Tribune. You probably have seen the striking images of chickens whose head has been cut off and continue to run for a few moments erratically. Well this picture is a pretty good illustration of the state of the nuclear industry and its most fervent supporters like Emmanuel Macron.
One day, they ensure that the future is at “mastodontes” as the famous EPR (in English European Pressurized Reactor) with a power of 1,650 megawatts (MW), despite the incredible deconvenis of the construction sites of Finland and Flamanville who had to enter into service in 2009 and 2012, which are still not completed and including the insane costs have largely contributed to placing their operators in Panade: AREVA has failed, and EDF is in a critical financial situation .
The next day, it is suddenly that the solution would go through the SMRs, that is to say in English Small Modular Reactors and French small modular reactors (PMR) whose power is between 10 and 300 MW. EDF already has already planned its 170 MW SMR, baptized “Nuward”. The panic that thus seizes the supporters of the atom is explained by a must-see data: the current reactors are at the end of their life and most will be definitely arrested in the ten to twenty years, that is to say , when we talk about energy, tomorrow morning.
A plecthoor park of dilapidated reactors
Operating length extensions, inconsiderately granted by the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), and the ruin work that EDF must do (“Grand Carenage” and post-Fukushima measures) will only allow to earn some time – while still increasing the risk of disaster comparable to that of Fukushima.
It is also necessary to take into account a crucial data: in the 1970s and 1980s, the construction in a short time of a good fifty reactors was presented to us as a gigantic exploit, which is indeed indeed the case on the strict industrial plan. But it was mainly a terrible strategic error: all these reactors are going to arrive at the end of life almost at the same time.
If EDF has finally agreed to close its two oldest reactors, those of Fessenheim, it is because the electrician is totally unable to continue to maintain a plethoric park of nearly 60 reactors quite dilapidated. This is also for this that the closure of at least fourteen other reactors is ACTIC.
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