How does Novosibirsk produce fuel for BelNPP

Belarus and Russia have a huge number of joint projects. However, one certainly stands out for its scale and perspective - the nuclear power plant in Ostrovets. And although the deadline for the delivery of the first power unit was postponed to 2019, fuel will begin to be shipped very soon from Novosibirsk. There is a plant for the production of nuclear fuel.

The plant is strategic, that's why journalists are not allowed there often. Our film crew is the only one not Russian media who managed to see how the fuel is produced for our plant. Alexei Volkov followed the entire production process and explained how a tablet can give light and heat to the whole house.

Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant. After the war trucks were assembled here, later production was moved to Minsk - so MAZ was born. However, the route for years has not been rebuilt, only now fuel for BelNPP from Siberia with love will go to us.

The plant is a strategic facility and, as a rule, closed to journalists' lenses not from Russia. We are lucky, therefore these production shots are an absolute exclusive. The first point is the shop, where fuel sets are assembled - hexagonal structures. One piece weighs seven hundred kilograms.

Only a quarter of the line is an assembly. The rest is quality control. By the way, now the plant is engaged in its jubilee order - it is preparing fuel for Belarusian nuclear power plant. In production, everything is very strict - you can only move around in robes and respirators.

I have enriched uranium in my hands. Such compressed tablet is enough to heat a private house for a week. The equivalent is 400 kilograms of coal or three and a half barrels of oil. The tablet is the main fuel cell.

Such tablets undergo a long and complex process of production. They are made from powder, which is transferred only in a special container. Then  plasticizer is added to make the small pill more compressed, - and it goes into the oven.

20 hours at a temperature of almost two thousand degrees. For a day, 1200 enriched tablets are made.

When the echelon with fuel from Novosibirsk leaves, it is the strictest secret. Of course, not only tablets in boxes will be transported: a special robot supplies them to TVELs - zirconium tubes, which are collected in fuel cassettes and loaded into the reactor of the nuclear power plant. One unit holds 350 tablets. And further - 11 control measurements to make sure that the norms are not violated.

The first batch of fuel will be enough for BelNPP for exactly one year – these are163 fuel assemblies. After 12 months of operation, the reactor will be restarted, but only one fourth will have to be replaced. The contract with TVEL, a subsidiary of Rosatom, was signed for many years. Therefore, we can say with certainty that there will be a Siberian element in the nuclear power plant.