It's a page of history that turns in Fessenheim, and sometimes history is in a hurry. This may be why the procedure for the final shutdown of the second reactor at the Fessenheim nuclear power plant began on Monday at 4.30 p.m., a few hours ahead of the announced schedule, a twilight celebrated as a victory by the anti-nuclear forces but experienced as a heartbreak by employees and residents.
The operation, similar to that which led to the shutdown of the first reactor on February 22, was scheduled to start at 11:30 p.m. but finally started seven hours earlier, an EDF spokesperson announced, without giving any specific reason.
The oldest power station in France
The power of this pressurized water reactor (the technology that equips the 56 remaining reactors in the French fleet) of 900 megawatts will slowly decline until it reaches 8% of its capacity, normally around 11:30 p.m., the power station being then definitively disconnected from the electricity network. . "There you go. The load drop starts ... How painful it is inhuman what is happening," tweeted the CGT antenna of the plant.
Located on the banks of the Rhine, near Germany and Switzerland, the oldest power station in France thus delivers its last watts, the end point after years of turmoil, debate and postponement of its judgment.
Joyful energy or anger
A few hours saved, therefore, which will not change the fact that the dismantling of the plant is going to take a long time. 15 years are planned to dismantle the two reactors, starting with the disposal of highly radioactive fuel scheduled to be completed in 2023. The actual dismantling, unprecedented in France on this scale, should begin by 2025 and continue at least until 2040.
Victory for the French, German and Swiss anti-nuclear forces, some of whom campaigned for decades against Fessenheim, this closure arouses the anger of the employees of the power station and of most of the 2,500 inhabitants of the eponymous town. Only sixty EDF employees will remain to conduct its dismantling around 2024. At the end of 2017, there were still 750, to which 300 service providers should be added.
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