Blayais Nuclear Power Plant

F1

Active reactors ( gross ):

The nuclear power plant is located in Blaye Blaye French commune in the Aquitaine region in the department of Gironde. Comprised of four pressurized water reactors nuclear power plant is located on the right bank of the Gironde estuary, about 60 kilometers from Bordeaux and 80 km from Royan.

Key data

The 227 -acre nuclear power plant site is located in a 6,000- acre wetland and employs about 1300 people. Operator of the nuclear power plant is the French company Electricité de France (EDF). The four pressurized water reactors have a net power output of 910 megawatts ( MW) and a gross capacity of 951 MW. The total installed capacity is 3804 MW, making it one nuclear power plant to the larger in France. Every year, it feeds an average of 24 billion kilowatt hours into the public power grid.

The Gironde is used to cool the plant taken by underwater cables to a length of 400 meters of water, which removed after the cooling process of the reactors in the center of the estuary, 2.2 km from the shore, is fed back into the river. This distance is the one needed to allow the heated water is not sucked in again, and on the other, so that the water is cool and far enough back out away into the river from the shore to the habitat of the fish that reside primarily in the shore area, not too much to bother.

The construction of the first two reactor units was begun on 1 January 1977. Block 1 was 12 June 1981, and Unit 2 on 17 July 1982. On April 1, 1978, started the construction of two additional reactor units, which were put into operation on 16 May 1983, on 17 August 1983.

Security

Flood

The hurricane Lothar caused on the evening of December 27, 1999 severe flooding in the area of ​​nuclear power plant, which led to an accident of category 2 on the International Nuclear Event Scale Rating (INES 2). At this time the third reactor block for routine maintenance was turned off. The storm had first led to disturbances in the 400 kV network, which led to an automatic shutdown of the reactor units 2 and 4. The water of the Gironde on the protection dikes was then pushed away in the grounds of the nuclear power plant by the storm. The water flooded located underground areas of the reactor building of Unit 1 and 2 have also parts of the cooling system and the emergency cooling and additional safety devices were flooded.

The cooling of the affected reactors was always guaranteed, according to the EDF. The operating organization CGT announced in a statement, moreover, that two out of three cooling circuits have remained functional, which is sufficient to cool the plant. The fact that no reliance would have been on the functioning of the safety devices due to flooding in an emergency, be serious. The flooding incident has later studies in other - out nuclear power plants on the impact of a possible flood - also German.

Earthquake

In the case of a strong earthquake could lead to failure of the emergency cooling. A report by the nuclear safety authority ASN in October 2002, according to certain protective functions could be no longer guaranteed during earthquakes, which ensure the cooling of the reactor units.

Data of the reactor units

The nuclear power plant Blaye has a total of four blocks:

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