BN-350 fast reactor at Aktau (electricity and desalination)
Reactor rápido BN-350 de Aktau (electricidad y desalinización)
- Date
- 1972 · confidence high
- Place
- Aktau, Mangystau, Kazakhstan
- Credited to
- Soviet nuclear industry (OKBM, Obninsk Institute of Physics and Power Engineering)
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
A sodium-cooled fast reactor producing electricity and, with its steam, desalinated fresh water for the city and industry on the arid Caspian coast. It operated from 1972 to 1999.
It is not the first fast reactor (Clementine, 1946; EBR-I, 1951), but the first large one with desalination. It had sodium leaks in the 1980s.
What it led to
- one of the first commercial-scale and dual-use fast plants
- experience for the Russian BN-600 and BN-800
- decommissioning (1999) and fuel removal with US help, until 2010