Blayais Nuclear Power Plant

Blayais Nuclear Power Plant
Blayais Nuclear Power Plant
location
Coordinates	45 ° 15 '22 "  N , 0 ° 41' 30"  W Coordinates: 45 ° 15 '22 "  N , 0 ° 41' 30"  W.
Country:	France
Data
Owner:	EDF
Operator:	EDF
Project start:	1976
Commercial operation:	June 12, 1981
Active reactors (gross):	4 (3,804 MW)
Energy fed in in 2016:	24,276 GWh
Energy fed in since commissioning:	814,140 GWh
Website:	Side of the operator
Was standing:	August 25, 2017
The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation .

The nuclear power plant Blayais is the French community Blaye in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine in the Gironde department . The nuclear power plant, which consists of four pressurized water reactors , is located on the right bank of the Gironde estuary , about 60 kilometers from Bordeaux and 80 kilometers from Royan .

Key data

The 227 hectare nuclear power plant area is located in a 6000 hectare marshland and employs around 1300 people. The operator of the nuclear power plant is the French company Électricité de France (EDF). The four pressurized water reactors have a net capacity of each 910  megawatts (MW) and a gross capacity of 951 MW. The total installed capacity is 3804 MW, making the nuclear power plant one of the larger in France. It feeds an average of 24 billion kilowatt hours into the public power grid every year .

To cool the system, water is taken from the Gironde over a length of 400 meters by means of underwater pipes, which is fed back into the river after the cooling process in the reactors in the center of the estuary, 2.2 kilometers from the bank. This distance is necessary, on the one hand, so that the heated water is not sucked in again, and, on the other hand, so that the water is cool enough and far enough away from the bank to return to the river to protect the habitat of the fish, which are mainly in the bank not to disturb too much.

Construction of the first two reactor blocks began on January 1, 1977. Unit 1 went into operation on June 12, 1981 and Unit 2 on July 17, 1982. On April 1, 1978, the construction of two further reactor blocks began, which were put into operation on May 16, 1983 and August 17, 1983.

safety

Flood

Hurricane Martin caused severe flooding in the area of ​​the nuclear power plant on the evening of December 27, 1999, which led to a category 2 accident on the International Rating Scale for Nuclear Events (INES 2). At this point the third reactor block was shut down for routine maintenance. The storm initially caused disruptions in the 400 kV network, which led to the automatic shutdown of reactor units 2 and 4. The storm then pushed the Gironde water over the protective dikes into the site of the nuclear power plant. The water flooded underground areas of the reactor buildings of units 1 and 2. Parts of the cooling system and emergency cooling as well as other safety devices were also flooded.

According to the EDF, the cooling of the reactor blocks concerned was always guaranteed. The operating organization CGT also announced in a statement that two out of three cooling circuits had remained functional, which was sufficient to cool the system. The fact that, as a result of the flooding, the functioning of the safety devices could no longer be relied on in an emergency is more serious. The flood incident later led to investigations at other - including German  - nuclear power plants about the effects of a possible flood.

The cost of this incident is estimated at $ 63 million.

earthquake

In the event of a strong earthquake, the emergency cooling could fail. According to a report by the atomic safety authority ASN in October 2002, certain protective functions in the event of earthquakes that ensure that the reactor units cool down could no longer be guaranteed.

One block of the nuclear power plant

Data of the reactor blocks

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

Reactor block	Reactor type	net power	gross power	start of building	Network synchronization	Commercialization of essential operation	switching off processing
Blayais 1	Pressurized water reactor	910 MW	951 MW	01/01/1977	06/12/1981	December 01, 1981	(Planned for 2021)
Blayais 2	Pressurized water reactor	910 MW	951 MW	01/01/1977	07/17/1982	02/01/1983	(Planned for 2023)
Blayais 3	Pressurized water reactor	910 MW	951 MW	04/01/1978	08/17/1983	11/14/1983	(Planned for 2023)
Blayais 4	Pressurized water reactor	910 MW	951 MW	04/01/1978	05/16/1983	10/01/1983	(Planned for 2023)

See also

• List of nuclear facilities in France
• List of nuclear power plants

Web links

Commons : Blayais Nuclear Power Plant  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The nuclear power plant on the side of the operator (French)
• Nuclear power plants at risk. France fears a Fukushima scenario . Tagesschau , October 13, 2017, about Blayais, the dangerous situation in 1999

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Power Reactor Information System of the IAEA : "France (French Republic): Nuclear Power Reactors" (English)
2. ↑ Centrale nucléaire du Blayais: "Le choc de 1999" . In: SudOuest.fr . ( sudouest.fr [accessed April 8, 2018]).
3. ↑ tagesschau.de: Ruined nuclear power plants swallowed billions worldwide. Retrieved on March 13, 2018 (German). 
4. ↑ Energy Chronicle - French nuclear power plants not earthquake-proof