nuclear-news

France’s aging nuclear reactors. State owned corporation EDF plans to keep them going, despite France’s phaseout policy

Mediapart 12th Sept 2018 [Machine translation] Nuclear: these signs of aging that EDF would like to
make disappear.

More than a third of French nuclear reactors undergo an
excessive demand of their circuits. EDF monitors these phenomena but does
not repair them. However, the older the plants, the more these problems
increase.

Our revelations from internal documents obtained from a
whistleblower. In collaboration with the German site Correctiv. With a
capacity of 900 megawatts (MW), the 34 oldest reactors of the park begin to
exceed their 40 th year of use and therefore to undergo the examination.

To determine the conditions, an unprecedented consultation of the public has
just opened and will last until March 2019.

In 2015, the energy transition law for green growth marked the principle of reducing the proportion of
nuclear energy to 50% by 2025. But EDF, an 85% state-owned company, refuses
this deadline and plans to close no reactor before 2029, with the exception
of those of Fessenheim (Alsace), at the time when the EPR of Flamanville
(Manche) will enter into activity.

This position of negation of a law yet voted is tacitly supported by Édouard Philippe, who has just announced
that the multiannual energy programming (EPP) , expected document end of
October, will set the goal of a reduction to 50 % of electricity of nuclear
origin around 2035
https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/120918/nucleaire-ces-signes-de-vieillissement-qu-edf-voudrait-faire-disparaitre

September 14, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, politics