Critical assessment of diversiﬁcation of nuclear fuel for the operating
VVER reactors in the EU
Tomas Vlcek
Energy Security Studies Program, Department of International Relations and European Studies, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Jostova 10, 602
00 Brno, Czech Republic
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 17 January 2016
Received in revised form
15 August 2016
Accepted 16 August 2016
Keywords:
Nuclear fuel fabrication
VVER reactor design
OAO TVEL
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC
EU supply security
a b s t r a c t
The current pressure for the diversiﬁcation of nuclear fuel for VVER reactors in the EU is traceable to the
proposed European Energy Security Strategy of May 2014, and to the recent Euratom call for the licensing
of non-Russian fuel for VVER reactors won by a Westinghouse-led group in June 2015. The VVER-440 fuel
market is monopolized by Russia's OAO TVEL, and this development indeed is related to the supply
security of the EU's VVER-440 ﬂeet. But the evidence shows that only Slovakia's NPPs can effectively
diversify the fuel for the VVER-440 ﬂeet, as Slovakia is the only country without long-term contractual
obstacles to changing suppliers. The European Commission is thus supporting primarily the diversiﬁcation
activities of the Slovak Republic.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Utilities in the European Union are under marked pressure to
diversify their nuclear fuel supply sources. This is especially true
with regard to supplies for plants built using Russian VVER reactor
design technology. The urgency stems from a priority contained in
the proposed new European Energy Security Strategy (EESS), which
dates to May 2014, and calls for reducing EU dependence upon
external suppliers. Nuclear energy is to play a major role in this
effort: the pressure to diversify is prompted by the guarantee of
energy security that such diversiﬁcation would afford. Euratom
opened call NFRP-16-2015 to support the licensing of Western
nuclear fuel for reactors in VVER units in December 2013, with an
application deadline of November 2014. Six months later, Westinghouse
Electric Company LLC led a group that won V2 million in
backing from the EU to diversify nuclear fuel supplies to these reactors,
with a focus on licensing alternative nuclear supplies for
Russian-designed pressurized water reactors operating inside the
EU.
This is not to say that the notion of diversifying nuclear fuel
supplies for VVER units is completely fresh: in the Euratom Supply
Agency's 2013 Annual Report, concern was raised about ‘100%
reliance on a single supplier for VVER fuel fabrication’ [1]. And
indeed this same wording appeared in the 2014 Annual Report and
is expected in succeeding reports. But the concern is nowhere to be
found in any annual report prior to 2013; it emerged at the same
time a grant scheme was put in place to support the licensing of
alternative nuclear fuel sources. In 2003e04, long before the most
recent Report of the Advisory Committee to the Euratom Supply
Agency on the Analysis of Nuclear Fuel Availability at the EU Level
from the Security of Supply Perspective [2], a comparable committee
had been at work on a similar topic. Its report, rendered
irrelevant by the EU enlargement, was forgotten almost immediately
[3]. But the current 2015 Advisory Committee Report is
basically an enhanced version of that 2005 Report using the same
methodology.
Abbreviations: AP, Advanced Passive e designation of Westinghouse Electric
Company LLC's Pressurized Water Reactor design; BNFL, British Nuclear Fuels
Limited Ltd; CEE, Central and Eastern Europe; CNNC, China National Nuclear Corporation;
EC, European Commission; EESS, European Energy Security Strategy; EPR,
European or Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor e designation of AREVA SA's Pressurized
Water Reactor design; EU, European Union; IUEC, International Uranium
Enrichment Centre; LEU, Low Enriched Uranium; LLC, Limited Liability Company United
States-speciﬁc form of a private limited company; LTA, Lead Test Assembly;
NPP, Nuclear Power Plant; OAO, Open joint-stock company (Открытое Aкционерное
Oбщество) e type of a private limited company in the Russian Federation; PWR,
Pressurized Water Reactor; USEC, United States Enrichment Corporation; VVER,
Water-Water Energetic Reactor (Водо-Водяной Энергетический Реактор) e designation
of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation's Pressurized Water Reactor
design.
E-mail address: tomas.vlcek@mail.muni.cz.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Energy Strategy Reviews
journal homepage: www.ees.elsevier.com/esr
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2016.08.006
2211-467X/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Energy Strategy Reviews 13-14 (2016) 77e85
Additionally, a 2009 journal article by Geoffrey Rothwell in
Energy Economics [4] examined whether fuel fabrication services
were reliable, concluding ‘While generic LEU fuel capacity has been
shown to be competitive, suppliers of some fuel types, such as fuel
for the VVERs, could be less competitive, and rents could be
extracted from customers.’ And in 2011, a superbly researched
report by the Paciﬁc Northwest National Laboratory entitled
‘Redundancy of Supply in the International Nuclear Fuel Market:
Are Fabrication Services Assured?’ [5] stated that 32 reactors in six
countries are most vulnerable to delays in the fabrication of nuclear
fuel. In the event of a 90-day outage at the primary supplier, such
delays might extend from 50 to 70 days. None of these reactors is of
VVER design. The reactor types are: the Korean Standard Nuclear
Plant (KSNP), KSNP System 80þ, B&W Lowered Loop, Framatome
1450-N4, Combustion Engineering System 80, Combustion Engineering
System 80-, CNP 600, and BWR-1. It should be noted,
however, that such delays would have a limited impact on NPP
operation: NPP operators usually stockpile fuel assemblies in
numbers adequate for at least one full fuel campaign (i.e. enough
for at least one year).
Interest in the topic area does, then, extend partially back to the
past. But it is only recently that this interest has risen abruptly. The
task of this article will be to analyse the reasons behind the efforts
currently being made to understand the issue, and to examine why
they have been focused exclusively on the fabrication and licensing
of fuel. Also explored is whether these efforts could in fact positively
impact supply security within the EU's nuclear industry, and
what the real reasons are that pressure is being applied to diversify
nuclear fuel supply sources in the industry.
What follows is broken down into several sections. The ﬁrst is
entitled Research Framework and Basic Presumptions, and considers
the Nuclear Fuel Cycle approach and why discussion should
be limited to the Fabrication step of the cycle. This chapter lays out
the ﬁeld and sets the boundaries for subsequent assessment in the
next section. It also provides the reader with an assessment of the
EU supply security within the VVER fuel market segment. The
ensuing section discusses the results and provides a critical analysis,
an alternative explanation, and additional ﬁndings. The
Conclusion then summarizes what has been said.
2. Research framework and basic presumptions
The most common method used for analysing issues related to
nuclear energy invokes the steps of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle. This
approach is widely recognized [see Refs. [6e13] for its ability to aid
understanding and analysis by dividing the entire nuclear energy
process into three primary progressive phases and then subdividing
these phases further into individual steps. The three primary
phases are: the Front End, the Service Period, and the Back End.
These phases track the process from the initial mining of ﬁssile
materials to their ﬁnal disposition underground. The steps that
precede the insertion of nuclear fuel into the reactor are referred to
as the Front End; those that take place after the fuel is removed
from the reactor are referred to as the Back End [9]; and the Service
Period is the actual ‘fuel campaign’, i.e., the period of time during
which the fuel is in use in the operating reactor. The limitation of
this approach lies in the fact that it considers only steps related to
ﬁssile elementsdconstruction of the nuclear power plant and the
investment in it are left out of the picture. Since this paper aims to
analyse the diversiﬁcation of nuclear fuel supplies, the Service
Period and Back End are excluded from the analysis; the production
of nuclear fuel relates only to the Front End phase. The phase is
itself further divided into four steps: Uranium Production, Conversion,
Enrichment, and Fabrication [8,10].
When it comes to uranium production, the popular view is that
physical supplies are under pressure and form a source of concern
to the EU. But this is unfounded. Although global uranium production
forecasts based upon current prices and levels of demand
indicate supplies will run out in 95 years, when one adds in all of
the envisaged conventional uranium resources, the estimate
stretches to 300 years [10]dand this still leaves out of consideration
unconventional sources such as uranium extracted from
seawater, phosphate deposits, black shale, etc., and secondary
sources like stockpiles, reprocessed uranium, re-enriched uranium
tails, weapons-grade uranium, plutonium, thorium, and so on. If
nuclear plants continue to be constructed, uranium demand will
rise, and the price will likely follow suit. In all probability, this will
have the beneﬁt of stimulating uranium extraction from deposits
and sources that are not yet viable economically.
Uranium is, after all, a globally traded commodity whose characteristics
are not dependent upon source. It is a naturally occurring
mineral, produced in 21 different countries in 2011e13 [14], and
since the beginning of world industrial production and use, production
has exceeded requirements (including for military purposes)
by roughly 20% [14]. In addition, both the Conversion and
the Enrichment portions of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle include overcapacities,
with nameplate capacity exceeding demand by more
than 10% (13% for Conversion and 12% for Enrichment in 2014) [15].
These overcapacities might even grow due to market developments,
especially due to reduced demand by the still-ofﬂine
Japanese reactors. The character of the enrichment trade is such
that the industry will construct new capacity once long-term
contracts are in place. There is, therefore, no indication of any potential
supply constraints at this stage of the process. It must be
stressed that both Conversion and Enrichment are globally traded
on functioning markets; seven companies are active in the conversion
end and six in the enrichment end [16]. Any one of them
could replace any other, since their production inputs and outputs
are interchangeable (natural uranium oxide is an input for Conversion
and enriched uranium oxide an output of Enrichment; UF6
gas is an input for Enrichment and an output of Conversion). Utilities
may meet their requirements using any of these companies
(with the exception of Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited, whose capacity
is minuscule) with no technological constraints.
Fabrication, however, as the last step in the Front End of the
Nuclear Fuel Cycle, differs from the preceding steps since it is a
bespoke high tech service rather than a commodity. Various types
of nuclear fuel assembly exist for varied reactor technologies. But
even when the technologies concerned are identical, fuel campaigns
may differ in length, and there may be differences in the
adjustments made to individual reactors or in their modernization.
Fuel is manufactured on the basis of public tenders that specify the
product in detail. When it comes to VVER technology, it is true that
the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation subsidiary OAO
TVEL has a near monopoly position within the CEE region and in
markets around the globe (see Table 1). But this is not a planned
policy outcome: it is a legacy of the competition between Western
and Russian fuel producers that dates to the Cold War period, when
VVER technology evolved in parallel with Western technology. In
both systems, the main fuel producers were the suppliers, and
technology providers had relatively closed markets. Twenty-ﬁve
years later, each side has learned about the other's markets and
has begun to compete in them.
By examining the methodological division into four steps, then,
our analysis shows that the current pressure for the diversiﬁcation
of nuclear fuel sources in the European Union basically concerns
only the Fabrication segment of the Front End of the Nuclear Fuel
Cycle. For the three preceding steps, diversiﬁcation is adequate and
there are functional markets that will allow further diversiﬁcation if
necessary. This is not true, though, of the ﬁnal step. With the
T. Vlcek / Energy Strategy Reviews 13-14 (2016) 77e8578
Table 1
Operating VVER design nuclear units outside the Russian Federation.
Country Reactor Type In operation from End of life-cycle Fuel supplier Fuel contract until
Operating VVER design nuclear units inside the European Union
Bulgaria Kozloduy 5 VVER-1000/V-
320
1987 2017a
OAO TVEL 2020
Kozloduy 6 VVER-1000/V-
320
1991 2019a
OAO TVEL 2020
Czech Republic Dukovany 1 VVER-440/V-213 1985 not seth
OAO TVEL 2028
Dukovany 2 VVER-440/V-213 1986 2016a
OAO TVEL 2028
Dukovany 3 VVER-440/V-213 1986 2016a
OAO TVEL 2028
Dukovany 4 VVER-440/V-213 1987 2017a
OAO TVEL 2028
Temelín 1 VVER-1000/V-
320
2000 2020 OAO TVEL 2020
Temelín 2 VVER-1000/V-
320
2002 2022 OAO TVEL 2020
Finland Loviisa 1 VVER-440/V-213 1977 2027 OAO TVEL 2027c
Loviisa 2 VVER-440/V-213 1980 2030 OAO TVEL 2030c
Hungary Paks 1 VVER-440/V-213 1982 2032 OAO TVEL 2032
Paks 2 VVER-440/V-213 1984 2034 OAO TVEL 2034
Paks 3 VVER-440/V-213 1986 2016a
OAO TVEL 2016d
Paks 4 VVER-440/V-213 1987 2017a
OAO TVEL 2017d
Slovak Republic Jaslovske Bohunice V2 1 VVER-440/V-213 1984 2024a
OAO TVEL 2021
Jaslovske Bohunice V2 2 VVER-440/V-213 1985 2025a
OAO TVEL 2021
Mochovce 1 VVER-440/V-213 1998 2028 OAO TVEL 2021
Mochovce 2 VVER-440/V-213 2000 2030 OAO TVEL 2021
Operating VVER design nuclear units outside the European Union
Armenia Metsamor 2 VVER-440/V-270 1980 2026 OAO TVELb
2026
China Tianwan 1 VVER-1000/V-
428
2006 2046 OAO TVEL 2023e
Tianwan 2 VVER-1000/V-
428
2007 2047 China Jianzhong Nuclear Fuel Company, Ltd. (CNNC) 2047e
India Kudankulam 1 VVER-1000/V-
412
2013 2073 OAO TVEL 2073f
Kudankulam 2 VVER-1000/V-
412
2016 2076 OAO TVEL 2076f
Iran Bushehr 1 VVER-1000/V-
446
2011 2071 OAO TVEL 2021
Ukraine Rivne 1 VVER-440/V-213 1980 2030 OAO TVEL 2030g
Rivne 2 VVER-440/V-213 1981 2031 OAO TVEL 2030g
Rivne 3 VVER-1000/V-
320
1986 2016a
OAO TVEL 2030g
Rivne 4 VVER-1000/V-
320
2004 2034 OAO TVEL 2030g
Khmelnitsky 1 VVER-1000/V-
320
1987 2017a
OAO TVEL 2030g
Khmelnitsky 2 VVER-1000/V-
320
2004 2034a
OAO TVEL 2030g
South Ukraine 1 VVER-1000/V-
302
1982 2023 Westinghouse EC LLC 2020g
South Ukraine 2 VVER-1000/V-
338
1985 2025 Westinghouse EC LLC 2020g
South Ukraine 3 VVER-1000/V-
320
1989 2019 Westinghouse EC LLC 2020g
Zaporizhzhya 1 VVER-1000/V-
320
1984 2015a,i
OAO TVEL 2030g
Zaporizhzhya 2 VVER-1000/V-
320
1985 2016a,i
OAO TVEL 2030g
Zaporizhzhya 3 VVER-1000/V-
320
1986 2016a
OAO TVEL 2030g
Zaporizhzhya 4 VVER-1000/V-
320
1987 2017 OAO TVEL 2030g
Zaporizhzhya 5 VVER-1000/V-
320
1989 2019 OAO TVEL 2030g
Zaporizhzhya 6 VVER-1000/V-
320
1995 2025 OAO TVEL 2030g
Note: Research and school reactors not included. 'End of life-cycle' ﬁgures depict the situation as of August 2016.
Source: [19]; public sources; company information; compiled by T. Vlcek.
a
Reactors where procedures for extending the life-cycle are in progress.
b
All fuel has been supplied by OAO TVEL, but this incurred signiﬁcant foreign debt. As a result, the plant has been operated by a subsidiary of the Russian ZAO INTER RAO
UES since 2003. Proﬁts from the sale of electricity generated by the NPP have gone to pay off those debts ever since.
c
The Loviisa NPP signed a contract with OAO TVEL in 2007 after 1999e2007 period, when 50% of the fuel was supplied by BNFL.
d
The Paks NPP signed a contract with OAO TVEL in 1999 and the contract is valid for the lifetime of the reactors, including new service life extensions.
e
In 2010, OAO TVEL and China National Nuclear Corporation signed a contract for nuclear fuel deliveries of Russian TVS-2M fuel for Tianwan 1 (to begin in 2014, with fuel
for six reloads made at the Novosibirsk plant in Russia). TVS-2M fuel for the second unit will be made in China at Yibin using Russian technology and zirconium components.
f
Under a cooperation framework with the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, OAO TVEL supplies nuclear fuel for Kudankulam NPP Units 1 and 2 under a life-cycle
contract.
T. Vlcek / Energy Strategy Reviews 13-14 (2016) 77e85 79
exception of three reactors at the South Ukraine NPP, OAO TVEL is
the supplier of nuclear fuel for every reactor of VVER design.
3. Analysis of the supply security of VVER reactors in the EU
Five EU member countries currently possess VVER reactorsdBulgaria,
the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Slovak Republic,
and Finland. Four use exclusively Russian technology in their nuclear
ﬂeet. In Finland, there are two Western reactors in operation
(designed by Asea Atom Ab, now Westinghouse Electric Company
LLC) at Olkiluoto, in addition to two VVER-440 units at Loviisa. The
share of total electrical production in these countries attributable to
nuclear is high: 57.5% in the Slovak Republic, 49% in Hungary, 33.9%
in Finland, 33.3% in the Czech Republic as of 2014 [17], and 30.7% in
Bulgaria as of 2013 [18]. In the European Union as a whole, nuclear
power plants are responsible for 26.9% of electricity production
[15].
These proportions are considerable, and the importance of nuclear
energy is evident. Any interruption of electricity production
from nuclear in these countries would have clear negative ramiﬁcations
for national economies and potentially for national security,
as well as for the stability of the European electricity market itself.
And electrical production on such a scale would be immensely
difﬁcult to supplant from sources elsewhere.
Since the nuclear sector is considered strategic, all NPP operators
are state-owned, although not always wholly. According to the
public sources of information available for each operator, state
ownership shares are as follows: the Republic of Bulgaria (100%)
through Bulgarian Energy Holding, the Ministry of Finance of the
Czech Republic (69.78%) through CEZ, a.s., the Ofﬁce of the Prime
Minister of Finland (50.76%) through Fortum Oyj, Privatisation and
State Holding Company Ltd. of Hungary (100%) through MVM
Group, and the Ministry of the Economy of the Slovak Republic
(34%) through Slovenske Elektrarne, a.s [19]. Unexpected outages
would thus have a strong negative impact as well on the states'
asset values and tax income.
All the nuclear power plants shown in Table 1 are supplied with
fuel by OAO TVEL. In fact, OAO TVEL is the supplier for all VVER
design reactors worldwide, with the exception of three units at the
South Ukraine NPP. The Euratom Supply Agency understands the
importance of the security of supply, mandating that there should
always be at least two alternative fuel designs from two different
suppliers qualiﬁed for each reactor [2]. Within the VVER design,
one must distinguish among three evolutionary types. Westinghouse
Electric Company LLC is the sole alternative supplier for the
VVER-440 and the VVER-1000. For the former design, the company
has had no operating contract since 2007 and has no license anywhere
in the world; for the latter, it has a running contract in
Ukraine. There will be a second alternative supplier for the VVER-
1000 in the near future, the China National Nuclear Corporation
(CNNC), but only for the Chinese market. Finally, there is no alternative
supplier for the new VVER-1200 reactors. The situation is
described in detail in Table 2.
Westinghouse has its own fuel design for the operation of VVER-
1000 reactors. Since it supplies the South Ukraine NPP, and since it
has recently been awarded a new contract to deliver Fuel Test
Assemblies to the Zaporizhzhya NPP [20], its product may be seen
as competitive, with its owndalbeit smalldmarket being developed.
From the Euratom Supply Agency's perspective, then, there is
an alternative fuel design from a different supplier available that is
qualiﬁed for the VVER-1000 reactor family. When it comes to the
VVER-440 family, however, the situation is different. The last time
an alternative fuel design was licensed was in 2008 in Hungary, and
the lost market share is a considerable obstacle in the way of reentering
the market.
Unlike with other power plants, the price of nuclear fuel accounts
for only about 26% of the maintenance and operating budget
of NPPs. (With coal, by contrast, the fuel price makes up about 80%
of running costs; with gas and oil, more than 90%.) This makes
nuclear plants also much less vulnerable to ﬂuctuations in the price
of nuclear fuel: a 50% rise in price will only increase electricitygenerating
costs by roughly 2% [10]. Changes to the fuel price are
thus negligible, with no substantial impact on NPP operating costs.
In spite of this, nuclear power plant operators are pushing hard
to save money on fuel, since they see it as a cost they can inﬂuence
[10]. What stands in the way of their accepting a lower price from
western suppliers able to beat OAO TVELdone that they would
otherwise be happy to taked is that they are risk-averse. The
quality of fuel used in NPP production is criticaldthe ﬁnancial
implications of reduced plant performance or unplanned outages
would quickly outweigh any beneﬁt to be gotten from lower fuel
prices. Companies would forfeit income for electricity production
and face ﬁnes from transmission system operators for outages. It is
the sense of caution this provokes that is a major hindrance to the
EU's plans to encourage the diversiﬁcation of nuclear fuel supplies.
An additional factor is that many utilities have been doing their
own research on optimal fuel performance and implementing the
results in fuel designs using standard customer-supplier contracts.
They operate with unique fuel types. This is the case, for example,
with the Dukovany NPP in the Czech Republic, which started using
the new Gd-2Max þ fuel type in 2015 (becoming the ﬁrst OAO TVEL
fuel type to use uranium pellets with no central cooling hole), and
with the Paks NPP in Hungary, which began using the Gd-2_4.7 fuel
type (a Hungarian innovation developed with international cooperation)
the same year [21]. The effort and funding invested in this
development are unlikely to be compensated by licensing an
alternative supplier.
It is here that Euratom makes its entrance. The Euratom funding
noted earlier is targeted directly at diversifying the VVER-440 fuel
market by qualifying a second supplier for the EU's VVER-440
reactor ﬂeet. The program will chieﬂy focus on establishing the
methods and methodology required to license a VVER-440 fuel
design [22]. The EU Community Research and Development Information
Service remarked as follows:
“State-of-the-art methods will be veriﬁed against an extensive
database, including operating experience from several VVER-440
reactors as well as a number of other reactor designs and a wide
range of operating conditions. The ability to accurately predict the
fuel behaviour will be improved and thereby also the safety margins.
New knowledge as well as identiﬁcation of needs of technology
development and improvements will be created in the ﬁelds
of technologies for mechanical design, thermo-mechanical fuel rod
g
Ukraine's State Concern Nuclear Fuel sells natural uranium to JSC IUEC (International Uranium Enrichment Centre) in Russia for enrichment, while OAO TVEL fabricates
fuel assemblies and supplies them to DP NNEGC Energoatom (National Nuclear Energy Generating Company Energoatom, operator of all nuclear power plants in Ukraine); as
the Ukrainian share of IUEC capacity is very low, DP NNEGC Energoatom signed a long-term contract until 2030 with OAO TVEL for all 15 reactors at a substantial discount;
Ukraine's diversiﬁcation efforts led to Westinghouse Electric Company LLC supplying VVER design fuel assemblies for the South Ukraine NPP; after the Russian annexation of
Crimea, the contract with Westinghouse was extended until 2020.
h
In March 2016, Dukovany NPP Unit 1 was licensed for continued operation subject to ongoing reporting.
i
A draft decision of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine for lifetime extensions of Zaporizhzhya NPP Unit 1 and Unit 2 until 2025 was issued in May and
August 2016.
T. Vlcek / Energy Strategy Reviews 13-14 (2016) 77e8580
design, and safety analysis for VVER fuel. In addition to the technological
advances, the project will identify the variation in
licensing requirements between the authorities in the different
countries. Through such identiﬁcation, it will become clear that
standardization would be beneﬁcial and will foster a dialogue between
the authorities/regulatory bodies.” [23].
Potentially the biggest single obstacle to fuel market diversiﬁcation
is the license. The utility, not the manufacturer, must apply
for the license to operate the reactor with alternative fuel, a process
which demands documentation and involves the bureaucracy.
Most importantly, it usually requires some operational experience,
either with Lead Test Assemblies or with live operation of the fuel
to be licensed in another reactor. This is the sticking point. Utilities
are generally unwilling to take the risk of reducing their economic
performance by operating with Lead Test Assemblies, and this
makes them hesitant to invest in the licensing process for alternative
supplier. On the other hand, the utilities are keen to have
more types of fuel and more suppliers licensed: to do so could give
them leverage over the nuclear fuel price and guarantee the security
of supply. As Geoffrey Rothwell noted in a 2009 paper [4]
another reason for licensing more fuel types and suppliers is that
the failure of one reactor may lead to forced shutdowns in others. In
a later report, the Euratom Supply Agency came to the same
conclusion [2]. The local nuclear safety authorities might in extremis
not allow the use of fuel assemblies that have suffered serious
malfunctions in other reactors elsewhere.
The Euratom grant for the Westinghouseeled consortium
should make the licensing process cheaper and easier, and thereby
allow utilities to license alternative fuel for their operating reactors.
It is aimed at ﬁnding synergies by screening the licensing process in
the countries where the VVER ﬂeet operates and synthesing a
common basis for the process that is consistent across countries.
The countries might then share the costs of the licensing basis, as it
will be applicable in each.
The company plans to build on the Nova E-3 fuel type originally
designed for Loviisa and Paks NPPs, and after necessary modernization
to re-enter the VVER-440 fuel market. The Nova E-3 fuel was
developed by BNFL in the early 1990s at the request of operators in
Finland and Hungary, who wanted an alternative supply at a time of
economic uncertainty in Russia [24,35].
With all this said, the connection to the Euratom Supply Agency's
understanding of the security of supply, as well as the
connection to the Euratom diversiﬁcation grant is crystal clear.
Current diversiﬁcation pressure is truly rooted in efforts to the
enhance supply security of VVER reactors in the EU.
4. Discussion of results
As has been noted, the sole alternative manufacturer of fuel for
the VVER-440 and VVER-1000 reactor ﬂeets is Westinghouse
Electric Company LLC. Since it is the sole such manufacturer, immediate
objections have been raised to the funding Euratom has
provided the company. The ﬁnancing provided amounts to direct
support, and given that the point of the funding program is to
encourage the diversiﬁcation of nuclear fuel supplies for VVER reactors,
is in obvious contradiction to EU legislation.
Much evidence suggests this criticism is just. Westinghouse is
the only company with the technology, experience, and capability
to manufacture VVER-type nuclear fuel. But the company is facing
trouble on several fronts in the marketplace. We have already noted
Table 2
Alternative fabricators of VVER design nuclear units fuel.
Reactor
type
Company Previous experience Current contracts Operational experience and limitations
VVER-
440
Westinghouse
Electric
Company LLCa
Nova E-3 fuel type for Loviisa NPP Unit 1 (Finland) in 1998e2007 e The fuel performed in accordance with expectations
during operation. BNFL signed a contract with Finnish
NPP operator IVO and Hungarian Paks NPP in 1996 for the
design, development, licensing and supply of test fuel
assemblies for the VVER-440 reactor at Loviisa NPP. At
the same time, Hungarian Paks NPP was considering
using an alternative supplier for at least one reactor. But
no BNFL fuel was ever loaded into Hungarian reactors
(likely because of the Hungarian-Russian contract for fuel
supply until the end of plant's life-cycle) and BNFL's fuel
was licensed in Hungary only until 2008.
VVER-
1000
Westinghouse
Electric
Company LLC
VVANTAGE-6 fuel type for Temelín NPP (Czech Republic) in 2000
e2009; VVANTAGE-6 (TVS-W) fuel type for South Ukraine NPP
(Ukraine) in 2009e2014; TVS-RW fuel type for South Ukraine
NPP since 2015
South Ukraine
NPP (Ukraine)
until 2020
Temelín NPP experienced massive malfunctions related
to the geometric stability of the fuel that eventually led to
premature unloading of all of Westinghouse's fuel
assemblies despite ﬁnancial losses, and replacement with
TVEL fuel. Problems with fuel recurred in Ukraine to a
lesser extent, but still enough to cause a lengthy
unscheduled outage at two of the units, which eventually
led to technological adjustments to the fuel and
consequent relabeling to Robust (TVS-RW).
China National
Nuclear
Corporation
(CNNC)
e Tianwan NPP
(China) until the
end of plant's life-
cycle
As part of the 2008 contract with TVEL and CNNC, TVEL
sold production technology for TVS-2M fuel for VVER-
1000 units. China's Yibin fabrication plant will thus
produce the fuel for Tianwan Units 1 and 2 and future
Units 3 and 4 (currently under construction) from fourth
refuel onwards. The contract is for Tianwan NPP only.
VVER-
1200
e e e e
Source: public sources; company information; compiled by T. Vlcek.
a
This contract was operated by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), owner of Westinghouse Electric Company LLC between 1999 and 2006. All Westinghouse's nuclear
power business was restructured by BNFL, including ABB Group's nuclear power business, bought and merged into Westinghouse in 2000. In 2007, BNFL sold Westinghouse
Electric Company LLC to Toshiba Corporation and Toshiba sold shares of the company to minorities (20% to The Shaw Group and 3% to Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries
Co. Ltd.; later in 2007 10% to Kazatomprom) leaving the Japanese company with 67% share. When BNFL bought Westinghouse, it was decided that the reload fuel for Loviisa
NPP Unit 1 would be assembled via a manufacturing license by Enusa Industrias Avanzadas, S.A. in Spain instead of at Westinghouse's Springﬁelds plant in UK.
T. Vlcek / Energy Strategy Reviews 13-14 (2016) 77e85 81
the issue of entry barriers to the VVER-440 market. But the company
has also recently lost market share. After the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear disaster, in which a tsunami resulted in three nuclear
meltdowns in Japan in March 2011, Germany declared an
‘Energiewende’. Eight German nuclear power reactors (Biblis A and
B, Brunsbüttel, Isar 1, Krümmel, Neckarwestheim 1, Phillipsburg 1,
and Unterweser) were permanently shut down, and a ninth reactor
followed in June 2015 (Grafenrheinfeld). The remaining eight reactors
have pledged to close down between 2017 and 2022. The
reactors already shuttered got their fuel from Westinghouse, and
their closure meant a 6% loss of market share for the company.
(Currently, the company provides nuclear fuel to 145 plants around
the globe [25]; the loss of nine reactors in 2011 and 2015 is equal to
6% of its customer base.) Of those still awaiting closure, half are
supplied by Westinghouse, which means further loss of market
share and revenues in the future.
In general, major changes in the European nuclear market have
led to a poor market outlook for Westinghouse Electric Company
LLC and the nuclear industry in general. The European Commission's
2011 Stress Tests of European nuclear power plants and the
changing perception of nuclear energy by the general public and
politicians alike after Fukushima have brought about a deceleration
in nuclear development, and future prospects and expectations for
nuclear construction are fairly poor.
Complicating matters further is that the Westinghousedesigned
Ringhals 3 NPP in Sweden handed OAO-TVEL its ﬁrst
real fuel supply contract for a Western PWR in 2012, using the
company's TVS-K fuel, starting with the qualiﬁcation of fuel
manufacture and the supply of four or eight LTAs [26]. This development
suggests that OAO-TVEL will enter the European fuel
market for Western reactor designs in upcoming years, and this
may put pressure on manufacturers' fuel price policies. OAO-TVEL
knows Western technology well: since 1994 it has manufactured
nuclear fuel assemblies for AREVA SA to ﬁt nuclear reactors in
Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.
The notion that OAO-TVEL would gain expertise manufacturing fuel
for Western-designed reactors, thereby making it an alternative
supplier of Western-design nuclear fuel in the future, was pointed
out as early as 2008 [24].
In this difﬁcult environment, Westinghouse Electric Company
LLC needs to enter new markets to stabilize current and future
losses. The marketplace for nuclear fuel within the CEE is relatively
closed and monopolized. The company was initially wellpositioned
because of its experience with VVER fuel assemblies,
but aside from Ukraine, no one other than OAO TVEL is licensed to
provide nuclear fuel in any CEE country. It may therefore seem
suspicious that the 2014 application term for the Euratom grant
coincided with a statement by the company that it ‘could resume
VVER fuel production with an investment of $20 million if allowed
back into the market, [while cautioning] that such a plan would
take at least two years’ [27].
The suspicion seems further backed by comparison of the
markets and business activities of both parent companies. Tables 3
and 4 list Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation's and Westinghouse
Electric Company LLC's nuclear units (VVER and AP1000
designs) currently under construction worldwide.
But there are also almost 30 VVER reactors in preparation,
planned or proposed worldwide (4 units at Ruppur, Bangladesh;
1 at Hanhikivi, Finland; 2 units at Kudankulam, India; 4 units at
Akkuyu, Turkey; 4 units at El Dabaa, Egypt; 2 units at Ostrovets,
Belarus; 2 units in Jordan; 2 units at Paks, Hungary; 1 unit at
Jaslovske Bohunice, Slovakia; 4 units at Ninh Thuận, Vietnam; 2
units at Bushehr, Iran), some in very advanced phases of preconstruction
process, compared to 4e6 AP1000 reactors (1 unit at
Kozloduy, Bulgaria; 3 units at Moorside, United Kingdom; possible
2 units at Khmelnitsky, Ukraine). Rosatom State Nuclear Energy
Corporation's success in expanding its customer portfolio is well in
advance of any other nuclear provider worldwide. AREVA SA's EPR
reactor design was selected as an additional Western company for
the sake of comparison in Table 5. Moreover, 8 EPR reactors (2 units
at Sizewall, United Kingdom; 6 units at Jaitapur, India) are in
preparation, planned or proposed worldwide.
Carefully considered, though, the allegations that Westinghouse
Electric Company LLC is getting special favours seem somewhat
unreasonable. To support the business of a Western nuclear company
by removing market barriers to allow entry to the relatively
small EU market for VVER-440 reactorsdfourteen in operation, two
in constructiondseems nonsensical from at least two vantage
points. First, it normally makes much more sense to support the
expansion of research and development programs and industrial
capacity and capability to allow businesses to position themselves
better for the future. To support the company in such a restricted
segment of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle as nuclear fuel licensing would
seem an ineffective strategy.
It would be much more logical to support the company if there
were strong future business prospects. But, except for Slovakia's
Mochovce NPP Units 1 and 2din potential operation until
2050dand Units 3 and 4 at the same facility, which are currently
under construction, worldwide operation of VVER-440 reactors will
come to a halt around 2030 (see Table 1). As noted above, many of
them use specialized fuel types that require further investment in
Table 3
VVER-design nuclear units under construction outside the Russian Federation.
Country Reactor Type Construction start Expected start-up
Belarus Ostrovets 1 VVER-1200/V-491 2013 2018
Ostrovets 2 VVER-1200/V-491 2014 2020
China Tianwan 3 VVER-1000/V-428M 2012 2018
Tianwan 4 VVER-1000/V-428M 2013 2018
Slovak Republic Mochovce 3 VVER-440/V-213þ 1985, 2008 2017
Mochovce 4 VVER-440/V-213þ 1985, 2008 2018
Note: six VVER design units, two units at Leningrad (VVER-1200), two units at Novovoronezh (VVER-1200), and two units at Rostov (VVER-1000) sites, are under construction
in the Russian Federation.
Source: public sources; company information; compiled by T. Vlcek.
Table 4
AP1000 design nuclear units under construction outside the USA.
Country Reactor Type Construction start Expected start-up
China Sanmen 1 AP1000 2009 2016
Sanmen 2 AP1000 2009 2016
Haiyang 1 AP1000 2009 2016
Haiyang 2 AP1000 2010 2016
Note: four AP1000 design units, two each at the Vogtle and Virgil C. Summer sites,
are under construction in the USA.
Source: public sources; company information; compiled by T. Vlcek.
T. Vlcek / Energy Strategy Reviews 13-14 (2016) 77e8582
research and production of any alternative supplier. This ties to the
fact that for safety and economic reasons the mere existence of a
licensed alternative supplier is unlikely to persuade utilities to
switch sources.
Another argument, this time connected to the future of the
market and Slovakia, comes from examining current nuclear fuel
supply contracts with OAO TVEL (see Table 1). The Dukovany NPP in
the Czech Republic, the Loviisa NPP in Finland, and the Paks NPP in
Hungary all have lifetime fuel contracts with OAO TVEL for all their
VVER-440 units. Only at the Jaslovske Bohunice and Mochovce
NPPs in Slovakia do the contracts expire in 2021. There are thus no
contractual obstacles to changing suppliers in subsequent years,
and the plants will continue in operation well beyond that point: up
to 30 years for Mochovce NPP Units 1 and 2; up to 10 years for
Jaslovske Bohunice V2 Units 1 and 2; and up to 60 years for
Mochovce NPP Units 3 and 4. This prompts the question, is all of the
pressure for diversiﬁcation directed exclusively at the Slovak
Republic?
The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is yes. The evidence noted
conﬁrms this, and Slovak diversiﬁcation efforts in recent years
provide more ballast for the argument. The Slovak Government has
discussed the possibility of cutting dependency on Russian nuclear
fuel, and in November 2014, information emerged about a contract
for uranium fuel supply being signed with a non-Russian company,
but there were no further details. The contract was later speciﬁed to
be for the supply of enriched uranium only, and this product will
still be processed into nuclear fuel elements by OAO TVEL. Supply
began in 2015, and unofﬁcial information suggests that the new
supplier of enriched uranium is AREVA SA [19,28,29].
Additionally, in 2014 Slovakia began a diversiﬁcation effort targeting
not only uranium enrichment, but also nuclear fuel manufacture,
crude oil and natural gas infrastructure, and military
equipment based on Resolution 146 of the Committee of the Slovak
Republic National Council for Defence and Security [37,30] Slovakia,
as stated above, gets 100% of its nuclear fuel elements (except for
uranium enrichment) from Russian company, but the country is
also fully dependent on Russian crude oil and nearly 100% dependent
on Russian natural gas. This is a considerable liability:
together, these three sectors comprise 86.1% of Slovak TPES and
66.8% of the country's electricity generation share [19]. There are
suggestions that these efforts are tied to EU and US sanctions
against the Russian Federation [30,31] and to a possible Slovak fear
of Russian retaliation. It is, however, important to note that the EU
and US sanctions do not target the Russian nuclear industry, though
the energy industry in general is being subjected to sanctions. For
example, OAO NK Rosneft, OAO Gazprom Neft, OAO Transneft, OAO
Novatek, PAO NK Lukoil, and OAO Surgutneftegaz are under EU or
US ﬁnancial sanctions, or US technology sanctions [32,33]. But the
Russian nuclear industry will never come under these sanctions
because of the high share of nuclear energy in total electricity
production in the EU countries we have been discussing and their
dependence upon Russia for nuclear fuel. The US Centrus Energy
Corp (created from restructuring of United States Enrichment
Corporation, USEC) also closed a long-term contract extending until
2022 for the supply of LEU from Russia's commercial enrichment
business, and recently prolonged the contract to 2026 [36]. Any
such sanctions, then, would backﬁre to a considerable extent on EU
members and on the US nuclear energy sector.
The nuclear industry also has a kind of self-defence safeguard
against political misuse as given in Ref. [19]. Because of the limited
number of contracts in the nuclear sector and the revenue implications
deriving from each contract, any attempt to use nuclear
contracts as leverage over a particular country would cause substantial
damage to the contractor's reputation. This mitigates the
likelihood that a nuclear contractor would exert political pressure
over a sovereign client, since the damage to the contractor's
reputation would complicate future business prospects around the
world. Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation probably calculates
that it cannot afford to be found guilty of abusing a particular
project to advance its own political or strategic goals, as this would
harm not only its long-term future, but its immediate market
capitalization as well, and this would carry over to its nuclear fuel
business.
This is also more an interest of the Slovak Government than the
utility Slovenske Elektrarne, a.s. proper. Nicola Cotugno, generaldirector
of the Slovak utility articulated the following in a recent
interview: “Our business with TVEL has always been very smooth.
Slovenske Elektrarne has never experienced any technical problems
with the fuel, not even small leakages, which may occur in one
out of a thousand fuel assemblies. The quality has been
outstanding, and even during this period of tension we have not
experienced any delivery disruptions. When the situation was
especially tense, we used aerial transport to avoid passing through
Ukraine by train.” [34] Persuading the utility could thus be another
future obstacle to the Slovak government's diversiﬁcation efforts.
5. Conclusion
The aim of this paper has been to analyse the reasons that new
efforts are being made to diversify the supply of nuclear fuel in the
European Union, and to analyse why these efforts have focused
strictly on the fabrication and licensing of fuel, as well as whether
they might actually positively impact the security of supply in the
EU nuclear industry. A concurrent goal has been to explore and
discuss the real reasons behind the pressure being felt to diversify.
We found satisfactory answers to all these questions; even
better, several interesting outcomes emerged from our answers to
them and the discussion of results. We have shown how different
and how specialized a high-tech service Fabrication is compared to
the other steps in the Front End of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle. We have
also highlighted the importance of licensing and talked about why
it is important, and we explored what obstacles stand in the way of
licensing and what beneﬁts derive from licensing several fuel types
and suppliers.
In addition to these ﬁndings, we may also conclude:
First: The evidence supports the argument that nuclear fuel
Table 5
EPR design nuclear units under construction outside France.
Country Reactor Type Construction start Expected start-up
China Taishan 1 EPR 2009 2016
Taishan 2 EPR 2010 2017
Finland Olkiluoto 3 EPR 2005 2018
United Kingdom Hinkley Point C 1 EPR Not set 2025
Hinkley Point C 2 EPR Not set 2025
Note: one EPR design unit is under construction in France at Flamanville.
Source: public sources; company information; compiled by T. Vlcek.
T. Vlcek / Energy Strategy Reviews 13-14 (2016) 77e85 83
diversiﬁcation efforts by Euratom and the European Commission
truly are rooted in an attempt to enhance the supply security of the
VVER-440 reactor ﬂeet operating in the EU. There is truly but a
single supplier of nuclear fuel for this reactor categorydRussia's
OAO TVEL, with a monopoly in the market. This means the VVER-
440 reactors in the EU fail to fulﬁl even the rudimentary N-1
logic as regards the fabrication of fuel. Nuclear power plants have
come to supply a considerable proportion of the electricity generated
in countries where the units operate. Euratom's grant for
licensing support in the EU will allow easier diversiﬁcation by
helping tackle one of the key obstacles in the permit process, that of
licensing. The real decision, though, will rest with the utilities. They
are the ones who license nuclear fuel, not the manufacturers. And
since Bulgarian Energy Holding, CEZ, a.s., Fortum Oyj, and MVM
Group all hold nuclear fuel supply contracts with OAO TVEL for the
lifetime of their nuclear units, only Slovenske Elektrarne, a.s., the
owner of Slovakia's nuclear power plants, can effectively diversify
the fuel sources for its VVER-440 reactor ﬂeet once all contractual
obstacles vanish after 2021.
Second: Since Westinghouse Electric Company LLC truly is the
sole alternative provider of fuel for VVER-440 reactors, the evidence
also backs the argument that ﬁnancial support for the
diversiﬁcation of fuel to VVER reactors in fact constitutes direct
support of one private company on the market. But this is not the
key reason for Euratom's grant scheme, nor for the European
Commission's diversiﬁcation efforts. It is a mere corollary outcome;
Westinghouse is indeed the only alternative supplier of nuclear fuel
for this region. Further support for the argument must be gotten by
observing near-future development in the market. If the European
Commission ceases its intervention once the obstacle that has been
blocking entry into a monopolized market has been removed, the
entire effort may be seen to have been driven by reasons of supply
security. If, on the other hand, the European Commission continues
to intervene in the VVER nuclear fuel market, the idea of direct
support for a single private company will likely have to be reconsidered,
as this would speak to a different outcome than that
considered here.
Even though the support Westinghouse Electric Company LLC
has received is essentially an attendant result of the European
Commission's diversiﬁcation efforts, it will nevertheless help the
company. If we perceive Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation
and Westinghouse Electric Company LLC as adversaries, then, we
may state that the American company is losing out to the Russian in
the nuclear market. By entering a market monopolized by OAO
TVEL, Westinghouse may effectively compete in the fuel supply
area. And if Westinghouse was able to expand the capability to
produce fuel for the VVER-1000 and develop the capability for the
future VVER-1200 reactor types, Russia's very success in selling
their technology abroad could pose an opportunity for the American
company. It could compete with OAO TVEL in producing fuel
for these new reactors, opening a new global market for the
company.
Third: Finally, we may expect the instalment of Lead Test Assemblies
in a VVER-440 reactor in the near future. It may occur
either at Ukraine's Rivne NPP, since Westinghouse already has a
commercial presence in Ukraine, or at Slovakia's Jaslovske Bohunice
and Mochovce NPPs. We may also expect a strong push on the
part of Slovakia to diversify, particularly when a new public procurement
procedure for nuclear fuel supplies is opened a couple of
years from now. The evidence shows that it is diversiﬁcation in
Slovakia that the European Commission is primarily supporting
with a V2 million grant for nuclear fuel supply to VVER-440 reactors
focused on licensing alternative nuclear fuel supplies for
Russian-designed pressurized water reactors operating in the EU.
The rationale behind Slovakia's determined, comprehensive
diversiﬁcation efforts in nuclear energy and elsewhere would make
a timely subject for future research.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the nuclear industry representatives,
who, though they did not wish their names mentioned or
were unable to go on the record, showed great willingness to
answer numerous questions during interviews and consultations.
The text was prepared within the speciﬁc research project of
Masaryk University “Europe in a Changing International Environment
II” (MUNI/A/1113/2015).
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