Tricastin nuclear plant

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Aerial view of the Tricastin nuclear facility

The Tricastin nuclear facility is a nuclear facility near Pierrelatte in the Drôme department on the Donzère-Mondragon Canal on the Rhône between Valence (70 km upstream) and Avignon (65 km downstream). It consists of several plants, including a nuclear power plant with four reactor blocks, two uranium enrichment plants and a uranium conversion factory.

Running plants

Tricastin is the most important French nuclear industrial plant after the La Hague reprocessing plant . Over 5000 employees work for AREVA and Électricité de France as well as other subcontractors on an area of ​​600 hectares .

The main facilities are:

  • Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Pierrelatte site, a nuclear weapons research center and a decommissioned uranium enrichment facility for nuclear weapons-grade uranium and fuel for the nuclear reactors of the submarine fleet.
  • Tricastin nuclear power plant with four reactor blocks, each with an output of 915 MW.
  • Eurodif , the company operates the civil uranium enrichment plant (UAA) Georges Besse I for the supply of low-enriched uranium commercial reactors. A new uranium enrichment plant Georges Besse II went into operation in 2009.
  • Comurhex, the company operates a uranium conversion plant that converts uranium tetrafluoride into uranium hexafluoride for uranium enrichment . As part of the Comurhex II project, another system has been built on site since summer 2007.

Tricastin nuclear power plant

The construction of the four light water reactors, each with an output of 915 MW, began in 1974 and went online in 1980 and 1981 respectively. The reactors are cooled directly by the river water of the Rhône via the Canal de Donzère-Mondragon . Tricastin is also being traded as one of the possible locations for a second French EPR .

Eurodif uranium enrichment plants

The two cooling towers of the UAA from Eurodif

The uranium enrichment plant ( UAA ) Georges Besse I has been in operation since 1979 and works according to the energy-intensive gas diffusion process , which takes up three quarters (75%) of the total reactor output at the site. This system is cooled by the two cooling towers on site. It also provides district heating for 2,400 apartments in Pierrelatte and the heating of greenhouses on 42 hectares , as well as for a local crocodile farm , the animal skins of which are used to produce leather.

On December 9, 2009, the new Georges Besse II plant went into operation, which uses the more energy-saving gas centrifuge method ; it should reach its full potential in 2012 and then replace Besse I.

The AREVA subsidiary SOCATRI, founded in 1974, takes care of the maintenance, the planned dismantling of the old system and the cleaning of the wastewater. During maintenance, there was an incident on July 7, 2008, in which, according to the operator, 30,000 liters of uranium-containing wastewater with up to 75 kg of uranium escaped, some of which ended up in the Gaffière and Lauzon rivers and seeped into the ground. At the end of September 2011, the court of appeal in Nîmes overturned the judgment of the lower court and sentenced Socatri to a total fine of more than 500,000 euros for polluting drinking water.

Comurhex uranium conversion plants

In 1961, the CEA began building a uranium conversion plant under the name Societe des Usines Chimiques de Pierrelatte (SUCP), which went into operation in 1963. It was renamed Comurhex in 1971 and became a 100% subsidiary of Cogema in 1992 , and since 2001 of AREVA. The factory converts uranium tetrafluoride into uranium hexafluoride using fluorine produced on site by electrolysis . The uranium tetrafluoride is delivered from the Comurhex plant in Narbonne- Malvési. In addition , uranyl nitrate from the La Hague and Karlsruhe reprocessing plants was converted into uranium tetrafluoride and then into uranium hexafluoride. This part of the factory is to be closed for good by the end of 2008. The maximum production capacity of the entire plant is 14,000 tons per year. The uranium hexafluoride produced is used for on-site enrichment or is supplied to other enrichment plants in the USA, Russia and the Urenco Group .

On July 1, 1977, an inexperienced worker caused a valve break, whereupon uranium hexafluoride escaped from a gas cylinder and a large cloud of hydrofluoric acid formed over the affected workshop. Nine affected people were hospitalized for observation and the mayor of the neighboring municipality of Bollène warned against eating unwashed fruit or vegetables.

Radioactive fluorine waste was dumped in a hill on the site from 1964 to 1977, then in the nearby Solérieux landfill until 1999 .

AREVA intends to invest a total of EUR 610 million in new factories at the Malvési and Tricastin sites as part of the Comurhex II project. Construction began in the summer of 2007. According to planning, the first production is to take place in 2012, with an initial volume of 15,000 tons per year. which could be expanded to up to 21,000 tons as required. According to its own information, the company is the world's largest manufacturer of uranium hexafluoride with a share of 26% and the largest producer of fluorine in Europe. In addition, a number of other fluorochemical products are manufactured at the site. In 2006 the company had 359 employees.

  • On August 23, 2008, the ZDF Heute-Journal reported a new incident in the Pierrelatte plant: a defective valve again caused a small amount of radioactive uranium to enter the ground, according to the operator Comurhex. The French nuclear regulator, the Autorité de sûreté nucléaire, investigated the incident.

Areva NC Pierrelatte

Uranium conversion plant for converting the enriched uranium hexafluoride into uranium oxide (U 3 O 8 ) and preparing the uranium for fuel element production. In addition, the company takes care of the maintenance of the uranium transport containers, processes nuclear waste and works on the demolition of the decommissioned parts of the uranium enrichment facility. In 2006 the company had 901 employees.

Decommissioned plants

FBFC Pierrelatte fuel element factory

The Franco-Belge de fabrication de combustible (FBFC) Pierrelatte fuel element factory was founded in 1983 and produced uranium fuel elements and control rods for light water reactors. It could process 400 tons of uranium per year and was shut down in 1998. The internal fittings were dismantled by 2003 and left behind low-level radioactive nuclear waste amounting to 2000 tons. The production of the unfilled fuel rod cladding or the fuel rod bundles as a preliminary stage for the fuel element factory FBFC Romans-sur-Isère was retained. In addition, radioactive radiation sources for industry and medical applications continue to be produced in the CERCA laboratory.

Unit of Comurhex

A Comurhex plant for reducing the depleted uranium hexafluoride into uranium tetrafluoride is probably no longer in operation, as the subsequent reduction of the uranium tetrafluoride into metallic uranium at the Malvési site was discontinued in 1991.

CEA uranium enrichment plant and nuclear weapons research

In 1958, President Charles de Gaulle designated Tricastin as the location for the construction of his own uranium enrichment plant for military purposes, which went into operation in 1963 and was originally supposed to cost around 2 billion francs in 1960. It produced highly enriched uranium using the gas diffusion process for the French atomic bombs and submarine reactors and cost at least 4.5 billion German marks (in purchasing power from 1968), according to other sources, 7 billion marks plus 400 million marks in annual maintenance costs.

On July 16, 1965, a year before France left the military integration of NATO and the withdrawal of Allied troops, there was an air incident over the Pierrelatte facility. An American reconnaissance aircraft of the type RF 101 "Voodoo" from Ramstein (Palatinate) Airport had four overflown according to France's facility at 600 meters altitude and it made 175 photos, which were passed immediately after landing on French request back. The French attempt to intercept the reconnaissance aircraft with a SNCASO SO-4050 Vautour fighter aircraft had previously failed because the reconnaissance plane reached a significantly higher maximum speed. The incident exacerbated the already tense diplomatic relations with the US, which spoke of a registered routine flight that had to avoid a thunderstorm.

The plant was shut down in 1996. The dismantling began in 1998 and is to last until 2010.

Accidents

  • In April 1976, 13 workers on the site developed mysterious illnesses. The trade union Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT) blamed contaminated drinking water, which, according to analyzes, had an abnormally high content of 2.45 mg uranium and 5 mg fluorine per liter.
  • In 1984 the freighter “Mont Louis” collided with a passenger ferry off Ostend and sank. He transported 30 steel drums filled with a total of 350 tons of uranium hexafluoride from the Tricastin plant from Le Havre via Riga for reprocessing in the Soviet Union . The barrels could all be salvaged later.
  • On April 12, 1987, uranium hexafluoride leaked and released again on the site, injuring seven workers. The cost of the incident is estimated at $ 59 million. In this context, the costs of nuclear accidents in nuclear energy research and civil use worldwide are estimated at well over 400 billion dollars.
  • on June 30, 2008, 30 cubic meters of uranium-containing water leaked into the area.
  • On July 2, 2011, there was an explosion and fire in a transformer. According to the operator, this happened “outside the nuclear area”; the fire was quickly extinguished.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Report environnemental, social, sociétal, de sûreté nucléaire et de radioprotection 2006 Tricastin ( Memento of the original from January 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , AREVA. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.comurhex.areva-nc.com
  2. ↑ Georges Besse II: first centrifuge cascade in operation . Nuclear Forum Switzerland. December 17, 2009. Accessed on March 31, 2010.  ( 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.atomenergie.ch  
  3. ↑ Opponents of nuclear power warn of the dangers of the released uranium . Mirror online. As of July 9, 2008 [1]
  4. ↑ Areva reconnu coupable d'une fuite d'uranium au Tricastin . Le Monde . September 30, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2011.
  5. ↑ a b c Mary Byrd Davis: La France nucleaire / Nuclear France: RHONE-ALPES ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2009 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. , As of July 14, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.francenuc.org
  6. ^ French-led consortium to forge ahead with fast-breeder reactors , The Times , July 2, 1977, p. 3.
  7. ^ Corrosive gas cloud over French nuclear plant , The Times, July 5, 1977, p. 5.
  8. ↑ AREVA invests 610 million euros in new uranium conversion plans . ( Memento of the original from January 17, 2012 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. May 21, 2007. AREVA website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.comurhex.areva-nc.com
  9. ^ Another breakdown in the French Tricastin nuclear facility (tagesschau.de) ( Memento from August 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Nuclear Power and the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: A Review of Overseas Events in 1997 ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2004 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. , Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO). As of May 15, 1999. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ansto.gov.au
  11. ↑ The giant toy . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1960, pp. 65 ( Online - Nov. 30, 1960 ).
  12. ↑ Everywhere . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1968, p. 71 ( Online - Feb. 12, 1968 ).
  13. ↑ Beat the drums . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1967, p. 17 ( Online - Feb. 27, 1967 ).
  14. ↑ Voodoo in a thunderstorm . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1965, p. 67 ( online - 28 July 1965 ).
  15. ↑ SDR / SWR evening show - espionage in Ramstein (July 21, 1965). Retrieved October 26, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Uranium leak blamed for illness at atom plant . The Times, December 24, 1976 p. 4 [2]
  17. ↑ The cold shiver runs down my spine . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1987, pp. 136-142 ( Online - Apr. 20, 1987 ).
  18. ↑ Costs failed nuclear power plant projects: Billions in investments without income In: tagesschau.de , October 22, 2015
  19. ↑ Philip Faigle, Björn Schwentker: Nuclear power: Hushed up accident? In: zeit.de. July 2008, accessed November 28, 2018 .
  20. ^ Incident in Tricastin - transformer fire in the world's largest nuclear power plant In: sueddeutsche.de , July 3, 2011, accessed on November 28, 2018.

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