Tricastin Nuclear Power Plant
F1
Active reactors ( gross ):
The nuclear power plant Tricastin located near Pierre latte in the Drome region on the banks of the Canal de Donzère - Mondragon on the Rhone between Valence (70 km upstream ) and Avignon (65 km downstream ). It is part of the nuclear plant Tricastin, which consists of several facilities, including a nuclear power plant with four reactor blocks and a uranium enrichment plant ( Eurodif ).
History
The 1980/81 went into operation in nuclear power plant Tricastin includes four pressurized water reactors, each with 915 megawatts of electric power net, providing approximately 25 TWh of electrical energy per year. However, the uranium enrichment plant requires about 17 TWh per year; so that it consumes 2/3 of the production of nuclear power plant Tricastin, which means that three of the four reactors produce almost exclusively for the supply of Eurodif. However, to go into operation, which will take 3 GW need only 50 MW from the beginning of 2009 to 2017 a new plant. The reactors are cooled directly by the water of the Rhône from the Canal de Donzère - Mondragon.
A report by the Nuclear Safety Authority ( Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire ) in October 2002, according to certain precautionary measures for reactor cooling in an earthquake could no longer be assured.
Originally the first French EPR to be built in Tricastin. However, the Flamanville site was chosen by the English Channel for the first EPR in France. The reason given was that it was problematic to cool the reactor in Tricastin, as 14 nuclear power plant units are already on the Rhône. In addition, the French electricity market is more focused on the north of France.
Disorders
On September 1, 1980, a reactor block had to be shut down after a pipe had burst with radioactive waste. According to official figures the spilled wastewater was collected.
In 1999, a worker in one of the reactor units of a radiation safety officer 's permission to do a short work under the reactor vessel. He was a force to be carcinogenic dose of around 300 mSv within three minutes. The radiation protector had previously estimated, the dose amounts to just 70 millisieverts. The case had legal consequences.
From 12 to 22 July 2003 the water temperature of the channel Donzère - Mondragon passed through cooling water discharge of a nuclear power plant Tricastin repeats the allowable limit of 27 ° C. Total continued exceeding 44 hours, until the temperature reached 28.8 ° C. The Nuclear Safety Authority published this incident on 1 August 2003 on its website.
A study conducted on 2 July 2004 inspection of the French Nuclear Safety Authority on fire danger brought to light a lack of experience of the staff. So it took me 37 minutes to take effective action against a possible fire. During this period, the excavated fire already were participating in a too large extent.
In the Eurodif uranium enrichment plant, which is located on the same site as the nuclear power plant, it came out in 2008 to an incident that became known on July 8. This radioactive liquid stepped out into the environment. The changes taking place in the wake of the incident at the power plant water analysis revealed a 100-fold excess of the approved annual load limit. According to IRSN Director Jean- Christophe Gariel the increased radiation exposure is probably due to an earlier accident. The scientists Commission CRIIRAD suspected, however, that the contamination of a non-covered military uranium dump comes. 10 days after the accident an immediate groundwater testing in the area of French nuclear power plants was arranged. The French branch of Greenpeace wants to know why the general extension of the groundwater analyzes on the power plant site, instead of the current measurements made only at the nuclear power plants themselves.
Two weeks later, around 100 people were " slightly contaminated " by radioactive particles on 23 July. The particles were withdrawn from the discharge line of a shut-down reactor. The incident was classified at level 0 on the eight-step evaluation International Nuclear Event Scale. Since July 2008, however, further incidents occurred and this led to an investigation at the power plant site, this recent accident was an above-average media coverage.
To find out if the operator has complied with the applicable safety regulations, the police searched the director's office.
On 16 February 2011, it was found that in more than half of the emergency diesel generators of blocks 3 and 4 some items used for refurbishment two years ago fail prematurely but a slightly longer duration of diesel. These quality defects proved in a test in another NPP as a total failure - cause of the diesel, but they were there only fitted to the smaller part with it. In case of failure of the external power grid and the reserve network ( emergency case ) would thus be at Tricastin 3/4 the power to decay heat removal was not secured in the reactor core, it would have the worst case can even lead in both blocks to a meltdown. INES 2
On 2 July 2011, there was a fire in a transformer.
In the early morning of July 15, 2013, about 20 people procured unauthorized access to the power plant site and unfurled banners there.
Data of the reactor units
The nuclear power plant Tricastin has a total of four blocks: