nuclear-news

Additional costs loom for Flamanville nuclear project: reactor lid might need replacement

Le Monde 26th June 2017,[Machine Translation],  EPR of Flamanville: a report warns EDF on the
reliability of the lid of the tank. The operator may have to quickly
replace this reactor masterpiece after commissioning, which is still
scheduled for the end of 2018.EDF executives have been overly optimistic,
obviously convinced that the future reactor tank of the Flamanville
(Manche) EPR reactor would pass without difficulty before the “judges” of
the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) and its armed wing, the Institute of
Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN).

The situation is ultimately more complex: it is not excluded that the plant operator must at least
change the lid of this tank, only a few years after the EPR has been put
into service. Meeting on Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th June, the 31 members
of the permanent group of experts for nuclear pressure equipment
(industrialists, associations …) took note of a long report (193 pages)
of the IRSN and the Direction des Equipment under ASN’s nuclear pressure,
which is very critical in some respects. If it does not question the future
of the powerful third generation reactor (1,650 MW), designed by Areva in
the 1990s, it puts an additional mortgage on a project that will already
cost 10.5 billion d ‘ Three times more than expected. http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/06/26/un-feu-vert-sous-condition-attendu-pour-l-epr-de-flamanville_5151256_3234.html

June 30, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France, safety