French state-controlled utility EDF on Friday halted production at its 900 megawatt (MW) Bugey 3 nuclear reactor and reported an unplanned outage at the 1,300 MW St Alban 1 reactor, because of the heatwave in the country.
Business Insider 27th July 2018 read more »
[Machine Translation] In the Framatome plant, where falsified files have been found on the parts destined for the power stations, the management affirms to have put an end to bad practices. Framatome assures that only three parts have really posed a problem – but fails to specify that out of the 42 reactors studied to date, several hundred problems of non-compliance have been identified by EDF. “We have read all that has been recovered on the French nuclear fleet for forty years,” says David Emond. Work that will continue until the end of 2018. It must be said that this factory does not make exactly chocolate. In the gigantic shed, a huge 9,000-tonne press dutifully crushes a 200-ton piece of molten steel. An “ingot” that will be forged for a month, before being reworked for more than a year, before leaving for the UK, and becoming a centerpiece of the Hinkley Point Nuclear Reactor, under construction by EDF. Since 2017, the British authorities gave the green light to the forge du Creusot. The ASN, it waited until March 2018 to grant this precious sesame. The test laboratory at the origin of the fraud, located a few meters from the forge, has just received the approval of the safety authority to resume work.
Le Monde 29th July 2018 read more »
