News releases

On 18th January 2012, EDF notified ASN that the absence of a "siphon breaker" orifice on the fuel storage pools of reactors 2 and 3 had been detected during an internal inspection.

In every reactor, a pool is provided for the storage of fuel assemblies pending their use in the reactor core or pending disposal. The fuel assemblies are kept under water and permanently cooled. A significant drop in the water level would lead to an exposure of the fuel assemblies and to their damage. Alarms indicate any drop in this level, with the necessary action being triggered.

The Commission and the General Directorate of ASN received officially, on 19 January, at his request, the Japanese Minister, Mr Goshi Hosono.

Putting patient safety first is a priority for both HERCA, the association of the Heads of European Radiological Protection Competent Authorities and, COCIR, the European trade association representing the medical imaging, electromedical and healthcare IT industry, who are working together to address concerns related to radiation exposure in computed tomography (CT). At the initiative of HERCA, COCIR CT manufacturers have developed voluntary commitments contributing to the reduction of CT dose which have been welcomed by HERCA.

ASN is making public its report on the complementary safety assessments (CSA) carried out further to the Fukushima accident in Japan.
This morning the ASN President, André-Claude Lacoste, delivered it personally to the Prime Minister.

Following the complementary safety assessments of the priority nuclear facilities, ASN considers that the facilities examined offer a sufficient level of safety for it not to request the immediate shutdown of any of them. At the same time, ASN considers that for the continuation of their operation, an increase in the robustness of the facilities to extreme situations, beyond their existing safety margins, is necessary, as rapidly as possible.

ASN will therefore be requiring that the licensees take a series of measures and reinforce the safety requirements relative to the prevention of natural risks (earthquake and flooding) and risks associated with other industrial activities, the monitoring of subcontractors and the handling of nonconformities.

During an inspection carried out during the third ten-yearly visit of Gravelines 1’s reactor, EDF detected defects in a through-wall penetration on the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel.

A through-wall penetration (TWP) on the bottom of the pressure vessel is a tube positioned at the bottom of a reactor vessel in a nuclear power station. The TWP is welded to the bottom of the vessel. Its role is to permit the introduction of instrumentation probes into the reactor core. 50 TWP are positioned in Gravelines 1’s reactor vessel. A leaking TWP would represent a breach in the reactor’s primary circuit.

Eleven Castor HAW 28 M casks containing 301 canisters of vitrified waste were recently shipped from La Hague in France to the German waste storage facility in Gorleben (Lower Saxony), under an intergovernmental[1] agreement on the return to Germany of radioactive waste resulting from the reprocessing in France of German spent fuel. Within this context, ASN conducted several checking operations and public information actions.

On completion of the Complementary Safety Assessment (CAS) process engaged further to its decisions of 5 May 2011, ASN will present its conclusions on these CAS at the beginning of 2012.

The Fourth triennial meeting of the Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste (or Joint Convention) will be held from 14 to 23 May 2012 in Vienna.

On 7 November 2011, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), the Directorate General for Health (DGS) and the Directorate General for Risk Prevention (DGPR) issued a report including an inventory of current knowledge of childhood leukaemia and recommendations for new studies and research required to drive progress in this area.

On 19 July 2011, the Council of the European Union adopted a directive “establishing a Community framework for the responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste” (Council Directive 2011/70/Euratom). The adoption of this directive, two years after the nuclear safety directive was adopted, is an important event and helps to reinforce nuclear safety within the European Union, while ensuring that Member States assume responsibility for managing their radioactive waste and spent fuel.

The accident that occurred on Monday, September 12, 2011 in the melting furnace of the Centraco facility in Codolet (Gard) caused the death of an employee and injured four others, one of them severely. The three workers who were slightly injured were allowed to return home the day after the accident. The one who was severely injured is still hospitalized in the Paris region. None of them show signs of radioactive contamination.

France transmitted its National Progress Report on 15 September.

On 28th August 2011 the Official Journal published the decree of the agreement, signed in Geneva on 15 November 2010 [1], on the protection against ionising radiation and the safety of the facilities at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research).

The accident that occurred on 11th March 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan, following an earthquake and tsunami of exceptional magnitude, is a major event from which every possible lesson should be drawn.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), which in charge of monitoring French nuclear installations, has ensured that a process of extensive in-depth feedback regarding the accident at Fukushima has been swiftly undertaken. This will be a long process. It will take several years, as was the case after the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Since 2008, several inspections by ASN have examined the prestressing system[1] of the Reactor Building containment. During construction of the first concreting lifts of the inner containment wall, EDF notified ASN of noncompliance issues relating to the prestressing system (see Information Notice No. 8).

In May 2011, new noncompliance issues regarding positioning of portions of the prestressing sheaths were identified. In addition to occasional deviations, ASN found that recurring anomalies in the system indicated a lack of preparation, skills and training in safety culture on the part of workers and shortcomings in EDF’s monitoring of its subcontractors. As a result, ASN requested EDF to suspend concreting of the inner containment wall on 23 June 2011 and to present an action plan to avoid any further deviations in constructing the prestressing sheaths.