EDF says flaw in 34 reactors could affect safety | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters

EDF says flaw in 34 reactors could affect safety | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters

Could this have anything to with the fact that these people fly by the seat of their pants when they design these things, just look at whats going on here with the Generic Design Assessment in the UK. EDF are still likley to have more than 17 safety issues outstanding when the GDA process finishes (although how you can technically 'finish' a design safety process when something is still unsafe beats me! Worse still, they could potentially be granted a license to build the EPR's whilst these safety issues are outstanding! (no wonder they've got these problems in France!)

Even more worrying in the current context are the inherant compromises on safety at the design level in order to keep capital costs down, in the words of nuclear engineering's own website:

"Investment considerations include capital, fuel, operating, waste and decommissioning costs over the life of the plant, which will be in excess of 40 years. High availability of the station is important because it determines the overall power in output and hence the revenue that is generated. The high capital element in nuclear also increases the emphasis of the effective cost of capital and equity discount rate for the project."

The proof of these compromises lies in the design of these EPRs, John Large at a presentation I attended some years ago raised questions about the Control & instrumentation of all generation three reactor designs (this includes the Westinghouse APR100 also). Pointing out that it was a significant reduction of installed safety instrumentation in favour of so-called 'passive' safety incorporated into the designs.

Nuclear engineering go on to say:

"Current wholesale prices for electricity are about, or in some cases, below GBP 40/MWh. Therefore an investor in nuclear must expect the long-term price to rise by about GBP 20/MWh. Electricity prices may be increased either by the effect of long-term trends in gas prices or carbon pricing."

Incidentally it is the control & instrumentation systems that are the source of many of the problems the EPR's have been experiencing in the GDA process (& this despite the fact that 2 EPR's are already under construction in Flammenville in France and Okilouto in Finland!)

It is interesting to note how the French safety regulator ASN have rated this flaw as 1 on the INES scale. Is this an attempt to provide false reassurance to the public? After all, if any of these water systems fail, the potential for catastrophe is huge...