It is a twilight celebrated as a victory by the anti-nuclear forces but lived as a heartbreak by employees and residents. The procedure for final shutdown of the second reactor of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant began this Monday, June 29 at 4:30 p.m., a few hours ahead of the announced schedule.
The operation, similar to that which led to the shutdown of the first reactor on February 22, was supposed to start at 11:30 p.m. but finally started seven hours earlier, announced an EDF spokesperson, without giving any reason. particular.
“It’s inhuman what’s going on”
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 electrical network.
And There you go. The load drop starts … What pain is inhuman what’s going on
, 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.
“A step, not an outcome”
Finally, out of 58 reactors, one closes
, rejoiced Jean-Marie Brom, of the association Stop Transport-Stop Nuclear
, at a press conference of anti-nuclear associations on board a boat sailing on the Rhine, on the border between France and Germany. A place symbol of Franco-German friendship in the fight against nuclear power plants
, according to André Hatz, president of Stop Fessenheim.
French and German anti-nuclear activists have planned to meet at the end of the afternoon on a bridge overlooking the Rhine, but do not intend to go to Fessenheim itself, some ten kilometers away, to do not provoke
. Green MEP Michèle Rivasi hailed a step, but not an outcome
, the timetable for shutdown of other reactors is not fixed.
In Vieux-Brisach, the German bank of the Rhine, twenty activists waited for the boat with yellow and red flags Nuclear power? no thanks
(Nuclear energy ? no thanks
). For ten years every Monday evening, Cilla, a 73-year-old retired educator and Gisela, 77, have been demonstrating in the center of Old Brisach to demand the closure of this plant, the oldest in France
and who always had problems
.
We are happy that it is finally extinct
explains Cilla. But the danger is still there
, underlines Gisela, the anti-nuclear fearing the conditions of storage of the nuclear fuel planned on the site of Fessenheim for at least three years.
The dismantling of the plant promises to take a long time: 15 years are planned to dismantle the two reactors, starting with the evacuation of the highly radioactive fuel scheduled to be completed in 2023. The actual dismantling, unprecedented in France on this scale, should start by 2025 and continue at least until 2040.
A victory for the French, German and Swiss anti-nuclear forces, some of whom campaigned for decades against Fessenheim, this closure aroused 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.
Economic air hole
As for the inhabitants of this formerly modest village, they have lived for decades thanks to the significant economic and fiscal spinoffs of this installation and fear a big economic downturn: no project is officially stopped for the post-Fessenheim period.
Close the control unit while it is in good working order and has passed all safety tests
, is absurd and incomprehensible
, gets angry the mayor Claude Brender.
Promise of campaign of François Hollande in 2012, this closure had been postponed repeatedly, before being implemented in April 2017.
As a wink of fate: Friday morning, reactor n ° 2 underwent an automatic shutdown after a lightning strike on high voltage lines near the power plant. It restarted smoothly on Saturday and will be turned off again Monday evening, three days later. This time forever.
– .
