The Cattenom nuclear power plant in eastern France.

(illustration) -

PATRICK HERTZOG / AFP

The NGO Greenpeace announced Wednesday that it had filed an appeal against the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) with the Council of State in order to obtain an environmental assessment of the extension of the life of French power plants.

"No environmental assessment is planned as part of the ten-year inspections currently underway to extend the operation of nuclear reactors by ten years reaching 40 years," laments Greenpeace in a press release.

"However, the scale and the costs of the extension works of the power plants justify an environmental assessment, as the Court of Justice of the European Union for Belgium reminded us", argues the NGO for the defense of the environment, opposed to nuclear energy.

"France is in a situation of illegality", according to Greenpeace.

The ten-yearly outage is a step in a larger periodic review carried out by ASN, which must determine whether and under what conditions the reactors can operate beyond 40 years.

French nuclear reactors have been authorized without a limit on their operating life, but EDF initially envisaged a 40-year life.

Passing this milestone is therefore considered “a significant step” by ASN.

For the moment, the 900 MW reactors are concerned, which are the oldest in the fleet.

Reactor number 1 at the Tricastin plant (Drôme) has already passed its fourth ten-yearly outage.

That of reactor number 2 at Bugey (Ain) is underway while the start of that of reactor number 4 is scheduled for November 20.

On the EDF side, it is emphasized that the decision to conduct an environmental assessment does not belong to the company: its object "is the responsibility of the regulatory framework", said a spokesperson.

“With regard to the environmental assessment, it is up to the operator to identify whether the modifications he is considering fall within the criteria mentioned in Article R. 122-2 of the Environment Code, and in particular whether they have significant negative effects on the environment ”, for its part reacted the ASN.

“At this stage, and while awaiting a file from the operator, ASN has not identified that the modifications mentioned by EDF in its response note to the objectives of the fourth periodic review of the 900 MWe reactors systematic evaluation, case-by-case examination, or that they had significant negative impacts, ”it was added.

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