next refuelling outage and by 24 March 2024 at the latest. The restarting phase of reactor 5 after its fourth ten‑yearly outage was also marked by unforeseen technical events and numerous significant safety events. Lastly, reactor operation, control room monitoring and management of the operating team are satisfactory on the whole. With regard to radiation protection, ASN noted positively during its inspections the setting up of radiation protection skills centres. Nevertheless, vulnerabilities persist in the culture of worker radiation protection, radiological cleanliness of the installations and containment on work sites with contamination dispersion risks. ASN expects progress in the prevention of contamination of roadways, which remains a weak spot on the site. With regard to environmental protection, ASN considers that waste management remains at a generally satisfactory standard. Despite the organisational enhancements observed in 2021 on the handling of deviations affecting retention areas, a number of deviations were again detected in 2022. ASN is awaiting an ambitious plan of action to lastingly restore the sealing of the site’s ultimate retention structures. As far as occupational health and safety are concerned, ASN considers that the site’s accident rate results remain satisfactory. The efforts must be maintained to improve the perception and prevention of risks in the planning and conducting of the work interventions and worksite teardown operations, particularly with regard to contractors. Reactor 1 undergoing decommissioning Bugey 1 is a graphite-moderated GCR. This first-generation reactor functioned with natural uranium as the fuel, graphite as the moderator and it was cooled by gas. The Bugey 1 reactor is an “integrated” GCR, whose heat exchangers are situated inside the reactor vessel beneath the reactor core. In March 2016, in view of the technical difficulties encountered, EDF announced a complete change of decommissioning strategy for its definitively shut down reactors. In this new strategy, the planned decommissioning scenario for all the reactor pressure vessels involves decommissioning “in air” rather than “under water” as initially envisaged. Through ASN Chairman’s resolution CODEP-CLG-2020-021253 of 3 March 2020, further to the change in EDF’s decommissioning strategy, ASN requires EDF to complete the decommissioning operations on the building and equipment that are not necessary for decommissioning of the reactor pressure vessel, by 2024 at the latest. In 2020, the Bugey 1 reactor received ASN authorisation to create a new effluents storage facility, on which work started in 2022, to replace the old facility which will be put out of service, decommissioned and cleaned out. After analysing the periodic safety review concluding report for the GCR reactors, ASN stated in December 2021 that it had no objection to continuing the decommissioning of this reactor. ASN considers that the Bugey 1 reactor decommissioning and vessel characterisation operations are proceeding with a satisfactory level of safety. THE INSTALLATIONS AND ACTIVITIES TO REGULATE COMPRISE: Nuclear Power Plants operated by EDF: • Bugey (4 reactors of 900 MWe), • Cruas-Meysse (4 reactors of 900 MWe), • Saint-Alban (2 reactors of 1,300 MWe), • Tricastin (4 reactors of 900 MWe); the nuclear fuel fabrication plants operated by Framatome in Romans‑sur‑Isère; the “nuclear fuel cycle” plants operated by Orano on the Tricastin industrial platform; the Operational Hot Unit (BCOT) at Tricastin, operated by EDF; The High Flux Reactor (RHF) operated by the Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL) in Grenoble; the Activated waste packaging and storage facility (Iceda) on the Bugey nuclear site and the Bugey Inter-Regional Warehouse (MIR) for fuel storage operated by EDF; reactor 1 undergoing decommissioning at the Bugey NPP operated by EDF; the Superphénix reactor undergoing decommissioning at Creys-Malville and its auxiliary installations, operated by EDF; the Ionisos irradiator in Dagneux; the Effluents and Solid waste Treatment and decay storage Station (STED) of the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Grenoble, which is waiting to be delicensed following its decommissioning; the international research centre of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), situated on the French-Swiss border; small-scale nuclear activities in the medical field: • 23 external-beam radiotherapy departments, • 6 brachytherapy departments, • 23 nuclear medicine departments, • 121 facilities using fluoroscopy-guided interventional procedures, • 157 scanners within 115 facilities, • some 10,000 medical and dental radiology devices; small-scale nuclear activities in the industrial, veterinary and research sectors: • 1 synchrotron, • about 500 veterinary practices (surgeries or clinics), • 33 industrial radiography agencies, • about 600 users of industrial equipment, • more than 70 public or private research units; activities associated with the transport of radioactive substances; ASN-approved laboratories and organisations: • 3 organisations and 8 agencies approved for radiation protection controls. ABSTRACTS – ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2022 39 Regional overview of nuclear safety and radiation protection • AUVERGNE‑RHÔNE‑ALPES •
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