Germany demanded Friday that France close down its oldest nuclear plant, Fessenheim, near the German and Swiss borders -- just one of several ageing atomic plants that are unsettling France's neighbours.
"This power plant is very old, too old to still be in operation," said a spokesman for Environment and Nuclear Safety Minister Barbara Hendricks.
"That's why the environment minister demands its closure at the earliest possible date," he said, reiterating Berlin's earlier demands.
PARIS — Anti-nuclear groups have filed a court complaint against French utility EDF for under-reporting an incident at its Fessenheim plant near the German border, they said on Tuesday.
On Feb. 28, EDF stopped one of two nuclear reactors at the Fessenheim plant for an unplanned outage, citing "a lack of watertightness" on some piping outside the nuclear zone. It said there had been no safety or environmental impact.
PARIS--France's oldest nuclear plant Fessenheim, in the east of the country bordering Germany, won't be dismantled until 2018 at the earliest due to the plant's lengthy closing procedures, the French government mediator for the shut down of Fessenheim Francis Rol-Tanguy said in an interview with French daily Les Dernieres Nouvelles d'Alsace.
The closing of Fessenheim is seen as a litmus test for French President Francois Hollande's ability to reform the country's strategy on energy which heavily relies on its nuclear capacities. By law only the operator of a power plant or France's nuclear regulator can decide to shut down a reactor.
More than 20 Greenpeace activists climbed fences to break into an EDF nuclear power plant in southern France and demanded its closure, the environmental campaign group has said.
The activists, dressed in red, broke into the Tricastin plant at dusk on Sunday and unfurled a yellow and black banner on the wall with the words: "Tricastin, nuclear accident – president of the catastrophe?" above a picture of the president, François Hollande.
President Francois Hollande’s decision to shut Electricite de France SA’s oldest reactor at Fessenheim in 2016 may force the power-exporting eastern region to rely on imports and require extra spending on the local grid.
“The power supply situation of Alsace will become more fragile,” Dominique Maillard, president of grid operator Reseau de Transport d’Electricite, said at a press conference today.
Electricite de France SA’s plan to bolster the concrete base of its oldest reactor would be a world first and could be extended to the rest of its French reactor fleet, the atomic safety regulator said.
EDF, which operates all of the country’s 58 reactors, has submitted a plan to the Autorite de Surete Nucleaire to carry out a project to thicken the base of the 900-megawatt Unit 1 of the Fessenheim plant in eastern France. The regulator, which ordered EDF to improve safety or shutter the reactor by the middle of 2013, could rule within two months on whether the plan is viable.
(Reuters) - France will close its oldest nuclear power plant, Fessenheim, at the end of 2016, President Francois Hollande said on Friday, bringing the closure date forward by a few months.
"The Fessenheim power plant ... will close at the end of 2016, Hollande said, speaking a few days after a steam leak triggered a brief fire alert at Fessenheim, in eastern France, and following another safety alert earlier in the year.
AP - A steam blast at France’s oldest nuclear plant Wednesday left two workers with slight hand burns and revived calls to reduce the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear power.
Nuclear safety authorities said there was no threat of radioactive leaks and that the incident at the Fessenheim plant in eastern France appeared minor. It touched a nerve, however, because anti-nuclear activists have long urged the closure of the plant. Those calls have mounted since the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant last year.
Electricité de France has been given until 30 September to implement preventative safety measures in steam generators at its French nuclear reactors including plugging tubes affected by an anomaly in anti-vibration measures.
France's Nuclear Safety Authority (Autorité De Sûreté Nucléaire, ASN) has released a letter issued to the utility on 24 April calling for some steam generator tubes to be plugged to prevent the risk of their rupturing. The company must also implement enhanced measures to detect leaks between primary and secondary coolant circuits pending the completion of the plugging work.
PARIS (Thomson Financial) - The French nuclear security authority, ASN, has criticised EDF for 'a lack of rigour' in the application of security procedures at its Fessenheim nuclear power plant in north-east France.
In an assessment presented to the press today, the ASN said that 'despite the action initiated (...), the operator (EDF) shows a lack of rigour in the application of procedures.'
