Fessenheim, April 2014

[Enthalpy]

It's good to have German newspapers, because the French population has known about nothing.

On 9th April, 2014, some cooling water leaks in the nuclear power plant in Fessenheim, France. The incident is evaluated at severity 1 over 7. That's what the French citizens have learned of it up to now.

Apparently, the people who have known more about didn't even bother to inform the French newspapers: they passed information to the German Süddeutsche Zeitung, definitely more useful. Details about the incident are better known through the request for information sent by the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) to the electricity producer, Électricité de France (EDF). By the way, ASN is the controller who still keeps the severity at 1 and could have informed the population.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/frankreich-panne-im-akw-fessenheim-war-gravierender-als-gedacht-1.2890408

(less detailed papers in other languages have cited this one)

What the journalists have learned from the documents is nothing banal like the initial story was.

• Some water at ground level, but in the basement the control bays were out of function.
• The reactor's control bars did not respond.
• The generator could not be decoupled from the power grid.
• The chain reaction had to be stopped by dumping boron in the primary water.
• Few weeks later, the pipe network was reput to work during the ASN inspection supposed to tell whether it could be put to work.

This incident is certainly a case to worry about.

• All normal control means were lost. Boron is a strict emergency means.
• Luckily, cooling and power were not lost during this incident. That's one difference with Fukushima. But the total loss of normal control means is similar.
• How the bloody f*ck can a water leak let lose the control of a nuke? Who subm*ron put electronic control bays at a location liable to flooding?
• The whole Fessenheim plant is 8m deeper than the nearby Rhine river.

[studiot]

Thank you for this information since the proposed new EDF plant will be in my backyard if built.

 

Edit

 

There is more to be said in general.

 

The incident was apparently in 2014, but more data is coming to light now.

 

http://www.dw.com/en/reports-fessenheim-nuclear-accident-played-down-by-authorities/a-19093477

Edited April 13, 2016 by studiot

[Enthalpy]

The new EDF plant in Britain would be of the newer type, EPR. Which doesn't make it safer to my eyes:

- Obviously, nobody in France knows to build a reactor presently. The last adaptation was made four decades ago, from a design bought from the US company Westinghouse. The knowledge is gone, adios, bye-bye.

- It will necessarily contain software hence be unreliable. At least, France's existing reactors have switches and needle displays.

 

The good part of it is that EDF is nearing bankruptcy because of the EPR disaster, many people at the company call it foolish to build two more reactors at Hinckley Point - the financial director resigned loudly because of that. Alas, both governments want to proceed.

 

I wasn't very confident of ASN (the supervisor) as they had let obvious design mistakes pass through which were detected by their Finnish and British equivalents - like, overpressure expelling the control rods, or circuits serving both for control and surveillance. Now it seems that they have downplayed the situation or didn't achieve to get the true information.

 

Hey, I first asked publicly on May 31, 2009 whether the EPR would ever run - just because it was already abnormally late at Olkiluoto. Meanwhile, 3 more construction sites have been started, 1 is in discussion, none is operational, Areva would already have closed in a market economy, EDF has bought the activity which may kill the company - and no government has taken the proper decision.

 

It's too late to stop, but tomorrow it will be worse.

[John Cuthber]

 

- It will necessarily contain software hence be unreliable. At least, France's existing reactors have switches and needle displays.

 

 

 

Be fair- the Chinese can write really good software...

[Enthalpy]

Anything can happen.

The EPR has just made a successful start at Tianshan, producing heat by the chain reaction and converting it to electricity.

The customer has declared "to be fully satisfied with the results" and the manufacturer "that the test confirm the good design of the product, called to a bright future".

[Enthalpy]

22 hours ago, Enthalpy said:

The EPR has just made a successful start at Tianshan, producing heat by the chain reaction and converting it to electricity.

April's fool!