Radioactive dust over Europe – from France’s nuclear bomb tests in the Sahara!
France slow to leave nuclear power, (cheaper to extend lives of reactors)
France to extend lifetime of old nuclear power plants https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/france-extend-lifetime-old-nuclear-102331756.html
Thu, 25 February 2021, French safety officials on Thursday gave the green light to extend the lifetime of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants as it seeks to boost the share of renewables in its power mix.
Nuclear energy currently provides nearly 70 percent of French electricity, more than in any other country.
France, hoping to reduce that share to 50 percent by 2035 — a target pushed back from an earlier 2025 date — with the help of renewables, has been holding off from building new reactors.
The number of French reactors, at 56, is second in the world only to the United States which operates 85.
French safety officials on Thursday gave the green light to extend the lifetime of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants as it seeks to boost the share of renewables in its power mix.
Nuclear energy currently provides nearly 70 percent of French electricity, more than in any other country.
France, hoping to reduce that share to 50 percent by 2035 — a target pushed back from an earlier 2025 date — with the help of renewables, has been holding off from building new reactors.
The number of French reactors, at 56, is second in the world only to the United States which operates 85.
The safety of French nuclear plants is checked every decade.
ASN asked state-controlled electricity provider EDF, which manages the country’s nuclear plants, to undertake any necessary work to safeguard their security.
The main target was to “limit the consequences of any accident, especially any serious accident involving the meltdown of a reactor”, ASN’s deputy director-general Julien Collet told AFP.
Another objective was to improve the resistance of the plants to outside shocks including earthquakes, floods, extremely hot weather, or a fire in the reactor.
Anti-nuclear campaigners have long demanded the closure of veteran nuclear power stations, and last year obtained the decommissoning of France’s oldest plant at Fessenheim in the east of the country.
“Active French nuclear power plants were built to operate for 30 or 40 years. Beyond that, nuclear reactors enter an unknown ageing phase,” said NGO Greenpeace, calling for more plants to be closed.
ASN president Bernard Doroszczuk told the Ouest France newspaper that there were still “weak points” in the stations’ security equipment, requiring “vigilance”, but that there had been improvements.
France’s nuclear reactors, grouped in 18 sites, are all second-generation pressurised water reactors.
EDF in 2015 estimated the cost of dismantling all the reactors at 75 billion euros ($92 billion) but a parliamentary report said the real cost would be more.
A third-generation reactor called EPR and under construction since 2007 in Flamanville in northern France was supposed to go online in 2012, but the launch date has been delayed repeatedly and is now fixed for next year.
Flamanville’s cost has run over 10 billion euros, more than three times the initial estimate. Once operational, it will have an estimated life span of 60 years.
France’s nuclear reactors’ lives to be extended beyond 40 years
Le Monde 25th Feb 2021, The oldest nuclear reactors extended by ten years. EDF’s 32 900-megawatt reactors are the oldest in operation in France. They were originally designed to operate for forty years. This is a decision that officially opens the way to extending the life of the oldest reactors in France’s nuclear fleet beyond forty years. In an opinion published Thursday, February 25, the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) considers that “all the planned provisions open the prospect” of a continuation of the activity of the 32 French 900 megawatt (MW) reactors for a ten-year period. While French regulations do not provide for a maximum “lifespan” for reactors, an assumption of forty years of operation was adopted during their design.
Significant safety incident at EDF nuclear power plant in Flamanville
La Presse de la Manche 19th Feb 2021, The EDF power plant in Flamanville (Manche) declared, on Friday February 19, 2021, a level 1 event concerning the diesel of production unit n ° 1, still at a standstill. The management of the Flamanville 1-2 nuclear power plant (Manche) declared, on Friday February 19, 2021, a significant safety event at level 1 of the INES scale, with the Nuclear Safety Authority .
French nuclear attack submarine patrolling South China Sea
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French Nuclear Attack Boat Patrolled South China Sea https://news.usni.org/2021/02/10/french-nuclear-attack-boat-patrolled-south-china-sea
By: Xavier Vavasseur, February 10, 2021 A French Navy Rubis-class nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) patrolled the South China Sea, the French minister of armed forces announced in a series of tweets.
French armed forces minister Florence Parly called the patrol “a striking proof of the capacity of our French Navy to deploy far and for a long time in connection with our Australian, American and Japanese strategic partners.” On Monday night, Parly shed some light on the current deployment of Rubis-class SSN FS Emeraude (S604) to the Pacific region. In a series of messages on Twitter, she said: “Since September, a nuclear attack submarine (SSN Émeraude) and a support vessel (BSAM Seine) have sailed up to 15,000 km from the coasts of mainland France in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. This extraordinary patrol has just completed a passage in the South China Sea. A striking proof of the capacity of our French Navy to deploy far and for a long time in connection with our Australian, American and Japanese strategic partners. Why such a mission? To enrich our knowledge of this area and to affirm that international law is the only rule that is valid, whatever the sea in which we sail. Nation of the Indo-Pacific (~ 2 million inhabitants), France has the 2nd largest exclusive economic zone in the world (11 million km2 of which 9 are in the Indo-Pacific). We intend to protect our sovereignty and our interests.” Naval News first reported about Emeraude’s mission to the Pacific when it stopped over in Australia. The submarine then visited the U.S. naval base in Guam and participated in an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercise with the U.S. Navy and JMSDF. Following an exercise with the Indonesian Navy Emeraude will likely be joining the French carrier strike group which is set to depart this week for the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region. |
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The dangers and uncertainties in Andra’s radioactive waste disposal project in Bure (Meuse)
Le Monde 5th Jan 2021, Environmentalists and unionists combine against the radioactive waste landfill project in Bure (Meuse). In a forum at the ”World”, they stated their concern at the dangers and uncertainties of the project. Their opinion is bolstered by a recent statement issued on January 13 by the Environmental Austhority, which stressed the uncertainties surrouding the waste disposal plan.Vigorous opposition has never ceased to alert the public, since 1987, to the immense risks of the geological disposal of radioactive waste. The opinion of the Environmental Authority corroborates what thousands of citizens, elected officials and independent scientists have been denouncing for years, without being truly heard.
Unprecedented number of France’s nuclear reactors to go offline, and strikes continue.
From Feb. 6, six French reactors will have started 2021 maintenance, with five more to come this month, an unprecedented 11 reactors starting maintenance before March.
Reactors set for 10-year overhauls in 2021…………
S&P Global Platts Analytics assumes February output to average around 46 GW, a new record low for that month, before recovering above last year’s monthly averages………
wo strikes, an incident at Paluel and a return to milder and at times windy weather affected nuclear output in the second half of January.
Strikes continue
Another 24-hour strike was scheduled to start Feb. 9 at 2000 GMT, EDF said on its transparency website Feb. 4.
EDF workers are protesting against planned restructuring of the French state-owned utility, splitting nuclear and other operations.
Ongoing discussions with the European Commission about the details of the planned reform of the ARENH price mechanism have delayed a first presentation of those plans envisaged in January.
EDF currently has to sell 100 TWh of nuclear generation at Eur42/MWh to domestic suppliers.
The reform aims to lift prices as well as volumes………. https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/020521-french-nuclear-retreats-from-12-month-high-amid-early-start-to-2021-maintenance
Unusually damaging Mw 4.9 earthquake near several French nuclear reactors
industrial region that hosts several operating nuclear power plants.
about 1 km. Here we use far-field seismological observations to
demonstrate that the rupture properties are consistent with those commonly
observed for large deeper earthquakes.
sensors in the fault vicinity, we perform numerical predictions of the
ground acceleration on a virtual array of near-fault stations. These
predictions are in agreement with independent quantitative estimations of
ground acceleration from in-situ observations of displaced objects. Both
numerical and in-situ analyses converge toward estimates of an exceptional
level of ground acceleration in the fault vicinity, that locally exceeded
gravity, and explain the unexpectedly significant damage.
French parliamentarians nominate Julian Assange for Nobel Peace Prize
A Nobel Peace Prize for Julian Assange! https://melenchon.fr/2021/01/28/un-prix-nobel-de-la-paix-pour-julien-assange/ Thursday 28 January 2021, I decided to nominate journalist Julian Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize, as I have the power to do as a parliamentarian. Julian Assange is a hero of freedom. The WikiLeaks initiative has raised awareness of war crimes and serious human rights abuses. It is right that the peoples of the world express their gratitude to him.
- Several other rebellious parliamentarians will share this process with me. I thus continue my fight for Assange’s freedom. After going to see him in London in 2012, after having held a videoconference meeting with him in 2013, I asked for political asylum in France in 2019 then 2020. At the time, the Minister of Justice Dupont- Moretti made the same request. Julian Assange served France, including revealing the spying on three Presidents by the United States.
- I call on all French parliamentarians to in turn commit to having the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Julian Assange.
Use of illegal workers at France’s Flamanville nuclear site.
Mediapart 14th Jan 2021, After having exhausted all possible remedies, Bouygues is definitively convicted of having used on a large scale undeclared employees on the site of the EPR of Flamanville (Manche).
In a judgment delivered Tuesday, January 12, the Court of Cassation rejected the requests of the
French public works giant and two of its satellites. Through them, Bouygueshad illegally employed at least 460 Romanian and Polish workers between 2008 and 2012, on this site of the new generation reactor, essential for EDF (owner of the site) and Areva (which ensures the construction).
Acrimed 29th Jan 2021
https://www.acrimed.org/EPR-de-Flamanville-la-condamnation-de-Bouygues
Should France extend the life of its oldest nuclear reactors?
Le Monde 22nd Jan 2021, Should France extend the life of its oldest nuclear reactors? It is the
will of the government and EDF, which postponed to 2035 the drop in the
share of atoms in electricity production. The Nuclear Safety Authority
(ASN) launched a consultation in December 2020 to regulate this possible
extension of the reactors . For Bernard Laponche, nuclear physicist, former
member of the Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission and
co-founder of the association of scientists Global Chance, EDF does not
have the capacity to ensure these improvements necessary for safety on
time. He calls for the early closure of some reactors in order to continue
to ensure the proper functioning of others.
EDF collapses on the stock market amid difficult negotiations in Brussels.
Le Monde 25th Jan 2021, EDF collapses on the stock market amid difficult negotiations in Brussels.
The French group is engaged in a vast reorganization project, contested by the company’s unions. EDF is the largest nuclear operator in Europe and one of the main electricity producers in the world, but a few lines were enough to make its value skid on the stock market on Monday January 25.
In an article published on the BFM Business website on Monday morning, the channel said that negotiations between Paris and Brussels on one of the key points of the French nuclear reform are failing. In a few minutes, the group’s action collapsed and lost up to 18% in the afternoon to close at -15%.
A day of tumbling stopped at the last minute by an intervention from Bercy, who did everything to deny the failure of the negotiations. To understand this dark day for the company, we must return to the very subject of negotiations. For months, France has been pleading with the
European Commission for a reform of the complex system which requires EDF to resell part of its production to its competitors. Set up in 2011, this mechanism called “regulated access to historic nuclear electricity” (Arenh) forces the energy company to resell a quarter of its nuclear
production at a fixed price – this tariff is set at 42 euros per megawatt hour.
Investigation of Algerians affected by France’s nuclear bomb tests
Le Monde 20th Jan 2021, At the heart of Franco-Algerian memory: the fight against those irradiated from the Sahara. This January 20, historian Benjamin Stora submits to the
President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, his report on Franco-Algerian memory. The nuclear tests carried out until 1966 in the Sahara are one of the disputes between the two countries. Investigation.
Serious shortcomings in the file on Bure (Meuse) underground nuclear waste storage
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Actu Environnement 19th Jan 2021, In a notice published on January 18, the Environmental Authority (Ae) points to serious shortcomings in the file of the underground radioactive waste storage center (Cigéo) in Bure (Meuse). The opinion relates more particularly to the “very detailed” environmental assessment carried out by Andra as part of the project’s declaration of public utility (DUP) file. T The DUP should make it possible to ensure the land control of the project on a surface of 665 hectares, allowing if necessary expropriations, to carry out the compliance of the town planning documents and to ” legitimize politically ” the realization of the project.
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Radioactive releases from the Golfech nuclear power plant accumulate downstream
20minutes 19th Jan 2021, A study by Criirad, an independent laboratory, shows that radioactive releases from the Golfech nuclear power plant accumulate downstream in the
Garonne. The presence of tritium or carbon 14 in aquatic plants remains
below regulatory standards. For environmental protection associations, the
accumulation of this radioactive waste, whose longevity is important, poses
a problem.
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11 March ONLINE Ten Years Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Rio de Janeiro International Uranium Film Festival Free Online Screening and Debate.
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13 – March – Protest – France ROUEN (76) – HAUTE-NORMANDIE – RASSEMBLEMENT] Fukushima plus jamais ça : arrêt du nucléaire civil et militaire
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