BORDEAUX, France — A
nuclear power plant in central France has failed a safety check after
a pipe linked to the reactor cooling system ruptured during testing, state
electricity firm EDF said on Tuesday.
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The incident at the
Civaux plant, which is offline for maintenance and tests, risks delaying its return
to service at a time that France is worried about its ability to produce enough
electricity over the winter.
The plant, the most
modern in the French network, was shut in August 2021 after corrosion problems
were detected in the welds used in its emergency cooling system.
The incident in
Civaux on November 2 “was absolutely not a weld that gave way”, Regis Clement,
deputy head of EDF’s nuclear production unit, told reporters.
A pipe linked to
the primary cooling system of one of the reactors ruptured, leading
high-pressure steam to escape as well as a radioactive “metal object” that had
to be retrieved via a robot, Clement added.
Around 80 cubic
meters of waste water resulting from the leak had been captured.
“There is no risk
for the environment or for public health,” the deputy head of France’s IRSN
nuclear safety regulator, Karine Herviou, told franceinfo radio.
The discovery of
the corroded welds at Civaux last August led EDF to shut 12 reactors built to
the same design for testing.
Almost half of the
country’s 56 reactors are currently offline, meaning the country is expected to
have to buy electricity from the European electricity market this winter.
The Civaux plant
had been scheduled to come back on stream in January.
Clement said it was
“too early” to say if the ruptured pipe would delay this.
Under pressure from
the government to speed up its maintenance work, Clement said on Tuesday that
EDF was aiming to have 42 reactors online by December 1 and 46 by January 1,
compared to just 30 currently.
Around 500
specialized welders are currently working on the cooling systems, including 100
contractors brought in from the United States and Canada.
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