Bilateral Meeting on Research Reactors Conversion Issues

       A meeting was held of RK National Nuclear Center’s specialists with representatives of US National Nuclear Security Administration in Almaty. The delegations were led by E.G. Batyrbekov, Director General, NNC RK and Mr. Brian Waud, Team Lead, Office of Conversion.

       This was one in a series of meetings of NNC RK and DOE representatives on research reactors conversion to low-enriched uranium (hereafter LEU) fuel. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss further action plan on IGR research reactor conversion to LEU fuel.

         When opening the meeting, the parties exchanged congratulations with successful completion of IVG.1M reactor commissioning with LEU-fuel, in particular, the physical start-up. Realization of power start-up series is in its final stage, then, IVG.1M reactor with new core will be ready for continuation of experiments under the international projects.

         According to the meeting participants, initially IGR research reactor conversion to LEU fuel was expected to be potentially more complicated task, requiring optimal solutions. During the meeting, participants discussed details of further efforts and identified next steps to implement the conversion tasks.