EnergySolutions has been awarded a four-year contract to design and supply waste management systems for the United Arab Emirates’ first nuclear power plant at Braka. Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) plans four APR14000 reactors at the site, which will be built a Korean-led consortium.
Under the contract EnergySolutions will supply liquid waste processing equipment, including ion exchange and reverse osmosis systems, that will reduce discharges from the project to 18.5Bq/L. These are some of the most stringent regulatory limits in the world.
A spokesman for EnergySolutions told NEI that design work for the Emirates project is already underway and that the first equipment would be destined for the UAE in January 2013.
EnergySolutions has supplied similar treatment systems for many reactor sites in Korea; including the site of Shin Kori 3&4 the first units of APR1400 design, which will serve as the ‘reference plants’ for the UAE project. It has also won contracts to supply waste management systems to the Yangjiang and Haiyang reactor sites in China. (See here for an article that looks in more detail at the system design for Yangjiang.)
As with the China deal, the UAE system will include the portable Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) that is capable of removing ionic impurities and suspended particulate from liquid through ion exchange, chemical pretreatment and deep bed filtration. The low discharge limits for the UAE (18.5Bq/L compared with 37Bq/L for Yangjiang in China), are typical of the international trend to move towards higher levels of cleanliness.
Commenting on the recent contract award Mark Morant, president, global commercial group at EnergySolutions said: “This contract award follows EnergySolutions’ capture of two similar deals in China and sees the Middle East join the USA and Canada, Europe, and Asia as markets for the company’s sector-leading technologies and expertise in nuclear waste processing solutions.”
