<p>“We are shaken, we are hurt by this sudden agitation by the Kudankulam area people as the KNPP has the best safety features and when everything was ready to go in for the first 1,000 MW unit’s commissioning in December 2011,” KNPP site director M K Balaji said on Thursday.<br /><br />Addressing a joint press conference here — the first by NPCIL officials since protests against the KNPP which took a serious turn in September — Balaji said the plant’s first unit’s civil works was completed by June. After that, the “hot run with dummy fuel” was done to test the operational readiness of all the systems before the scheduled December start-up.<br /><br />Sharing insights on the inside goings-on at the KNPP in the recent months, he said the “hot run” involved loading the reactor with “dummy fuel, similar in size and weight to the actual enriched uranium fuel”.<br /><br />The dummy fuel is mostly made up of lead which was used to test the safety and other systems, while the four coolant pumps were run to test the efficacy in removing heat from the reactor core, explained Balaji. But the real uranium fuel has not been loaded into the reactor and “no nuclear process has begun,” he said.<br /><br />Even as this “hot run” of the KNPP first unit was successfully done by August 2011, this sudden stir threw all subsequent works into disarray, he said. “After the hot run, we have to inspect all equipment before getting the Regulatory Authority’s next stage clearance to start the processes leading to the reactor’s criticality,” he said. Stating that minimal staff including some Russian technical personnel continued to be inside the plant complex to ensure essential maintenance works, Balaji said he could not put a number to some other Russian specialists who had left since the agitation intensified. Equally serious was the plight of 1,500-2,000 contract workers, mainly from the North Indian states, also forced to return home. All of them have now to be re-grouped.<br /><br />On the emergency preparedness drill undertaken at the plant some time back, along with the National Disaster Management Agency and state administration, Balaji and Sundar said it was done for all nuclear power plants in the country.</p>
<p>“We are shaken, we are hurt by this sudden agitation by the Kudankulam area people as the KNPP has the best safety features and when everything was ready to go in for the first 1,000 MW unit’s commissioning in December 2011,” KNPP site director M K Balaji said on Thursday.<br /><br />Addressing a joint press conference here — the first by NPCIL officials since protests against the KNPP which took a serious turn in September — Balaji said the plant’s first unit’s civil works was completed by June. After that, the “hot run with dummy fuel” was done to test the operational readiness of all the systems before the scheduled December start-up.<br /><br />Sharing insights on the inside goings-on at the KNPP in the recent months, he said the “hot run” involved loading the reactor with “dummy fuel, similar in size and weight to the actual enriched uranium fuel”.<br /><br />The dummy fuel is mostly made up of lead which was used to test the safety and other systems, while the four coolant pumps were run to test the efficacy in removing heat from the reactor core, explained Balaji. But the real uranium fuel has not been loaded into the reactor and “no nuclear process has begun,” he said.<br /><br />Even as this “hot run” of the KNPP first unit was successfully done by August 2011, this sudden stir threw all subsequent works into disarray, he said. “After the hot run, we have to inspect all equipment before getting the Regulatory Authority’s next stage clearance to start the processes leading to the reactor’s criticality,” he said. Stating that minimal staff including some Russian technical personnel continued to be inside the plant complex to ensure essential maintenance works, Balaji said he could not put a number to some other Russian specialists who had left since the agitation intensified. Equally serious was the plight of 1,500-2,000 contract workers, mainly from the North Indian states, also forced to return home. All of them have now to be re-grouped.<br /><br />On the emergency preparedness drill undertaken at the plant some time back, along with the National Disaster Management Agency and state administration, Balaji and Sundar said it was done for all nuclear power plants in the country.</p>
