A bit ticked that they are still using the boiling water / Uranium cores instead of liquid fluoride / thorium but it is a start.
From World Nuclear News:
New material promises 120-year reactor lives
In a nuclear power plant the reactor pressure vessel contains the reactor core itself, demanding the highest resilience to temperature, pressure and radiation, while the component sits low in the reinforced centre of the concrete reactor building and is one of the only major components that cannot be replaced.
Russian state nuclear company Rosatom says it has developed a new 'extra strong' reactor pressure vessel for its forthcoming VVER-TOI pressurized water reactors. It could give that design a lifespan of 120 years, compared to the 100 years offered by Rosatom's current VVER-1200 as built at Novovoronezh and Leningrad Phase II.
Around the world a range of advanced reactor designs offer 60 year lives as standard, with this commonly expected to be extendable to 80 or 100 years. This represents a substantial improvement on the benchmark of 50-60 years for current reactors, which were usually licensed for an arbitrary 30 or 40 years when they were constructed in the second wave of nuclear build.
The article shows the vessel coming out of a heat treatment oven - stirs my little blacksmiths heart:
About 500 US Tons, 20ft tall and 15ft diameter.
