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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom), said that practical engineering solutions for ensuring continuous make-up water supply to the Jordanian Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) do exist.

In an interview with Petra, Rosatom confirmed that in the highly unlikely case of a nuclear accident, the site will store enough water to provide for a safe shutdown of the NPP and remove any decay heat for the entire period of the necessary remedial actions.

This makes us certain that both the environment and the population will be well protected from any hypothetical accidents and their consequences, Rosatom told Petra.

"High temperatures and potential lack of cooling water are among key issues which NPP construction projects normally face in countries with climate conditions similar to Jordan," it further noted.

Russia had successful experience in constructing nuclear power plants in the area of high-temperature cooling water such as Bushehr NPP in Iran, it added.

The corporation explained that insufficient cooling of turbine condensers could reduce the total electric power output, however, modern turbine construction technologies can efficiently address this issue.

A Russian-designed three low- pressure turbine can effectively converts the steam power produced by the nuclear steam supply system into electricity on a required level even without sufficient cooling of the condensers, the corporation further said.

The solution helped to mitigate losses in the electric power production due to low vacuum in the turbine condensers.

The other issue is the amount of water required for cooling the turbine condensers, in particular 170,000 m3/h per unit. Special cooling towers have to be constructed to cool down this water, part of which evaporates irretrievably when released into the atmosphere, Rosatom told Petra.

That brings the need to make up the cooling system with more water in order to compensate for water loss.

"Jordan decided to use As-Samra wastewater treatment plant, which is situated 70 km off the NPP site, as a source of make-up water." That would be the first time when Russia has to use such a technological solution, it said adding that however, there is a similar experience in international nuclear practice worldwide.

Constructed in a desert, Palo Verde NPP in the US receives its make-up water for the cooling water system from a wastewater treatment plant situated approximately 50 km away, Rosatom explained.

Palo Verde NPP has been in operation for over 30 years now being a reliable source of power supply for cities with the population of around 4 million people.

In October 2013, Jordan contracted Russia's Rosatom to build the country’s first two nuclear reactors that are expected to be operational by 2024.

Jordan will cover 50.1 per cent of the Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contract, While Rosatom will cover 49.9 per cent as investor and operator of the nuclear plants.