Issued on: 04/10/2024 – 11:54Modified: 04/10/2024 – 12:01
2 min
With six 900MW reactors, the Gravelines nuclear power plant on the Channel coast is already the most powerful in Western Europe.
EDF’s proposal to build two additional new generation pressurised water reactors (EPR2) of 1600 MW each is part of President Emmanuel Macron’s nuclear revival programme.
The new reactors are currently the subject of public debate. If they pass safety criteria laid down by France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN), construction would begin in 2031 and they could be on stream by 2040.
While they would be built on a 11-metre-high platform, Greenpeace claims there is a significant safety risk.
“The entire power plant site could find itself – during high tides and when there is a 100-year surge – below sea level” by 2100, it warned in a report published Thursday.
EDF refutes their calculations.
“The height of the platform chosen for the EPR2 reactors at Gravelines provides protection against “extreme” flooding, taking into account the effects of IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] scenarios, which are among the most penalising with regard to sea-level rise”, EDF said in a statement to RFI.
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Protective measures
Greenpeace argues that EDF’s calculations are outdated and do not fully account for the realities of global warming.
“We can’t think as if the current situation were going to remain stable and that sea levels were just going to rise a little”, says Pauline Boyer, Greenpeace’s energy transition campaigner.
The NGO has therefore based its projection on the IPCC’s most pessimistic scenario, which assumes that no action will be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2100.
Nuclear power accounts for most of France’s electricity, and the Nuclear Energy Society (Sfen) defends it as a low-carbon energy source.
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“What’s important today is to take protective measures in line with our current scientific knowledge, while adding margins,” says Sfen’s Ludovic Dupin.
“If they’re not up to scratch, we’ll then have to upgrade them on a very regular basis”, in line with the 10-yearly inspections.
Still, Boyer believes a comprehensive risk study, factoring in climate change, “should govern the choice of site”, and be carried out before the public debate ends on 17 January.
While Greenpeace’s report centres on Gravelines, Boyer warned that climate change threatens other nuclear plants, with risks tied to rising temperatures and extreme weather events like storms.
She also pointed to potential conflicts over access to river water needed to cool reactors.
Source link : https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20241004-greenpeace-warns-of-flooding-risks-at-france-s-biggest-nuclear-plant
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Publish date : 2024-10-04 09:54:07
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