Two PWRs and an EPR under construction.
Construction of Electricite de France SA’s EPR nuclear reactor at Flamanville in Normandy is running about 24 months late, Le Figaro reported, citing an unidentified person.
EDF’s director in charge of the project, Herve Machenaud, responded that progress is still being evaluated, the newspaper said. (more…)
Nuclear safety authorities in four countries are assessing the significance of undocumented welding on primary circuit piping for the EPR reactor under construction at Olkiluoto-3, Petteri Tiippana, director of the nuclear reactor regulation department at the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority STUK, told Platts in an interview Thursday.
But Tiippana said that contrary to a statement made Wednesday by Marie-Pierre Comets, a commissioner of French nuclear safety authority ASN, regulators from Finland, France, the UK and the US are not preparing a joint statement on the piping quality issue.
A spokesman for the UK Health and Safety Executive said that the HSE and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission had observed a joint inspection of the piping made by the French company Nordon for the Olkiluoto-3 EPR. He said, “any action relating to this is for ASN and STUK, but we are not currently planning to issue a joint statement.” HSE and the NRC are currently in the process of reviewing the “next-generation” EPR reactor design, but are not overseeing construction of EPR units, unlike STUK and ASN. The HSE spokesman said the piping quality is “not a design issue, it’s a quality issue.”
Olivier Gupta, ASN’s director for power reactor regulation, said through a spokeswoman Thursday that “there will be no joint statement” on the piping issue. He said Comets had meant to refer to the “joint inspection” of the Nordon facilities by STUK and ASN, which was observed by representatives of NRC and HSE. The spokeswoman said Comets had “made a mistake.”
The piping was manufactured by Nordon, a subcontractor to Areva, the French vendor which is supplying the nuclear part of the Olkiluoto-3 unit under a turnkey contract to utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy. Nordon, based in Nancy in eastern France, is a unit of the Fives group and has long been a major supplier of piping for nuclear power plants.
In October 2009, STUK found that small cracks in piping made for the main coolant lines of Olkiluoto-3 had been repaired with welding procedures that were not documented.
Tiippana said the piping is still in France and that analysis of the significance of the undocumented welding could be finished within several weeks. STUK will then do final inspections, probably before summer, he said. Until the piping is approved by STUK, it cannot be transported to Olkiluoto.
The main coolant lines for the EPR must be manufactured to very high quality standards and documentation must substantiate that quality, because the safety case for those high-pressure lines assumes they will not rupture suddenly.
In an unprecedented initiative, STUK, ASN and HSE issued a tripartite regulatory statement last November expressing concern about the instrumentation and control system architecture proposed for the EPR in their three countries.
Areva’s 1,600- to 1,700 MW-class EPR reactor is under construction at Olkiluoto-3 in Finland and Flamanville-3 in France, and the design is under regulatory review for construction in the UK and the US.
OLKILUOTO, Finland — As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site.
The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too. (more…)
Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — The lush green hills overlooking the dairy farms of Le Chefresne in Normandy have become a battleground in France’s efforts to boost power production.
In a corner of France known for Camembert cheese and apples, state-controlled Electricite de France SA plans to build 200 foot-tall steel pylons with high-voltage cables to carry electricity from a nuclear plant. The proposal would add to the 400,000 volts that pylons already carry from two existing reactors. (more…)
PARIS – (Dow Jones)- French nuclear utility Electricite de France SA Thursday announced higher costs for a reactor it’s building in France and said its ambition to lead a worldwide wave of building new nuclear plants means total capital expenditure of between EUR40 billion and EUR50 billion by 2020.
The net financing requirements for EDF over the same period should be between EUR12 billion and EUR20 billion, EDF said, given the involvement of partners in projects in France, China, the U.S. and possibly the U.K. (more…)
PARIS, Nov 24 (Reuters) – French atomic energy firms may be over-confident when they say their plans to expand abroad will survive the credit crisis unscathed.
Some analysts say financing problems, if prolonged, are bound to delay schemes in a sector with such high capital costs.
France hopes to use its unrivalled atomic expertise to lead a global nuclear revival spurred by rising fossil fuel prices and concerns over climate change. Its firms may even benefit as a slowing economy lowers costs for current building in France. (more…)
PARIS, Nov 12 (Reuters) – France’s EDF plans to start the new-generation EPR reactor under construction at the Flamanville nuclear site in northwest France in 2012, and not in 2013 as stated by Areva earlier, EDF said on Wednesday.
“EDF confirms the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) will start in 2012,” EDF said in a statement. (more…)
28 October 2008 – Areva has been told to monitor its subcontractors more closely after it was discovered that one had supplied a pressure system part without properly following testing procedures.
World Nuclear News reported that the parts in question are to be used to form the pressurizer of the water-cooled reactor under construction at Flamanville. The pressurizer is a main component of the reactor’s primary coolant loop and as such has important safety role in addition to its function in the operation of the reactor. (more…)
LE CREUSOT, July 3: President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Thursday that France will build a second third-generation EPR nuclear plant, arguing that nuclear power was France’s best answer to soaring energy prices.
“We are going to build a new EPR nuclear reactor, separate from the one in Flamanville,” Sarkozy said in a speech on energy policy as he visited an ArcelorMittal steel factory in central France. (more…)
PARIS (Reuters) – Greenpeace France activists on Wednesday blocked for the second day the entrances of three of the four quarries used by EDF to build its new-generation nuclear reactor, the environmentalist group said.
But French power group EDF said the action was not preventing building of the 1,600-megawatts reactor. (more…)
