George Katsoulas (right), who is responsible for supervising the facility, showed Kathimerini around Greece’s one and only nuclear reactor, built with help from the American company AMF Atomics.
[Konstantinos Georgopoulos]
The nuclear reactor at the Demokritos National Center for Scientific Research may have been shut down in 2004, but safety protocols are still diligently upheld: As soon as we enter the facility, we are dressed in characteristic white suits, handed a personal radiation monitor and given a detailed briefing.
We pass through two blue steel doors into a massive facility. “We are standing in front of the nuclear reactor pool,” explains electronic engineer George Katsoulas, the reactor’s operations supervisor, pointing to a now-empty basin about 9 meters deep, with a bridge and a scaffold above what was once the heart of the center’s nuclear project.
This is the only reactor ever to have operated in Greece and it is back in the spotlight after the government’s recent announcement that it is exploring the option of modular nuclear reactors to enhance the country’s electricity production capacity and energy independence. Kathimerini visited the site and asked what lessons can be drawn from its operation.
Built for the purposes of scientific research, the Demokritos rector was in operation for 43 years. The initial idea for it emerged in the mid-1950s and was part of an initiative called Atoms for Peace, launched by then US president Dwight D. Eisenhower in the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to delink the notion of nuclear energy from war and associate it, instead, with peaceful applications such as research and medicine.
Eager to keep abreast of scientific developments, Greece joined the initiative at the urging of the palace and particularly of the queen, Frederica, and began building the reactor at the facility in the northern Athenian suburb of Agia Paraskevi with a team of Greek scientists that had studied abroad, and the help of an American construction company.
“AMF Atomics had built around 15 identical or similar reactors in other parts of the world at the time, including in Turkey, Iran, Israel, Portugal and Canada,” says Katsoulas.
“July 27, 1961, 08:20: They began loading the core. The operator was Neofytos Papadopoulos. 21:41. He announced that the reactor had reached criticality. At that point, Admiral Spanidis opened a bottle of champagne somewhere around here. There’s even a photograph,” he says, reading from the reactor’s first operations logbook.
Experts in the field say the event was a milestone for Greece and was celebrated as such.
The reactor served a range of purposes in the years that followed: It produced radioisotopes used by hospitals for the treatment of thyroid and bone cancers through radiotherapy; it irradiated materials to test their durability; and it contributed to innovation. Annual reports on its operation also point to scientists’ efforts to tackle the olive fruit fly using nuclear technology, as well as collaborations with industry and major companies to develop innovative solutions for issues related to materials preservation and production.
Katsoulas, now 62, has spent more than half of his life at the Demokritos nuclear facility and remembers the staff, students and researchers who worked there over the years. He takes us up a set of stairs into the control room. “This is where almost all the operations required for the reactor’s safe functioning took place,” he explains, pointing out on the decades-old equipment where the reactor’s power was regulated – reaching up to 5 MW over its lifetime – as well as critical systems such as cooling and the water level in the pool.
Even though he hasn’t operated them in years, he remembers exactly what each switch on the control panels does.
The last day
The reactor was shut down in 2004 amid safety concerns ahead of the Athens Olympics. Katsoulas was one of two operators there that day. “July 2, 2004, 15:00 hours, was the last time the reactor operated. We didn’t know it at the time. We thought we were switching it off for the Games only and that it would be switched back on in September,” he says, remembering that day with emotion. The reactor was never switched back on – repairing several technical issues that had arisen was considered unviable.
“Demokritos and this facility were truly unique. We managed to operate it very successfully, to reap all the benefits its operation had to give us and, ultimately, to do everything necessary to move safely into the next phase,” Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, director at the Institute of Nuclear and Radiological Sciences and Technology, Energy and Safety at Demokritos, tells Kathimerini.
He goes on to explain how the expertise and know-how gained from the reactor’s operation have been crucial and can contribute to the discussion that has started in Greece about the option of nuclear energy. “If we want to assess how safe a facility is, what we need to plan for from the outset, how to ensure radiological protection, what to do with the waste and how to manage it – these are all issues that have already been addressed at the institute,” says Eleftheriadis, adding that Demokritos will gain more valuable experience in the reactor’s decommissioning.
Decommissioning
Greece handled the issue of dealing with the reactor’s waste and unused fuel with some delay. The last shipment of unused fuel was sent to the United States three years ago. According to Eleftheriadis, the main challenges in the process were the absence of a steady regulatory framework for managing residues, as well as the difficulty of securing funding.
The next challenge is how the research reactor will be dismantled and decommissioned. “We need to remove all the remaining materials – some of which are activated – and everything must be done in a specific way. It is a major undertaking,” says Eleftheriadis, noting that there is an official government gazette outlining the safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste, as well as the corresponding national program, which is scheduled for completion by 2032.
He says Greece only has the capacity to store such nuclear waste temporarily. “If there is one lesson to be learned – given that every step is carried out with absolute safety and care – it is that facilities related to nuclear technology are an expensive undertaking. This is not a simple installation; it is a heavy industry.”
As director of the institute, Eleftheriadis is also planning to showcase the reactor’s historical trajectory through the creation of a museum that would serve as a reminder of this endeavor and the impact it had.