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      I have written in the past about the French utility company EDF and the problems they have had with welding on nuclear components at the nuclear reactor under construction in Flamanville, France.
      Construction of the Unit 3 nuclear reactor at Flamanville began in December of 2007. It is based on the Areva European Pressurized Reactor design and will have a one thousand six hundred and fifty-megawatt capacity. There have been many problems with the project, and it is way over budget and way behind schedule.
       In January of 2018, it was discovered that some of the welds in the secondary cooling circuit did not meet the necessary specifications. The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) requested that EDF check other components and systems for substandard welds. This caused a delay in hot testing of the reactor until early 2019.
       The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) is the French public service expert in nuclear and radiation risks and its activities cover all the related scientific and technical issues. The IRSN has recommended that EDF repair all the faulty welds that have been discovered at Flamanville. This could cost EDF hundreds of millions of dollars and further delay the completion of Unit 3. The ASN will issue a ruling on this recommendation as early as June of this year. It is likely that they will follow the IRSN recommendations.
       A statement released by the IRSN said, “Given the importance of the identified defects, the IRSN has concluded that EDF, rather than trying to justify that the weldings are fit for service in their current state, should proceed to repair the weldings.”
       The ASN issued a statement in which they said that a group of independent nuclear experts has also recommended that EDF either redo all the faulty welds at Flamanville or improve the design of the Unit 3 reactor so that it could withstand the rupture of the welds.
       EDF released a statement to the effect that if the recommendations of the expert are implemented, it could have a serious effect of Unit 3’s commissioning schedule and ultimate cost. In July of 2018, EDF said that the welding problems increased the total estimated cost by four percent to about twelve billion dollars. The original cost estimate before construction began was about three billion three hundred million dollars.
       EDF planned on redoing fifty-three of the bad welds in the reactor’s secondary circuit. They hoped that they could convince the ASN that ten other welds in question were actually sufficient and did not need to be redone. ASN said in January of 2019 that they had questions about the quality of eight other welds on pipes that run between the Unit 3 reactor building and the turbine building.
       The Flamanville Unit 3 reactor has also been criticized because there is too much carbon in the steel of the reactor containment vessel which makes it more brittle and about half as strong as it needs to be to meet ASN standards.
       It is simply unacceptable that reactors built by EDF cannot meet industry standards and specifications. Nuclear component and reactor manufactures must be held accountable for their shoddy work and, if they are unable to comply with regulations, they should go out of business.