France’s nuclear safety agency, the ASN, has warned of the potentially catastrophic danger posed by faulty electric circuit breakers found in a number of nuclear power plants located around the country, and which could eventually cause the meltdown of their reactor cores. Recorded incidents have shown that numerous circuit breakers regularly failed to function since they were first installed four years ago. While the plants’ operator, utilities giant EDF, has played down the gravity of the problem, the ASN has ordered it to start looking for replacement equipment “as of now”. Jade Lindgaard reports.
French utility giant EDF ignored warnings issued to it by France’s supreme nuclear safety watchdog, the ASN, of dangerous faults in the machinery being used for the construction of a reactor in what will become one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants, Mediapart can reveal. Alerted to the problem, the Ministry of Labour has now ordered EDF to halt use of the machinery until the flaws are corrected. As Pascale Pascariello reports, the problem is just one of a series that have blighted the building of the European Pressurized Reactor at Flamanville, in northern France, with its completion already delayed by four years amid spiralling costs.
French utility giant Electricité de France has suffered a major setback in its plans to export European Pressurized Reactors to the United States, where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected its subsidiary’s application for a licence to build and operate an EPR reactor in Maryland. With its flagship EPR plant at Flamanville, northern France, suffering recurrent construction delays and overruning costs, the American debacle is a significant blow for both EDF, with debts of almost 40 billion euros, and for EPRs in general. Meanwhile, development of EDF's two EPR projects in the United Kingdom have become bogged down in a row over the true subsidised cost of the energy they will produce. Jade Lindgaard reports.
When French publicly-owned nuclear giant Areva bought Canadian mining company UraMin in 2007, it boasted of having secured major uranium deposits in Africa. But five years on, no uranium has ever been mined there, and Areva has had to write off nearly 2 billion euros in its accounts. Here, Martine Orange investigates the roots of the fiasco and attempts to cover up what promises to become a major industrial scandal, along with the intrigue surrounding the company's sacked and furious CEO Anne Lauvergeon (pictured).
The French nuclear industry has been ordered to implement urgent safety improvements costing several billion euros after a nationwide stress test of the country's major nuclear sites found they were vulnerable to major natural disasters such as that which struck the Japanese plant at Fukushima last March. "We are not asking for these investments, we are imposing them," said André-Paul Lacoste, head of the French Nuclear Safety Authority, adding that the significant cost of his watchdog's demands could force plant closures. Jade Lindgaard reports.
French state-controlled utility group EDF has signed a preliminary deal to take a majority stake in Italian power utility Edison, costing 700 million euros.
Nuclear power plants in France, the most nuclear dependent country in the world, are vulnerable to the catastrophic effects of a major natural disaster such as that which hit the Japanese plant at Fukushima in March. That is the conclusion of a stress-test study of the country's 58-strong reactor fleet carried out by the French radioprotection and nuclear safety institute, the IRSN, presented Thursday by the national nuclear safety agency, the ASN, which warned that "massive investment" is required for the recommended safety upgrades. Jade Lindgaard reports on the findings.
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