Everyone may, until February 18 on the website project-piscine.edf.fr, expressing themselves on this basin project, which aims to “avoid saturation” of the current pools of the hague.
Le Monde with AFP
A prior consultation of the public has opened on Monday, November 22, about a huge swimming pool of nuclear fuel at the Hague (Manche), to meet the risk of saturation of the current basins.
Everyone can, until February 18 on the website Project-Pool.edf.fr , express yourself on this basin project, which aims to “avoid saturation” of the current pools of the Hague (Manche), according to the National Commission of Public Debate. A first public meeting is planned on Monday at 7:30 pm in Beaumont-Hague.
The pool, the cost of which is estimated at 1.25 billion euros, would have a capacity of 6,500 tonnes of fuels. Current basins feature a little less than 10,000 tonnes, the equivalent of 100 cores of reactors. A second basin is considered next to the first subjected to consultation.
The launch of this EDF project is “really urgent”, facing the risks of saturation of the current basins, estimated in June 2020 the nuclear safety authority (ASN). All fuels irradiated in the French power plants to produce electricity converge to the pools of the Hague to cool, before being retired by Orano. If the basins are full, the reactors must progressively stop.
Ecologists are opposite
The Socialist Senator of Cherbourg, Jean-Michel Houllegatte, is in favor of the project. The Orano Recycling Unit employs 4,800 people in France.
Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV) and Greenpeace are, on the other hand, opposite and advocate a storage of worn fuels, dry, next to each plant, without reprocessing, as it is done abroad. According to EDF and Orano, reprocessing aims to reduce the volume of nuclear waste. But ecologists believe that reprocessing is an “extremely polluting” operation that does not contribute to the reduction of the volume of waste. According to them, the recycled fuels manufactured by Orano from the worn fuels, are, in fact, very little used.
In a parliamentary report published in 2018, the current Minister of the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompilili, then MP (LRM), “said” Continue to question the need to build at great expense Centralized swimming pool with two ponds having virtually each the size of a football field “.
“We have a heavy issue that arises: is it reasonable to leave such a quantity of nuclear matter in the same place,” said the elected year after visiting the Hague. “Reprocessing constitutes a French exception that contributes to the increase in security risks and presents a questionable economic relevance,” wrote M in his report, advocating to study the track of the dry storage.