic heat will be twice as cheap as that which is provided by fossil fuel boilers.

The design of nuclear power plants (NPP), nuclear combined heat and power plants (NPP) and nuclear heat supply plants (ACT) with vessel, channel and other types of nuclear reactors is described. The fundamental questions of the technology of work, equipment and the basics of operation are considered. The main attention is paid to the selection of sites for construction, structures of buildings and structures of the NPP complex, protection from radiation, organization of construction work.

1978 - 1980 Initial technical and economic studies were carried out towards the creation of nuclear power plants for industrial heat supply (ASPT), designed to supply consumers with both hot water and steam of various parameters for technological purposes, which could further expand the possibility of replacing organic fuel with nuclear fuel. In the eleventh five-year period, the corresponding developments will be continued and, with favorable technical and economic results, the issue of building the first ASPT will be resolved.

The design features of the reactor vessels, specific operating conditions and increased requirements for the reliability and safety of nuclear power plants of industrial heat supply require a complex of R&D and development work to create norms for strength calculation, develop rules for design and safe operation, general provisions on welding and rules for monitoring welded joints of multilayer vessels. nuclear reactors.

Further centralization of heat supply is envisaged through the construction of predominantly powerful thermal power plants using organic and nuclear fuels, nuclear heat supply stations and large boiler houses.