ROME (ITALPRESS) – Sogin has opened at the Latina nuclear power plant the construction site where dismantling activities will be carried out on the six steam generators (boilers), the characteristic red cylinders positioned outside the reactor building, which during operation allowed heat to be transferred from carbon dioxide to water, thus producing the steam needed to activate the turbines and produce electricity. This is a particularly complex task because it involves components placed at high altitudes of great dimensions: each boiler is 24 meters high with a diameter of 6, with a total weight of 3,700 tons.Work is currently underway on the construction of confinement structures that will make it possible to isolate and safely maintain, for the duration of the operations, the areas involved in the boilers’ cutting and material handling activities, in relation to the external environment.The project involves the subsequent sectioning of each boiler into nine cylindrical parts, each weighing about 90 tons, proceeding progressively from top to bottom. The technique adopted will be diamond wire cutting, which simultaneously allows the internal components of the steam generator (tie rods, spacers, brackets, plates, etc.) to be sectioned as well. The cylindrical portions will be brought ashore with a special crane and then transferred inside the Materials Processing Station, which has already been built, where the tube bundles will be removed, the outer shell cut into smaller parts and decontaminated with high-pressure water. Much of the operations will be carried out using high-tech robotic systems. Metallic materials from cutting the shroud will be released and destined for recovery, while tube bundles will be treated by melting at a qualified operator, in line with Sogin’s circular economy strategy based on minimizing radioactive waste.
– Sogin press office photo –
(ITALPRESS).
