Lingen fuel assembly plant

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The Lingen fuel assembly plant is a fuel assembly factory in Lingen (Ems) in Lower Saxony . In the plant, fuel elements are produced for use in light water reactors (a type of nuclear power plant ) , which are essential components of a nuclear reactor and, together with the other internals, form the reactor core. They contain the nuclear fuel . The operator is Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH (ANF), a subsidiary of Framatome GmbH (formerly Areva NP , now Orano ). According to its own information, the company not only develops, licenses and manufactures completely ready-to-use fuel elements, but also supplies nuclear fuel in powder and pellet form for pressurized and boiling water reactors as well as research reactors and develops zirconium products.

Around 310 people are employed at the Lingen site, as well as 25 trainees and around 50 employees from external companies.

After the energy turnaround decided in 2011 on the occasion of the reactor disaster in Fukushima and the planned gradual decommissioning of nuclear power plants in Germany, the Lingen site is increasingly focusing production on the export of fuel elements, including the Doel and Tihange nuclear power plants in Belgium , which have been criticized for safety deficiencies . The export share is now 80–90 percent, after a little over 50 percent before 2011.

Although, according to the Federal Environment Ministry, at the end of 2018 neither the French state nor the operating companies were aware of any plans to “reduce or cease the production of nuclear fuels in the Lingen plant”, a letter from the prefecture of the southern French region of Occitania speaks of the production of nuclear fuel should in future be relocated back to "French territory".

Fuel assembly

The fuel assembly plant went into operation on January 19, 1979 and until the end of October 2017 was owned by the French state-owned AREVA group, whose main business was the construction of new nuclear power plants. The lack of orders as a result of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima and problems with the construction of the Finnish reactor in Olkiluoto resulted in high financial losses, which the French state had to compensate for a total of 4.5 billion and prompted a corporate restructuring. In 2018, the French electricity company EdF , which is also majority-owned, took over a majority stake in AREVA, under whose name only the construction of the Olkiluoto III nuclear reactor will continue. The construction and maintenance of other nuclear power plants as well as the fuel element production have been operating under the Framatome name since then .

The delivered uranium hexafluoride (UF 6 ) is reduced in a conversion plant to uranium dioxide (UO 2 ) in powder form and then pressed into tablets. The tablets are sintered and ground to the specified dimensions . After a quality check, the tablets are filled into fuel rod cladding tubes and assembled into fuel assemblies.

The maximum annual processing capacity of the dry conversion plant, covered by licensing law, is 800 tons of uranium, that of the other sub-plants is 650 tons.

Various types of waste are generated during production and are stored in a waste storage facility on the site approved in accordance with the Atomic Energy Act. At the end of 2011 there were 26.1 t of uranium-containing waste with a total activity of 2.1 10 Bq . In 2015 there were 100 t of raw waste and pretreated waste in solid and liquid form in the waste storage facility. At this point in time, the containers were up to 20 years old, some containers with high-pressure-pressed metals were 28 years old (2015). A removal for storage outside the company premises was not planned, also due to the non-existent repository .

The ducts are manufactured in a branch in Duisburg , the head and foot pieces as well as spacers are produced in a branch in Karlstein am Main .

Reportable Events

Up to the end of 2016 there were 139 reportable events in the facility .

During an inspection on August 31, 1999, an accumulation of 4 kg uranium oxide was discovered in a cone of a sieve device. A weld seam was torn due to material fatigue, so that uranium dioxide could penetrate into the hollow space of the cone and collect there. According to the International Rating Scale for Nuclear Incidents (INES), this incident was classified as a reportable incident of level 0 (incident with little or no safety relevance) with urgency E (urgent message).

On June 5, 2004, a smoldering fire occurred in a HEPA filter while the system was not in operation. Parts of the ventilation system were contaminated and had to be cleaned and replaced. The fire was also classified as a reportable event of INES level 0 with reporting category E.

On July 7th, 2005 a wrong operation of a system resulted in overfilling of a collecting container for uranium oxide tablets. Instead of the permitted 18 kg, a 20 l container was filled with 28.66 kg. The excess amount was then transferred to a second container so that the degree of filling was again within the specifications. This event was classified as an INES level 1 incident with reporting category E.

In 2017, a reportable event occurred in which a leak was found in a reaction vessel.

On November 7, 2018, moisture accumulated in the dry conversion system due to a malfunction in the steam supply. The defective components then had to be replaced. The event is classified as a malfunction, damage or failure in the safety system, with the result that at least part of the safety device was not available. As early as May 2018 there was a leak in a pipeline system in the dry conversion system, whereupon the pipe section in question had to be replaced. On November 27, 2018 (also in the dry conversion plant), cracks were found on a reaction vessel as part of a regular inspection.

On December 6, 2018, around 7:30 p.m., a fire broke out in a laboratory in the nuclear field, which could only be extinguished after around an hour and a half. A photo of the fire site published by Miriam Staudte , member of BÜNDNIS90 / Die Grünen in the Lower Saxony state parliament , shows the damage area, the size of which, according to information initially published, is 40 × 40 cm. There was no leakage of “dangerous substances”. An evaporator with uranium-containing liquid caught fire due to an unexpected chemical reaction in which, according to the plant management, only "a few 100 grams" of liquid are evaporated in order to recover the uranium it contains. According to a representative of the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment, around 55 liters of hydrogen are said to have been burned in a large jet flame. Pipes with uranium-containing water were torn from their anchors and burned, so that a total of 1 cubic meter of uranium-containing water leaked out. After the fire, production was initially suspended for an indefinite period. It has been allowed to resume since February 4, 2019 after some conditions have been met.

politics

In 2007, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology considered the security of supply with uranium to be very high. The "refinement" carried out in the Lingen fuel element factory and the Gronau uranium enrichment plant turns nuclear energy into "quasi local energy". However, according to the Federal Environment Agency, 100% of the uranium required must be imported.

In October 2012, opponents of nuclear power protested against the continued operation of the plant by blocking the access road.

On March 7, 2013, the federal government announced that it wanted to continue operating the fuel assembly plant. Their closure is not included in the decision to phase out nuclear power, since the plant is fundamentally different from nuclear power plants in terms of safety.

In July 2013, a significantly larger number of opponents of nuclear power protested again by blocking the access road against the continued operation of the plant, and in September 2015 there was another brief blockade.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fuel Business Unit Lingen site. framatom, accessed December 14, 2019 .
  2. ^ Framatome in the world - Germany. framatom, accessed December 14, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Wilfried Roggendorf, Corinna Berghahn, Thomas Pertz and Sven Lampe: No injuries: fire extinguished in the ANF fuel element factory in Lingen | shz.de. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Thomas Pertz: Areva becomes Framatome: ANF in Lingen sees itself well equipped for the future. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Décision dispense d'étude d'impact après examen au cas par cas en application de l'article R. 122-3 du code de l'environnement. June 28, 2018, accessed December 29, 2018 (French).
  6. ↑ Andreas Wyputta: Lingen fuel element factory: nuclear factory should go . In: The daily newspaper: taz . December 19, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed December 29, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Status information Advanced Nuclear Fuels (ANF), Lingen / Ems | Nds. Ministry of the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .
  8. ↑ A blow to France's budget: Areva nuclear company makes billions in losses . In: Spiegel Online . February 20, 2015 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 14, 2019]).
  9. ↑ Background information on reorganization. framatome, accessed December 14, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety: Reportable events in facilities for nuclear fuel supply and disposal, annual report 2005  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on April 21, 2013 (PDF; 197 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bfs.de  
  11. ↑ Status information Advanced Nuclear Fuels (ANF), Lingen / Ems | Nds. Ministry of the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Answer to the small question (Greens): “'Stress test' for nuclear waste interim storage facilities in Lower Saxony and the fuel element factory in Lingen”. Printed matter 16/4706. Lower Saxony State Parliament - 16th electoral period, April 25, 2012, accessed on December 14, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Questions on the implementation of the ESK guidelines for the interim storage of radioactive waste with negligible heat generation - Annex: Overview of the storage locations for radioactive waste in Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Climate Protection, January 30, 2015, accessed on December 14, 2019 .
  14. ↑ AREVA Germany: Advanced Nuclear Fuels GmbH ( Memento of the original from July 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 21, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.areva.com
  15. ↑ BfE - facilities for nuclear fuel supply and disposal in Germany: reporting requirement Events since commissioning - nuclear fuel supply and disposal facilities in Germany: Events that have to be reported since commissioning. Retrieved December 7, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety: Notifiable events in nuclear fuel supply and disposal facilities, 1999 annual report  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on April 21, 2013 (PDF; 249 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bfs.de  
  17. ↑ Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety: Reportable events in facilities for nuclear fuel supply and disposal, Annual Report 2004  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 242 kB) accessed on April 21, 2013@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bfs.de  
  18. ↑ Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection (ed.): Nuclear supervision and radiation protection in Lower Saxony, report for 2017 . Hanover.
  19. ↑ Reportable event in the fuel element factory - Ems-Vechte-Welle: VHF 99.3. Retrieved November 9, 2018 .
  20. ↑ Reportable event in the Lingen fuel assembly plant | Nds. Ministry of the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection. Retrieved November 9, 2018 (German).
  21. ↑ Reportable event in the fuel assembly plant in Lingen | Nds. Ministry of the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Miriam Staudte: The special meeting of the environmental committee has just been informed about the fire in the #brennelementefabrik #Lingen. This photo shows, it was NOT a small fire of 40 * 40cm. Gases suddenly ignited. There was probably an explosion (deflagration) pic.twitter.com/xCZeEc7DNj. In: @MiriamStaudte. December 11, 2018, accessed December 29, 2018 .
  23. ^ Fire in the nuclear production facility at the ANF fuel element factory in Lingen. December 6, 2018, accessed December 6, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Lingener Tagespost: Evaporator with uranium-containing liquid caught fire in Lingen. December 7, 2018, accessed December 8, 2018 .
  25. ^ Klaus Wieschemeyer: Incident in the nuclear part: Did the explosion lead to a fire in the Lingen fuel element factory? Retrieved December 13, 2018 .
  26. ↑ Wilfried Roggendorf: "Emergency plans worked": Production at ANF in Lingen has been idle for an indefinite period. Retrieved December 8, 2018 .
  27. ↑ Fuel assembly production plant in Lingen resumes operation | Nds. Ministry of the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection. Retrieved February 10, 2019 .
  28. ↑ BMWi: Detailed description of uranium ( memento of the original from January 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 21, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / m.bmwi.de
  29. ↑ Federal Environment Agency: Primary energy imports and security of supply accessed on April 21, 2013 (PDF)
  30. ↑ NOZ 20121012: Blockade on the high wire - police peacefully ended the protest at the fuel element manufacturer in Lingen on October 12, 2012
  31. ↑ German Bundestag: Uranium enrichment continues in Germany from March 7, 2013
  32. ↑ NOZ 20130725: [1] from October 25, 2013
  33. ↑ TAZ 20150929: [2]

Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 49.5 "  N , 7 ° 19 ′ 53.4"  E