Strasbourg (AFP)
Reactor No. 1 of the Fessenheim plant, the oldest French nuclear power plant in operation, must be shut down definitively on the night of Friday to Saturday, a clap of historic end which is putting the nerves of the employees to the heat and dividing .
The operation must start Friday at 8:30 p.m. and end at 2:00 a.m. Saturday. It will put an end to years of turmoil, debate and reports on the fate of the Alsatian power station, built in the 1970s a stone's throw from the border with Germany.
Could it be questioned? Some employees threaten to disobey and not apply the shutdown procedures for the 900 megawatt (MW) pressurized water reactor while others consider such an initiative "unthinkable".
"A shift team, made up of ten to fifteen people", must initiate around 8:30 p.m. the process of shutting down the reactor, a union source at the plant told AFP.
"For all shift personnel, that night of shutdown of the N.1 reactor, making the gestures to decouple it definitively will be something very difficult to live with," said the source.
"To say if really certain agents will refuse to do it, it is a personal initiative for which I cannot pronounce myself," continues this source.
But another employee considers "completely unthinkable" that the procedures are not followed. "It is a matter of honor. The job will be done and done well. Everyone will follow orders."
If the procedure follows its normal course, the power of the reactor must decrease progressively and it will be disconnected from the national electricity network when it has dropped to 8% of its usual power.
The procedure is identical to that of a conventional maintenance operation. But this time, no return to service will take place.
- "Cross-border celebration" -
Reactor # 2 was to be shut down on June 30.
A decree published in the Official Journal on Wednesday "repeals the authorization to operate the Fessenheim nuclear power station owned by EDF", writing the final character of this judgment black and white.
The evacuation of the fuel from the plant will, according to the planned schedule, be completed in 2023. Then must continue the phase of preparation for decommissioning, a process unprecedented in France on the scale of an entire plant which should start on the horizon. 2025 and continue at least until 2040.
For Matignon, the closure of Fessenheim "constitutes a first step in France's energy strategy, which aims at a progressive rebalancing" between the different types of energy, with a progressive reduction in the share of nuclear power - currently by 70%, the largest in the world - and an increase in that of electricity from renewable sources.
But the controversy over the merits of this closure will not stop with the shutdown of reactor 1. Saturday, pro-Fessenheim and anti-nuclear will make their voices heard by posting the same priority, ecology, but with very different arguments.
Environmental protection associations, which have been standing up for years against this plant, and even more since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, will hold a press conference in Colmar in the morning.
Then they will gather in the center of Strasbourg in the afternoon, joined in particular by the German environmental association Bund. This planned to open the "Sekt" (German sparkling wine), but not before the shutdown of the second reactor on June 30. "The shutdown of this dying plant is a reason for cross-border celebration, but not a reason for triumph", the radioactive fuel remaining present for several years, she commented.
- "Diving in the dark" -
Conversely, the LR deputy for Haut-Rhin Raphaël Schellenberger asked the employees "sorry for this irresponsible choice of which you are the first victims".
As for the Minister of the Ecological Transition Elisabeth Borne who goes to the Haut-Rhin on Friday, she assured that there would be "no loss of employment".
Saturday morning, however, local elected officials will brandish a banner at the foot of the power station, demanding that the State not abandon this watered territory for 40 years by the taxes paid by EDF. They fear that hundreds of families with comfortable incomes will leave it.
The elected officials will be followed in the afternoon by pro-nuclear associations which want to "protest against this act of climatic and environmental vandalism".
Twelve additional reactors, out of the 58 in France, must be shut down by 2035, without however leading to complete shutdowns of power plants like in Fessenheim.
In the small town of less than 2,500 inhabitants, public lighting will be turned off all night from Friday to Saturday. A "plunge in the dark" which will symbolize a territory "which does not have many glimmers of hope", explained its mayor Claude Brender.
© 2020 AFP