Closure for the Fessenheim nuclear power plant after 43 years of good and loyal service. The first reactor was shut down on February 22, and it is now the turn of the second. An operation that will be carried out overnight from Monday to Tuesday and which marks the beginning of a very gradual closure.
Three years to dispose of all nuclear fuel
However, Fessenheim will not completely die out for several years. In fact, the second reactor must first be shut down. At this point, no surprise, the procedure is the same as for maintenance and consists in gradually lowering its power. The operation will start at 11:30 p.m. and should end around 2 a.m., when the reactor has reached 8% of its power. The latter can then be "decoupled", which means disconnected from the national electricity network.
This "decoupling" will therefore mark the end of the reactor, and the beginning of the post-operation phase. If the reactor will no longer produce electricity at this stage, it will still contain a lot of energy. The 540 EDF employees still on site will then have three years before them to evacuate all of the nuclear fuel. But it is only in 2025 that the dismantling of the plant can begin: the starting point for 15 years of work for around sixty employees. In total, the cost of the operation is estimated between 700 million and 1 billion euros.
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"Bedridden power plant"
Automatically stopped Friday morning after lightning struck a transformer, four days before the final shutdown of the Alsatian power plant, the second Fessenheim reactor, finally restarted Saturday afternoon and was reconnected to the network. Anti-nuclear activists, long-time committed to the closure of this plant, which has become a political issue, immediately commented on the shutdown. "Who will still dare to pretend that it is safe? Besides, is it reasonable to restart it?" wondered about his Twitter account André Hatz, president of the association Stop Fessenheim, mocking a "bedridden" power plant.