OPAL News
The last 3 months at OPAL have been full of excitement. The reactor itself went critical again on 9th May, following approval of the modified fuel design by ARPANSA, our nuclear regulator, on 1st May. OPAL reached full power (20 MW) two weeks later. An occasion to be celebrated with a sausage sizzle: for a change Greg Storr, the head of Reactor Operations, is serving sausages.
The cold-neutron source continues to run well. This seventh operation cycle came to an end on 28 June and the next reactor cycle is planned to begin on 7 July running for about 30 days; so we can expect having neutrons at our second neutron school in the second half of July.
At the end of last year we reported that a reflector vessel defect (seepage of light water into heavy water) needed repair. This impure heavy water will need to be replaced with pure heavy water in the future. Taking this into account, we expect to have a schedule for the next few months' reactor operation shortly.