- 342 - 8. Conclusion In 2011, the complementary safety assessments, extended to cover facilities other than power reactors, concerned 20 basic nuclear installations that varied widely, in terms of both their type (fuel cycle plants, experimental reactors) and their situation: under construction, undergoing commissioning, in service, in preparation for shutdown, or finally shut down. Even though the framework defined at the European level concerns only power reactors, ASN made the decision to accord high priority to these facilities as of 2011, in the light of the potential safety implications. As the CSAs approach was defined on the basis of the European stress test specifications designed for power reactors in service, adaptations were therefore necessary so that this approach could be applied to facilities which do not represent the same risks. These adaptations meant that choices had to be made in order to optimise the way these 20 facilities were processed, within the allotted time. In this respect, it is essential to recall that the evaluation carried out in 2011 is simply the first step in the process to integrate the experience feedback from the Fukushima accident, which will be a lengthy one. It led ASN to examine the robustness of the facilities beyond the hazard levels considered in the design, and to request the first safety improvements. This approach will be continued in the coming years. 8.1 General evaluation Following examination of these CSAs, ASN issued the following evaluations of the reports submitted to it for the facilities other than power reactors. Concerning AREVA, the facilities targeted in 2011 are for the most part old, extremely diverse and inherently very different from the PWRs. Following its examination, ASN recognises that the CSA process, which was carried out in a very short period of time, on a wide variety of facilities and according to specifications originally defined for PWRs, does pose a number of difficulties for the fuel cycle plants. Having said this, ASN nonetheless considers that AREVA did not complete the process and that it must be continued in order to finalise the safety improvements to be made to the facilities. For CEA, ASN considers that the CSA approach to safety is on the whole satisfactory. CEA thus identified a number of areas for improvement that it could implement. In 2012, this approach will be supplemented by an analysis of the common resources on the Cadarache and Marcoule sites in particular, in compliance with the ASN decision of 5th May 2011. With regard to the high-flux reactor operated by the Laue-Langevin Institute, ASN underlined the quality of the report submitted. The ILL conducted a highly detailed assessment of the margins and also proposed a large number of improvements. 8.2 Safety implications Subsequent to the CSAs, ASN considers that the priority facilities examined offered a level of safety that is sufficient to warrant no request for immediate shutdown of any facilities. For information, the shutdown decision had already been made for the following facilities: ATPu, Phénix, Comurhex Pierrelatte, the old installations on the La Hague site, Eurodif, Osiris. The fissile material stored in the Masurca storage and handling building (BSM) also needs to be removed from storage. For the other facilities, ASN will be asking the licensees to take a number of steps to reinforce their robustness. Some of these requests could concern facilities currently undergoing decommissioning, given the duration of the operations and the associated risks. They will in particular concern reinforced seismic resistance, reinforced protection of the facilities against the risk of off-site flooding and crisis management measures.
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