Cattenom nuclear power plant

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Cattenom nuclear power plant
Cattenom nuclear power plant
Cattenom nuclear power plant
location
Cattenom nuclear power plant (Moselle)
Cattenom nuclear power plant
Coordinates 49 ° 24 '56 "  N , 6 ° 13' 0"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 24 '56 "  N , 6 ° 13' 0"  E
Country: France
Data
Owner: EDF
Operator: EDF
Project start: 1979
Commercial operation: Nov 13, 1986

Active reactors (gross):

4 (5,448 MW)
Energy fed in in 2006: 34,084 GWh
Energy fed in since commissioning: 583,422 GWh
Website: Page at EDF ( Memento from February 14, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
Was standing: July 22, 2007
The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation .
f1

The French nuclear power plant Cattenom is located in the municipality of Cattenom on the Moselle , in the Lorraine region , about eight kilometers north of the city of Thionville .

General

View over Thionville in the evening to the enormous cloud of steam from the Cattenom nuclear power plant

The nuclear power plant consists of four pressurized water reactors , each with a gross output of 1,362 MW, making it the third most powerful nuclear power plant in France in 2012. Its four cooling towers and their water vapor plumes shape the landscape. The operator is EDF . The plant is twelve kilometers from the German border and nine kilometers from the Luxembourg border. The power plant covers an area of ​​around 415 hectares and is located around 20 meters above the Moselle.

Next to the power plant is a reservoir (Lac du Mirgenbach / Mirgenbacher See, approx. 7.2 million m³ of water) from which cooling water is taken. Around 1150 people are employed in the power plant; As part of planned shutdowns and revisions, the number of employees by external companies increases to approx. 2000.

In 2007, the Cattenom location was the largest producer in France with 37 TWh of electricity. This corresponded to about 8% of the country's electricity production. In 1995 a production record of 38.8 TWh was achieved.

In 2005 Cattenom was certified according to ISO 14001 - environmental management, in 2007 according to ISO 9001 - quality management and in 2008 according to OHSAS 18001 - occupational health and safety management.

All 19 French nuclear power plants are inadequately protected against natural disasters. According to the assessment of the joint observers from Luxembourg and the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, the stress test at the Cattenom nuclear power plant revealed considerable deficiencies. According to the report submitted to the French government on January 3, 2012 by the nuclear regulatory authority Autorité de sûreté nucléaire , no installation needs to be shut down immediately.

Cattenom is located 33 km north of Metz , 48 km southwest of Trier , 46 km SSE of Luxembourg (city) and 58 km WNW of Saarbrücken . In the main wind direction (west) there are also major German cities such as Frankfurt am Main, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Kaiserslautern, Darmstadt, Mannheim, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe.

Luxembourg is probably the only state in the world that is threatened in its entire existence by a catastrophe of a single nuclear reactor (in the Cattenom NPP).

history

Demonstration against the Cattenom nuclear power plant in Saarbrücken (April 1980)

Construction of the first reactor block began on October 29, 1979; it went into operation on November 13, 1986. Between 1980 and 1983, the construction of three further reactor units began, which were then put into operation on September 17, 1987, July 6, 1990 and May 27, 1991. From the beginning of planning until the mid-1990s, there was resistance to the nuclear power plant in the French, Luxembourg, German and especially in the Saarland region of the nuclear power plant near the border.

A draft resolution submitted by Saarland MP Helma Kuhn-Theis on Cattenom called for a stress test that complies with European standards, as well as an exit from nuclear energy and no extension of the term of Cattenom. This caused a scandal in the Interregional Parliamentary Council , with Jean-Pierre Masseret , President of the Regional Council in Metz , leaving the plenary chamber angrily.

power

The net electrical output of the four reactor blocks is 1,300  megawatts (MW) each , the gross output is 1,362 MW. The total installed gross capacity of the nuclear power plant is 5448 MW, making it the third largest in France and the seventh largest in the world. On average, 35,200 GWh are fed into the grid every year, which corresponds to around 8% of the electricity generated under the EDF in France.

safety

Fuel used

In the meantime, the French nuclear regulatory authority Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN) has given the electricity company Électricité de France (EDF) approval to equip its 1,300 MW nuclear reactors with a new generation of fuel rods (HTC - Haut Taux de Combustion) and a new fuel element management program under the name Galice ( Gestion avec Augmentation Limitée de l'Irradiation pour les Combustibles en Exploitation , German: reactor management with limited increased irradiation of the fuel used ). This permit also applies to the Cattenom nuclear power plant, where the new process is to be introduced in the coming years. The new fuel rods contain a higher proportion of fissile uranium-235. They should also be used longer in the reactor core in order to shorten the phases of the reactor shutdown due to fuel element replacement.

earthquake

The nuclear power plant with its cooling water reservoir

The Cattenom nuclear power plant is seen as a safety risk due to the insufficient earthquake safety of the technical installations, since safety-relevant valves would no longer work after an earthquake. According to press reports, operator EDF classifies Cattenom as earthquake-proof up to magnitude 5.4.

Emergency cooling

The reservoir Lac de Pierre-Percée (also Lac du Vieux Pré or Lac de la Plaine ) is more than 100 km away on the west side of the Vosges in Lorraine . In emergencies, this reservoir is to serve as a water supplier for the Meurthe tributary Plaine and the Moselle tributary Meurthe , in order to maintain a sufficient river level for cooling in the Moselle. This dam with its dam is also subject to the local earthquake risks.

Incidents and reportable events

On February 17, 2002, a valve in a connection line to the reactor cooling circuit in Block 1 unexpectedly opened. There was a "significant release" of slightly contaminated primary cooling water into the containment , writes the ASN . In order to close the valve, a team in protective gear had to go into the containment (classification INES 1).

On May 16, 2004, Block 2 had to be shut down because a fire had broken out in a cable room, which the fire brigade called to extinguish it after 2.5 hours.

In December 2004, it was discovered that over 30 hoses had been scratched from fire extinguishers at the facility. The responsible gendarmerie in Thionville started investigations into sabotage and the fire extinguishers were replaced.

On May 16, 2005, a poor quality cable started a fire in the Cattenom-2 reactor block , which damaged the safety system. The cost of this event is estimated at $ 14 million.

In 2009 there were a total of 36 reportable events of level INES 0 (International Assessment Scale for Nuclear Events) and nine events of level INES 1. Up to June 2010 there were 16 reportable events of level INES 0 and two reportable events of level INES 1.

On January 18, 2012, another incident occurred, which the regulatory authority ASN specified as INES 2. A missing component did not prevent the backflow in the cooling lines of the storage pool of the fuel elements of units 2 and 3. The storage pool could have become empty in an uncontrolled manner.

On February 28, 2013, there was a serious accident at work in Block 4. During material testing work, a scaffold with three workers from an external company collapsed. Two of them died at the scene of the accident, one was seriously injured and taken to hospital. The reactor block was shut down at the time due to its ten-year overhaul. However, there was no danger to the reactor as a direct consequence of the accident.

On June 7, 2013, a transformer caught fire in the facility. Block 1 of the nuclear power plant was switched off automatically. Nobody got hurt.

On June 11, 2013, another transformer was defective in Block 3.

On June 17, 2013 a configuration error was found in the valve control. The error has been corrected and given an INES 1 rating.

On July 23 or 24, 2013, 58,000 liters of hydrochloric acid leaked into a tank in the Moselle and into the ground. The French nuclear regulatory authority ASN announced this only three weeks later, on August 17, 2013, on their website.

On May 7, 2014, as part of controls at the exit of the nuclear zone, traces of contamination were found in ten employees of external companies who were working on a construction site there as part of the scheduled shutdown of reactor block 2.

On December 19, 2014, a defect in the power supply caused an incident that was reported to the ASN nuclear regulatory authority. This error was discovered in all reactors of the Cattenomb series.

On May 28, 2015, a valve blocked the secondary cooling of reactor block 1 in the open position and released steam into the environment. The water level in an attached steam generator fell; To avert a performance excursion, the reactor block was automatically shut down in an emergency. According to INA, the steam generator may have been damaged; In the event of further damage, radioactivity could escape into the environment, but this did not occur. The INA classified the event in INES Category 1. German politicians spoke of an "extremely worrying" event.

On the night of Wednesday, February 1, 2017, there was a fire in an administration building of the French nuclear power plant in Cattenom. The power plant operator EDF announced that the nuclear part of the plant was not affected. The fire broke out late Tuesday evening in a lightweight container building, and the extinguishing work was over at around 1 a.m. According to EDF, there was neither a risk for employees of the nuclear power plant nor for the safety of the plant. The French and foreign authorities had been informed of the incident. French media reported that the smoke could be seen from a distance.

On October 9, 2017, the operator EDF reported a serial error to the French nuclear regulatory authority ASN, according to which the cooling systems of the power plant would not withstand a "reference earthquake". The event was classified as an accident (level 2) on the INES scale. In total, more than 20 reactors in France are affected by this safety risk.

In October 2017, Greenpeace activists broke into the power plant site and set off fireworks at the cooling pool. The organization wants to point out that the basin and the rest of the facility are not sufficiently protected against terrorism .

On February 7th and 9th, 2018 there were fire fighting operations. The operator of the nuclear power plant, EDF, reports this on its website. Accordingly, smoke emerged in the machine room on Friday evening. The reason for the smoke was evidently overheating, there was no fire. The machine room is in the non-nuclear part of the facility. Already on Wednesday an alarm was triggered during maintenance work in the area of ​​cooling water treatment. It was suspected that ammonia had leaked. The emergency services summoned could not find anything. No radiation was released and the staff was able to resume work. According to the nuclear power plant operator, both cases had no impact on people or the environment.

Data of the reactor blocks

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

Reactor block Reactor type Electric net power Electric gross power Thermal performance start of building Network synchronization Commercial operation Shutdown
Cattenom 1 Pressurized water reactor 1,300 MW 1,362 MW 3,817 MW October 29, 1979 11/13/1986 04/01/1987 2046Template: future / in 5 years
Cattenom 2 Pressurized water reactor 1,300 MW 1,362 MW 3,817 MW 07/28/1980 09/17/1987 02/01/1988 2047Template: future / in 5 years
Cattenom 3 Pressurized water reactor 1,300 MW 1,362 MW 3,817 MW 06/15/1982 07/06/1990 02/01/1991 2050Template: future / in 5 years
Cattenom 4 Pressurized water reactor 1,300 MW 1,362 MW 3,817 MW 09/28/1983 05/27/1991 01/01/1992 2051Template: future / in 5 years

See also

Web links

Commons : Cattenom nuclear power plant  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Wientjes: Destructive deficiency report for Cattenom. Trierischer Volksfreund, November 28, 2011
  2. ↑ France: Cattenom nuclear power plant inadequate - and so is the stress test. FOCUS Online, November 28, 2011.
  3. ↑ Le Monde : L'ASN demande de renforcer la sûreté du parc nucléaire français. January 3, 2012
  4. ↑ all kilometers as the crow flies
  5. ↑ Tageblatt Wrong question. 23rd September 2014.
  6. ↑ a b c Power Reactor Information System of the IAEA : "France (French Republic): Nuclear Power Reactors" (English)
  7. ↑ 20 years of Cattenom - 30 years of resistance. Documentation on the anniversary of the commissioning of the nuclear power plant on the Moselle. (PDF) Hiltrud Breyer , November 2006, accessed on April 11, 2008 .
  8. ↑ Helmut Wyrwich: Cattenom divides the region ( Memento of the original from November 16, 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. Tageblatt, December 2, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tageblatt.lu
  9. ↑ Energy Chronicle
  10. ↑ Inspectors say inadequate, operators say everything is fine. Trierischer Volksfreund from September 22, 2011.
  11. ↑ réacteur n ° 1 Arrêt manuel et fuite du circuit primaire Paris. ( Memento from July 18, 2012 in the archive.today web archive ), February 17, 2002.
  12. ^ Incendie dans un local électrique ASN, as of July 16, 2007 (French)
  13. ^ Cattenom: sabotage lawsuit against unknown persons. Wort.lu, as of July 16, 2007 Page no longer available , search in web archives: wort.lu@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.wort.lu
  14. ↑ Costs of failed nuclear power plant projects - billions in investments without income , tagesschau.de - BACKGROUND, October 22, 2015, accessed February 28, 2019
  15. ^ Accident in the French nuclear reactor Cattenom. focus.de, February 6, 2012, accessed on February 7, 2012 .
  16. ^ Breakdown in Cattenom: Nuclear power plant shut down after fire. In: Spiegel-Online . June 7, 2013, accessed June 7, 2013 .
  17. ↑ lessentiel.lu
  18. ↑ lessentiel.lu
  19. ↑ saarbruecker-zeitung.de
  20. ↑ Minor traces of contamination among employees on a construction site in reactor block 2 (German website of the operator). May 9, 2014, accessed May 10, 2014 .
  21. ^ French nuclear power plant: Ten workers in Cattenom contaminated . Spiegel Online, May 10, 2014
  22. ↑ Cattenom reported an incident (SR Online). (No longer available online.) December 19, 2014, formerly in the original ; accessed on December 21, 2014 .  ( 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.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.sr-online.de  
  23. ↑ Inadvertent opening of a steam valve on Cattenom NPP reactor 1 , Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN), 12 June 2015
  24. ↑ Radioactivity could have escaped , swr.de, June 12, 2015
  25. ^ Incident in the Cattenom nuclear power plant. (No longer available online.) SR, October 11, 2017, archived from the original on October 18, 2017 ; accessed on October 17, 2017 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sr.de
  26. ↑ http://www.taz.de/Greenpeace-zuendet-Feuerwerk-im-AKW/!5452559/