The government commissioner for the maintenance of the performance of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant reported about the safety requirements and guarantess, environmental licensing and the Environmental Impact Study and the site licensing at the event organized by the Student Association of Energy. He emphasized that during the designing of the reactors one has to pay attention not only to normal and anticipated operational events, but beyond-design and serious accidents as well. Other safety requirements are for example that in a 800 m radius of the reactor no safety measures are needed, or in a 3 km radious there is no need to evacuate the population or to limit food consumption (in other words no transitional measures). Since the incident in Fukushima the nuclear safety requirements have become more strict. The design of the new VVER-1200/491 reactors of Paks correspond to these requirements. This is the so-called „Fukushima-resistant” design (you can read more about the new units’ safety systems here).
Segment of the VVER-1200’s containment

Regarding the lecture’s other main topic, the environmental licensing, dr. Attila Aszódi reported about the experiences of the Hungarian and foreign public hearings, and he also disclosed the main statements of the Environmental Impact Study. Following this he spoke about the site licensing process, and the site investigation and assessment work.

The government commissioner confirmed in his lecture that the actual construction work will begin in 2018 with „pit opening” according to plans, and the new nuclear power plant units will take part in the commercial electricity generation from 2025 and 2026 respectively.