Romanian CANDU nuclear reactor to connect to grid; second in September.

[NNadir]

Romania Nuclear Reactor To Go Online
By Staff
May 8, 2007

A second 700-megawatt reactor at Romania's Chernavoda nuclear power plant in the Danube River's delta is ready to go into operation, a report said.

The reactor reached optimum levels during the weekend and should be connected to Romania's national power grid in July, the Bulgarian SNA news agency reported Monday.

The second unit of the Chernavoda nuclear plant in the Black Sea port of Constanta should be at full capacity in September.



The second nuclear reactor, based on Canadian CANDU technology, cost about $1.36 billion and was built with Romanian state budget funds and loans from Societe General bank of France and the European Union.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_21279298.shtml

Combined and operating at 90% capacity utilization (typical loads for nuclear power plants) these two small plants will produce 28% as much energy as the entire nation of Germany produced by renewable means in 2004.

The reactors should produce about 0.04 exajoules of electrical energy per year (approximately 0.12 exajoules of primary energy), while German 2004 renewable energy production was 0.14 exajoules.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

World energy demand is about 470 exajoules.