PARIS, July 29 (Reuters) - More than 120 workers evacuated a nuclear power plant in southern France on Tuesday after an alarm was set off, the nuclear safety authority said.
Plant owner EDF said the alarm was triggered accidentally but the safety authority ASN said it would await an independent examination before making any conclusions. (more…)
Sylvie Eymard’s Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange.
For the past two weeks, Eymard, 41, and her children, 13 and seven, have had a phobia of taps. To wash up, they go out to the yard and fill a bowl from a specially delivered plastic tank of purified water on a fork-lift tractor. They carry the water up to the bathroom to wash. Even the dog drinks bottled water, and it is left out for the birds. (more…)
PARIS (AFP) — French environmentalists sounded the alarm Thursday after the third incident this month at a nuclear plant left 100 employees contaminated.
“This new incident shows that nuclear energy, which is presented as clean and safe, remains a dangerous, polluting and poorly controlled energy,” a spokesman for environmental group Greenpeace told AFP. (more…)
PARIS (Reuters) - Around 100 staff at a nuclear power plant in southern France were contaminated with a low dose of radiation on Wednesday, power firm EDF said, the latest incident there after a case of uranium spillage two weeks ago.
EDF said in a statement that sensors detected a rise in the level of radiation while maintenance work was being carried out at the Tricastin site’s reactor number four, which had been shut since July 12. (more…)
LYON, France (AFP) — A French wine could soon change its name before next year’s grape harvest to avoid being associated with a uranium leak at an eponymous nuclear power facility.
“The idea is making progress and I hope it will be achieved before the 2009 harvest,” said Henri Bour, president of the Coteaux du Tricastin controlled term of origin, or “appellation d’origine controlee”. (more…)
he French nuclear giant Areva yesterday confirmed there was a radioactive leak from a broken pipe at a nuclear fuel plant in south-eastern France, a week after a uranium spill at another of its plants polluted the local water supply.
The latest incident comes as an embarrassment to the French government as it struggles to contain environmentalists’ anger and reassure residents near its nuclear plants that they are safe. (more…)
The French government on Thursday ordered an investigation into the water table around all of France’s 58 nuclear reactors in an effort to dispel fears raised by a leak from a treatment plant run by Areva in southern France.
Jean-Louis Borloo, ecology minister, has asked an independent committee to carry out the probe to stem mounting public concern over nuclear waste management after a low-grade leak at the Socatri treatment plant at Tricastin focused public attention on a still unexplained, older contamination of the water table. (more…)
PARIS (Reuters) - Authorities will hold tests at all French nuclear power plants to ensure leaks like the one this month at Tricastin in southern France have not occurred, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told a newspaper.
Plant operator Areva said earlier this month that 30 cubic meters of liquid containing non-enriched uranium was accidentally poured on to the ground and into a river at the Tricastin site. (more…)
PARIS (Reuters) - France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN) said on Friday that Areva-subsidiary Socatri had poorly managed a leak of liquid containing uranium that occurred in southeastern France this week.
The nuclear watchdog inspected the site on Thursday.
“The management of the crisis by the company involved has shown omissions in terms of communication to the authorities,” the ASN said in a statement. (more…)
PARIS (Reuters) - France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN) said on Thursday it had provisionally classified a leak of liquid containing uranium on a site in southeastern France earlier this week at level one of the INES nuclear scale.
The International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), used to measure the potential danger of incidents at nuclear installation, has seven levels, the lowest of which is zero. (more…)
