On 12 May 1998 around 8 pm when the reactor no. 1 had been shutdown since 7 May, a water leak estimated at around 30 m3/h was detected in the reactor shutdown coolant circuit. This circuit is used when the reactor is shut down to circulate a minimum amount of water through the primary circuit to cool the fuel present in the reactor core. The system consists of two duplicate circuits. The leak was stopped by isolating one of the circuits at around 5 am on 13 May 1998. The leak resulted in water passing from the primary circuit into the sump of the reactor building. As the water was completely contained in the reactor building, the incident did not have any consequences for the environment. The investigations conducted by the operator on the defective section of the cooling circuit revealed a 180 mm crack on a weld in that section. The reactor is currently shut down. It is being properly cooled by the circuit still intact and there has been no risk to the population. Additional investigations are being conducted at present by the operator to determine the nature and duration of the repairs required and to determine the safety conditions for those undertaking the repair work. The operator's proposals will be scrutinized by the Safety Authority. Because of the occurrence of this serious leak involving a loss of primary coolant, this incident has been classed at level 2 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) which has seven levels.
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
