nuclear-news

How EDF almost plunged France into darkness 

INDUSTRIAL RESURRECTIONS (3/6) – Cracks of a few millimeters, discovered by surprise in the fall of 2021, led to the preventive shutdown of nearly half of EDF’s nuclear reactors, depriving Europe of electricity in the midst of the war in Ukraine. An industrial crisis that shook EDF and radically changed the situation on the electricity markets. 

By Sharon Wajsbrot August 23, 2024

It is an anniversary that is being kept discreet at EDF, busy this summer celebrating the Olympic Games and 
its electric cauldron that carried the Olympic flame into the Paris sky for the first time . Three years ago, however, an industrial crisis of unprecedented magnitude began at EDF that nearly plunged France into darkness.

In August 2021, reactor number one at the Civaux nuclear power plant in Vienne was shut down for a routine ten-year inspection, a sort of health check of the facilities carried out every ten years. The technicians responsible for checking the pipes could not believe their eyes. The reactor’s safety injection circuits, those that inject borated water into the core to cool it in the event of a problem, had cracks several millimeters wide. Unimaginable for this type of circuit, this defect made any restart impossible………………………………(Subscribers only)

 Les Echos 22nd Aug 2024

https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/comment-edf-a-failli-plonger-la-france-dans-le-noir-2114602

August 25, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized