Brennilis nuclear power plant

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Brennilis nuclear power plant
Brennilis nuclear power plant
Brennilis nuclear power plant
location
Brennilis nuclear power plant (France)
Brennilis nuclear power plant
Coordinates 48 ° 21 '12 "  N , 3 ° 52' 20"  W Coordinates: 48 ° 21 '12 "  N , 3 ° 52' 20"  W.
Country: France
Data
Owner: EDF
Operator: EDF
Project start: 1962
Commercial operation: July 9, 1967
Shutdown: July 31, 1985

Decommissioned reactors (gross):

1 (75 MW)
Energy fed in since commissioning: 6,320 GWh
Was standing: 28.12.2019
The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation .
f1

The brennilis nuclear power plant (or EL - 4 (Arree Mounts) , named after the region) is located in the region Bretagne in the Finistère . The reactor moderated with heavy water and gas-cooled was in operation from 1967 to 1985. Construction of the power plant with an output of 70 MW began in 1962. The operating time of the plant in active operation was 96,000 hours. Electrical power of 6.32 TW was fed into the grid. The average availability over the operating period was approx. 71%. The plant is currently being dismantled.

The reactor building
Exterior view of the enclosure of the nuclear power plant in 2008

history

The nuclear power plant was built and operated by the French energy supplier Électricité de France (EDF). The Ellez river , which provides the cooling water , was dammed especially for the power plant. The "Réservoir de Saint-Michel" (also "Lac de Saint-Michel") was created. Construction of the reactor block began on July 1, 1962; it went into operation on July 9, 1967. On July 31, 1985, it was shut down.

Power plant type

The nuclear power plant was a with heavy water moderated and CO 2 cooled natural uranium Experimental Reactor (English: H Eavy W ater moderated G as C ooled R eactor; HWGCR). The net benefit was 70  megawatts (MW) and the gross output at 75 MW. The thermal output was 250 MW. UO 2 pellets were used as fuel . These were combined in tubes made of CuZr with a wall thickness of 0.7 mm in bundles of 19 tubes each. All in all, there were these fuel bundles in 1944. The reactor had control rods made of boron carbide (B 4 C), twelve for the coarse control, four for the fine control and nine safety rods.

Incidents

There were two to five reported incidents in operation every year, allegedly only level 0 to 1 and always without a nuclear risk. Measurements by the CRIIRAD laboratory at the request of opponents of nuclear power in 2006, i.e. during the ongoing demolition work, revealed excessive radioactivity in the vicinity of the former reactor. Due to the composition and locations of the isotopes , this only allows the conclusion that there must have been at least one radioactive incident during operation. The isotopes with a short half-life that were also found must come from the demolition work. So here, too, improvements to protect the environment are required.
In 1975 there was a two-bomb attack by members of the Breton Liberation Front who tried to blackmail the French state. The result of the attack was simply a business interruption for security reasons.

End of use

After the final shutdown at the end of July 1985, dismantling was planned. As with most first-generation reactors, no particular attention was paid to the simplest possible dismantling during construction. In Brennilis, for example, it is problematic to open the reactor pressure vessel to dispose of the core, because due to the construction, a complex system of pipelines all around makes easy access impossible. Seven years after the reactor was shut down in 1992, the fuel elements and heavy water were removed from the plant. The reactor is completely dry 20 years after the heavy water has been drained, but the high dose rate of 70 Sv / h (7 × 10 6  mrem / h) inside the pressure vessel does not allow manual work. All work had to be carried out with remote-controlled industrial robots , which had to be developed and tested in large numbers.

Dismantling

The first demolition work began in the mid-1997 and ended for the time being in 2007. It included the demolition of the non-nuclear buildings, removal of electrical systems, disposal of parts of the CO 2 cooling system and the heavy water systems.

Obstacles

In 2007 there was an interruption of the work due to a decision of the French Council of State (Conseil d'État) by revoking the demolition license. The revocation was due to the fact that an expert opinion in consultation with the owner and operator of the reactor, EDF, was only made public after the license had been granted. A new report from 2007, initiated by opponents of nuclear power, also raises the suspicion that radioactivity was able to escape into the environment during the demolition work.

Resumption of work

A new license was only issued in 2011 under stricter conditions. All demolition work on the reactor was suspended until this period. Despite this delay and the lack of approval from the ASN ( Autorité de sûreté nucléaire ) for the total dismantling, those responsible at EDF expect a complete dismantling in 2013 by 2025. Even the fact that 96% of the radioactively contaminated parts still have to be dismantled with the reactor pressure vessel does not bother with this ambitious schedule, nor the fact that the state has only given partial approval for the dismantling. Since 2012, there have been increasing demands to end the dismantling of the nuclear reactor because of fear of radioactive contamination of the area. After all, the nuclear reactor is in the middle of a nature reserve and recreation area and the permit for complete demolition is still missing.

New guidelines

At the end of 2017, the responsible ASN refused to accept for several reasons: There is no repository for the accumulated amounts of radioactive material and it was found that waste quantities were incorrectly declared and incorrectly packaged due to a lack of competence. During renewed inspections of the system in November 2017 and March 2018 by inspectors from ASN, according to the operator, no more inadequacies were found.

End in sight

At the end of July 2018, the EDF presented a detailed paper on the procedure for the complete demolition of the plant. This addresses the ASN's demands, especially with regard to the demolition of the actual reactor building, especially since the area around the former reactor is to be used for other purposes at this time. In January 2020 it is determined that the complete dismantling will be carried out and is expected to last until 2038. The reason for this is to be seen in the fact that a step-by-step approach with a review of each step is now provided in accordance with the existing regulations. In this way, the "unforeseen" should be avoided in any case.

Costs of dismantling

In 2008, 482 million euros were consumed for the costs of the complete dismantling of the power plant . The costs were already five times as high as the first forecast.
Currently (end of 2018), total costs are expected to be around 700 million euros.

Data of the reactor

The Brennilis nuclear power plant has a total of one block :

Reactor block Reactor type net
power 		gross
power 		start of building Network
synchronization 		Commercialization
of essential operation 		switching off
processing
Brennilis HWGCR 70 MW 75 MW 07/01/1962 07/09/1967 06/01/1968 07/31/1985

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ International Nuclear Safety Center: Operating data of the reactor. January 1997, archived from the original on May 7, 2009 ; accessed on December 28, 2019 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): Nuclear Power Reactors: EL-4 (MONTS D'ARREE) , France. Retrieved December 28, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Vincent Durupt: Brennilis atomic center; dismantling without end. In: Le Monde. October 9, 2012, accessed December 29, 2019 (French).
  4. ↑ a b CRIIRAD / B. Chareyron: The Consequences of Brennilis, report by CRIIRAD Sept. 2007. September 22, 2007, accessed on December 29, 2019 (French).
  5. ↑ Paris should tremble: Bretons throw bombs. In: SPIEGEL online 35/1975. August 25, 1975. Retrieved December 29, 2019 .
  6. ^ Future Breaking up Brennilis. In: NUCLEAR Engineering International. August 1, 2012, accessed December 29, 2019 .
  7. ↑ ASN rejects the total dismantling of the Brennilis reactor. In: Le Monde. October 9, 2012, accessed December 29, 2019 (French).
  8. ↑ Jérôme Gicquel: Brennilis is not finished with his nuclear reactor. In: 20minutes.fr, RENNES Brittany. May 5, 2015, accessed December 29, 2019 (French).
  9. ↑ Associations call for the dismantling of the Brennilis power plant to be suspended. In: Le Monde. January 17, 2013, accessed December 29, 2019 (French).
  10. ↑ EDF: La centrale inspectée par L'ASN: Un accounted positif. March 14, 2018, accessed January 2, 2020 (French).
  11. ↑ L'EnerGEEK: CENTRALE NUCLÉAIRE DE BRENNILIS: Fin du démantèlement pévu pour 2038. January 2, 2020, accessed on January 2, 2020 (French).

See also

Web links

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