Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in September that the country would construct the world's first nuclear power plant with a closed fuel cycle in the Tomsk Region, with the launch set for 2030. This breakthrough technology enables the multiple recycling of nearly all spent nuclear fuel, making it possible to solve the issues of nuclear waste disposal and ensuring uranium supplies almost completely.
"The first stage, namely, the construction of a plant producing nitride uranium-plutonium fuel, is over. [The plant] is in the trial operation stage now, and starting next year, it is already planned to start producing the first batch [of fuel] for the BREST-OD-300 reactor, which is currently under construction," Zherebtsov said at the Congress of Young Scientists hosted by Russia's Sirius Federal Territory.
The first-ever reactor capable of using such fuel is based on the innovative BREST-OD-300 fast-neutron lead-cooled reactor with a capacity of 300 MW. The Pilot Demonstration Energy Complex will include a plant that will process spent nuclear fuel from the BREST reactor and make new fuel out of it.