The international conference focusing on High Temperature Reactors (HTR) and their applications took place on 8-10 October 2018 in Warsaw, Poland. Over 220 participants from all over the world together with the representatives of the governments and world-know energy agencies discussed further development and deployment of this intrinsically safe technology.
- Within a short time HTR technology can became an important source of energy that provides heat for industrial processes and households, - says Prof. Grzegorz Wrochna, Conference Chairman. – It can also offer a clean, environmentally friendly and safe solution to the increasing demand of the energy which we observe nowadays. The HTR technology may meet this increasing need and it’s the highest time to introduce it widely as an important part of the overall energy mix in the domain of heat and cogeneration. The HTR 2018 Conference was the great opportunity for all the scientists and engineers dealing with this technology to exchange information on research and development on HTR and to accelerate its wide application.
Over 220 scientists from 20 countries met in Warsaw, 127 scientific papers were accepted and almost 150 presentations were given. As HTR reactors are being constructed and activated in China over 60 participants from this country took part in the Conference. The event was also very popular among scientists from the USA as the Conference were joined by over 30 participants from the United States. Japanese representation was also numerous as it consisted of almost 20 people.
Engineers and scientists taking part in the HTR 2018 Conference were joined by the White House Senior Policy Advisor, Michael Goff, as well as by the OECD National Energy Agency Director General, William Magwood. The participants of the Conference were also honoured by the speeches of the representatives of the Polish, British and Japanese governments. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan was represented by Mr. Naoyuki UEDA, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the United Kingdom was represented by Mr. Rob Arnold while Ministry of Energy in Poland was represented by the Deputy Minster, Mr. Tomasz Dąbrowski as well as Mr. Józef Sobolewski. In the Conference HTR 2018 also took part Secretary of State, Ministry of Environment in Poland, Mr. Michał Kurtyka and the representative of Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Mr. Kazuhiko Kunitomi.
Poland was chosen to host HTR 2018 Conference because of its interest in this technology. HTR deployment is among priority projects in the governmental document “Strategy for Responsible Development”. Recently, Polish Ministry of Energy published a report addressing possibility of applying HTR technology (www.me.gov.pl/node/28011). The conference was hosted by National Centre for Nuclear Research in Poland.
HTR 2018 Conference was the 9th International Topical Meeting on High Temperature Reactor Technology. The meetings were inaugurated in 2002 by the European High Temperature Reactor Technology Network HTR-TN at Petten, The Netherlands. Then successive meetings were held in China (Beijing, 2004), South Africa (Johannesburg, 2006), USA (Washington DC, 2008), Czech Republic (Prague, 2010), Japan (Tokyo, 2012), China (Weihai, 2014) and USA (Las Vegas, 2016).
The next event - HTR 2020 Conference – will take place in Indonesia.
