Eurodif

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The two cooling towers of the Eurodif plant

Eurodif stands for European Gaseous Diffusion Uranium Enrichment and is a subsidiary of the French nuclear group Areva . Eurodif operates a uranium enrichment plant with its subsidiary Socatri on the site of the French Tricastin nuclear plant near Pierrelatte in the Drôme department .

history

In 1973 France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Sweden founded EURODIF as a joint venture . The shareholders for France were the “Société d'Etudes et de Recherche d'Uranium” with 47.5%, for Italy “AGIP Nucleare” and “Comitato Nazionale per Energia Nucleare” with a total of 22.5%, for Sweden “AB Atomenergi” with 10%, for Spain “Empresa Nacional del Uranio SA” with 10% and for Belgium the “Société Belge pour l'Enrichissement de l'Uranium” with 10%.

Sweden withdrew from the project in 1974; In 1975 the Swedish stake (10 percent in EURODIF) was transferred to Iran as a result of Franco-Iranian negotiations. The so-called "Sofidif" (Société franco-Iranienne pour l'enrichissement de l'uranium par diffusion gazeuse) was founded. This got a 25% stake in EURODIF and thus enabled Iran to hold its ten percent share in EURODIF.

In 1974, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi made a billion dollars available (and another 180 million dollars in 1977) for the construction of the plant, among other things to have the right to buy 10% of the later production. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran stopped making payments. In 1991 an agreement was reached: France reimbursed Iran $ 1.6 billion.

Construction of the plant began in 1975, went into operation for the first time in 1979 and in 1980 reached its full capacity of 10,800 tons of uranium separation work per year.

The plant is named after the first chairman of Eurodif between 1974 and 1976, Georges Besse , and supplies 40 electricity producers around the world with enriched uranium.

It is cooled by the two cooling towers on site and provides district heating for 2,400 apartments in Pierrelatte as well as 42 hectares of greenhouses and the local crocodile farm for leather production.

The enrichment process was changed from the gas diffusion process to the significantly more energy-saving gas centrifuge process . The old enrichment plant required the output of three nuclear reactors (approx. 3 GW), the new process only needs 50 MW for the same amount of enriched uranium.

The new "Georges Besse II" plant went into operation on December 9, 2009 and is expected to achieve full capacity of 7.5 million cutting work units per year by 2016, while the old Eurodif plant is to be completely dismantled by 2020. In June 2008 AREVA announced that Suez would take a 5% stake in the new facility.

The AREVA subsidiary SOCATRI, founded in 1974, takes care of the planned demolition of the old system, maintenance and cleaning of the waste water.

Accident

At the beginning of July 2008, a large amount of a solution with non-enriched uranium leaked from the plant and got into the environment. The incident was announced on July 8, 2008. The radioactive solution seeped into the ground and got through the sewer system into the smaller rivers Gaffière and Lauzon, the Rhone , possibly also into the groundwater . The withdrawal of water and the consumption of fish from the river sections concerned were banned for private individuals and farmers.

Chronology:

July 7th, 7:00 pm: Overflow alarm for a tank with uranium solution. He is ignored.
July 8th, 3:00 am: Staff discover that the tank has run empty.
July 8th, 5.30 am: Internal company alarm about leaked radioactivity.
July 8, 7.30 am: The French nuclear regulatory authority ASN is informed.
July 8, 2:00 p.m.: Information for the surrounding communities.

The information on the amount of pollutants released fluctuates between 6.25 cubic meters of solution with about 75 kilograms of non-enriched uranium (operator information ) and 30 cubic meters of solution with about 360 kilograms of uranium (ASN). According to an independent investigation by the organization CRIIRAD , the statutory limit values ​​for the annual radiation release into the environment are said to have been exceeded by more than 100 times.

The incident is said to have resulted in a boiler overflow in a plant for the treatment of uranium solutions. The retention basin intended for such incidents was said to have been leaking due to work. On October 14, 2010, SOCATRI was sentenced by the Carpentras court to a fine of 40,000 euros for failing to notify the Autorité de sûreté nucléaire and the Département Vaucluse . The company was acquitted of the accusation of water pollution because there are no drinking water limits in France for radioactive substances. At the end of September 2011, the appeals court in Nîmes overturned the judgment and sentenced Socatri to a fine of 300,000 euros for drinking water pollution and damages of 20,000 euros each for the organizations appearing as co-plaintiffs (including Greenpeace , Sortir du nucléaire , Les Amis de la Terre and ' France Nature Environnement ') and 10,000 euros each for a dozen complaining residents.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. Kenneth Owen: Making sure the nuclear power stations don't go hungry ( English ) The Times . March 7, 1975. Retrieved July 22, 2008.
  2. Maurice Lenders: Uranium Enrichment by Gaseous Centrifuge ( English , PDF) Urenco. S. 2. May 16, 2001. Retrieved on July 22, 2008.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.urenco.com  
  3. Georges Besse ( French ) Fondation Georges Besse. Retrieved July 19, 2008.
  4. a b Report environnemental, social, sociétal, de sûreté nucléaire et de radioprotection 2006 Tricastin ( French , PDF) AREVA-NC. Archived from the original on January 17, 2012. Retrieved July 13, 2008.
  5. Georges Besse II: first centrifuge cascade in operation . Nuclear Forum Switzerland. December 17, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2010.
  6. ^ Suez buys stake in Georges Besse II enrichment plant ( English ) World Nuclear News. June 4, 2008. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
  7. Christopher Schrader: Second accident in two weeks. In: sueddeutsche.de . May 17, 2010, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  8. google.com/hostednews/afp ( Memento from January 25, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  9. Areva reconnu coupable d'une fuite d'uranium au Tricastin ( French ) Le Monde . September 30, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2011.

Web links

Coordinates: 44 ° 20 '  N , 4 ° 43'  E