This is a real milestone from the point of view of the expansion of Paks – Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, announced on Friday in Budapest, according to the ministry.
Responding to a journalist’s question at a joint press conference with his Czech counterpart, Jan Lipavsky, the head of the ministry reported that the zone melt trap has already been completed, and that it will be delivered to Hungary this summer, exceeding previous expectations.
“The operation itself will not be a one-time operation, as the weight of the equipment is the same as that of sixteen Airbus passenger carriers,” the minister explained.
In addition, he called it good news and a real milestone from the point of view of the Paks expansion that yesterday the production of the other nuclear equipment with a long production time, the reactor tank, also started in St. Petersburg.
“The reactor tank is the part of the nuclear power plant where the chain reaction takes place, so it is the heart of the power plant, and production started yesterday in one of Europe’s largest automated forge plants in St. Petersburg,” he said.
“This is a huge device, 11 meters high, 4.5 meters in diameter, the wall thickness is 30 cm and it will weigh 330 tons, the weight of the castings is 600 tons, so it is a huge job. The device itself is formed under 12 thousand tons of pressure, for at least 60 years it must be functional at 330 degrees Celsius and under 162 bar pressure,” Péter Szijjártó added.
According to the minister, this also proves that the works are progressing according to schedule with the investment in Paks in order to be able to connect both new blocks to the network at the beginning of the next decade.
He underlined: with this, Hungary will take a huge step in the security of its energy supply.
Tags: Production Paks reactor vessel begun Petersburg News
