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Leak closes French nuclear plant

Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

Russia has been running a breeder reactor for years, the BR600. Back in the days of the USSR they ran the BR350 in what is now Kazakhstan for many years for both power production and desalination. India is building a breeder reactor right now. There are some 300 reactor-years of experience with breeders of various kinds. GE-Hitachi's S-PRISM reactor would have reactors producing just 380MW apiece, considerably smaller than Russia's 600MW breeder. But they would be modular, allowing power plants scaled to virtually any size. The only reason the IFR hasn't yet been commercialized is not because it wasn't proven (they reprocessed and ran five cycles of fuel through it), but because Congress killed it in its cradle, ordered the facility dismantled, and then ordered those who worked on it for ten years to NOT publicize it.

If we would build this kind of reactor, we would be able to utilize not only all the world's spent fuel from lightwater reactors, but all the depleted uranium that we've accumulated for the last half-century. And they're so efficient that we'd be able to power the entire planet on what we already have out of the ground for hundreds of years without extracting any more uranium, or any oil or gas or coal either. They use passive safety systems that rely on the laws of physics to prevent accidents, not the unreliability of human operators. They are economical, proliferation-resistant, and produce no long-lived waste products. If we're serious about cutting the Gordian knot of global warming, they would be our best—and arguably only—sword. Solar, wind, et al simply won't be enough.

I don't intend to offend anyone in my response to what seems like unreasonable scare mongering. It seems there's a bit of a double standard here, though. I realize it's your site and you can run it however you like. Thanks for giving me the chance to post, even if you disagree with my stance.
 
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Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

Fast Neutron Reactors, World Nuclear Association website:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf98.html

Primary purpose of the BR-600 (presently within a year or two of it's 30-yr lifespan, to be reconditioned by 2012): nuclear weapons disposal/recycle.

http://www.doe.gov/print/5742.htm

The other two fast-breeder reactors are (a) decommissioned relics and (b) an aged small-scale test FBR (12 MW).

The BR-800 is receiving funding from the US to finish construction of the plant by 2015. It's purpose is also to recycle Russians nuclear arsenal.

I am not against nuclear energy, if FBR (not 'burner' breeder reactors) can be built that are efficient, safely constructed and operated according to international standards/safety procedures.

FBR <i> in theory</i> produces no waste, if they are 100% efficient in operation (that is, they produce as much fuel as they consume). In reality, they do produce waste, but of small volume and a short half-life fission waste that is a vast improvement in storage/disposal costs (hundred or less, versus thousands of years for typical nuclear reactor waste half-life that must be stored for perpetuity).

Most of us do have a problem with tardy spill notification. The French are not the first to be slow in notifying the public.

Just about all of us don't want a repeat of the Fermi-1 fiasco.
 
Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

Oracle, you're absolutely right that these are older reactors (or, in the case of the one in Kazakhstan, long-since closed). New ones are being built, but unfortunately I don't believe any of them have as safe a design as the IFR. It's a shame that we can't cooperate internationally to choose and use the safest design. One of the great things about the IFR is that we wouldn't have to be dealing with uranium spills because no actinides would ever leave the plant, only the short-lived waste you refer to (about 300 years). While notification of any such spill should be prompt, the often unreasoning reaction (as evidenced by the sort of exaggeration too often seen) only discourages openness. Frankly, though, I think it's a mistake to have the control of nuclear material in the hands of for-profit entities, but that's a whole other discussion.
 
Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

New uranium leak discovered at French nuclear site

Afp, Paris


French nuclear safety authorities said yesterday that a broken pipe at a nuclear fuel plant in southeast France had caused a radioactive leak but no damage to the environment.;)

The latest uranium spill at the plant run by nuclear giant Areva in Romans-sur-Isere came amid much public concern over a leak at another facility last week that polluted the local water supply.

Residents in the Vaucluse region of southern France have been told not to drink water or eat fish from nearby rivers after the liquid uranium spill on July 7 at the Tricastin nuclear plant.

According to the ASN nuclear safety authority, the pipe defect at the FBFC plant at Romans-sur-Isere in the Drome region may date back several years.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=newsdetails vAlign=top>"Results from initial tests show there has been no impact at all on the environment, because the quantity of uranium was very small, in the order of a few hundred grammes," said ASN spokeswoman Evangelia Petit.

The FBFC plant produces nuclear fuel for some of France's 58 reactors, the world's largest network after the United States and which produces 80 percent of the nation's electricity.

Areva late Thursday notified the nuclear authority of the leak and three inspectors were dispatched to the site in the early hours on Friday to assess the damage.

Petit said the spill did not reach the ground water and that there was no sign of contamination.

Areva president Anne Lauvergeon was later Friday due to inspect the Tricastin plant, which is run by its subsidiary Socatri.:tiphat: http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=46432
</TD><TD vAlign=top align=right width=60><!--
One of several CNG filling stations between Kanchpur Bridge and Jatrabari of the capital which BNP big shots built on the Kutubkhali canal, drastically reducing Dhaka's drainage capability. PHOTO: STAR --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> </TD></TR></TABLE>
 
Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

More on thenew site,..- Nleak
PARIS, July 18: France's nuclear safety authority says that a uranium-bearing liquid has leaked from a faulty underground pipe at a nuclear site in southeastern France. The Nuclear Safety Authority says that experts will determine how much uranium is present in the area near nuclear company Areva's plant in the town of Romans-sur-Isere. The safety authority does not address how serious the leak is. It says the pipe is believed to have ruptured several years ago. n AP :( :tiphat: http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=8&theme=&usrsess=1&id=214451
 
Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

T.: "It says the pipe is believed to have ruptured several years ago. n AP"

And nobody sensed those multiple leakages ...

PL.: "... how NON-dangerous was this minor release of this mainly depleted uranium"

The controlling of radioactive chemical leakages that is worldwide heavily suspected to induce blood, and other cancers is very relaxed somewhere ...
 
Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

tropical said:
T.: "It says the pipe is believed to have ruptured several years ago. n AP"

And nobody sensed those multiple leakages ...

PL.: "... how NON-dangerous was this minor release of this mainly depleted uranium"

The controlling of radioactive chemical leakages that is worldwide heavily suspected to induce blood, and other cancers is very relaxed somewhere ...
Click to expand...

DU chemicals' mutagenic properties were put in light even in Italy when in mid '90 a number of soldiers returned home after Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kovoso missions.
They developed aggressive form of blood cancer (Hodking lymphoma) and their unprotected exposure to DU dust initally was stated as culprit.
A special epidemiological commission installed by government and ministry of health subsequently ''cleared'' DU for the mutagenic and carcinogenic allegations.
The commission's results were highly debated and until now more soldiers continue to fall with aggressive form of cancer.
 
Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

After the newest contamination failure we saw how first was "it's nothing", than "it was an 0 level leakadge", than an "maybe an 2 years small 0 level leakadge spilled into the rivers"; further "it's founded an leakadge/spill from a decont. water basin wall"; and now happened an "radioactive particles with contaminated 100 workers" ...

Fortunately the media and the official inspections reacted.
 
Re: Leak closes French nuclear plant

100 'slightly contaminated' from French reactor
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25821078/

PARIS - Radioactive particles spewed from a pipe at a French nuclear reactor on Wednesday, slightly contaminating 100 employees, a spokeswoman for the national electric company said.

It was the fourth incident at a French nuclear site in recent weeks and the second in five days.

Caroline Muller, a spokeswoman for Electricite de France, said 100 EDF employees were "slightly contaminated" by radioactive particles that escaped from the pipe at a reactor complex in Tricastin, in southern France.
Story continues below ↓advertisement

The incident occurred in reactor No. 4 at the facility, which had been shut down for refueling, she said.

The employees went home but will be tested, she said, insisting that the contamination was slight ? a dose smaller than 1/40th of the regulation limit.

"What concerns us is less the level of the people contaminated than the number of people contaminated," Muller said by telephone.

Experts were studying what led to the incident, she said.

Nuclear dependence
The incident came a day after authorities lifted a ban on fishing and water sports in two rivers that was imposed July 8 after liquid containing unenriched uranium leaked from a broken underground pipe at a site run by nuclear giant Areva at the huge Tricastin complex, near the city of Avignon.

Areva said Friday that liquid containing slightly enriched uranium leaked at another of its sites in southeast France. The same day, 15 EDF workers were exposed to what the company called non-harmful traces of radioactive elements at the Saint-Alban plant in the Alpine Isere region.

France is the most nuclear-dependent country in the world, with 59 reactors churning out nearly 80 percent of its electricity. After the first incident, the government ordered a check of groundwater around all nuclear sites in France.

The incidents have prompted questions about the state-run nuclear industry, at a time when eyes are turning to nuclear energy because of the soaring price of oil.
 
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