[UPDATED] British-based engineering consultancy Amec Foster Wheeler and nuclear power plant builder China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Corporation (CNEC) announced they had signed an agreement to collaborate on wide-ranging facets of the nuclear power industry. The agreement focuses, in part, on deployment of high-temperature reactors in the UK and internationally.
It is the first time CNEC has signed a deployment-oriented memorandum of understanding with a foreign engineering consultancy, the companies said. Amec Foster Wheeler Vice President of Clean Energy Tom Jones praised the high-temperature reactors as “safe, clean and sustainable.”
“The high-temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR) is inherently safe and can generate electricity efficiently and competitively,” said Zu Bin, vice president of CNEC, noting the technology's use for power supply, heat and desalination.
The agreement was signed in Beijing as part of a nuclear industry trade mission organized by UK Trade & Investment and the China-Britain Business Council.
The agreement calls for sharing their respective specialties in reactor outage management, operations, care for aging facilities, reactor lifetime extension, training, waste management and decommissioning.
Amec Foster Wheeler is expected to open up its High Temperature Facility in the UK to their Chinese counterparts for research and material testing. The facility allows for material studies under an environment that reaches 1,000 degrees centigrade.
HTGR technology is considered inherently safe, given the ceramic coating on the nuclear fuel, the carbon encasement and graphite core structures, according to the NGNP industry alliance. “The ceramic coated nuclear fuel provides the primary containment for radioactive materials, rather than depending on a containment building,” the trade group says.