France’s oldest nuclear power plant will shut down on Tuesday after four decades in operation, to the delight of environmental activists who have long warned of contamination risks, but stoking worry for the local economy. The Fessenheim plant, opened in 1977 and already three years over its projected 40-year life span, became a target for anti-nuclear campaigners after the catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima in Japan in 2011.
Run by state-owned energy company EDF, one of Fessenheim’s two reactors was disconnected in February. The second is to be taken off line early on Tuesday, but it will be several months before the reactors have cooled enough for the used fuel to be removed. That process should be completed by 2023, and the plant is not expected to be fully dismantled before 2040 at the earliest.
There is no legal limit on the life span of French nuclear power stations, but the EDF had envisaged a 40-year ceiling for all second-generation reactors, which use pressurised water technology. Without Fessenheim, France will still have 56 pressurised water reactors at 18 nuclear plants generating some 70% of its electricity. Only the US, with 98, has more reactors, but France is by far the world’s biggest consumer of nuclear energy.
Source: Guardian
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