Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
France finds itself in the difficult position this winter of leaning more heavily on its coal fired power plants, importing electricity from Germany and relying on natural gas reserves stored in a warren of underground caves to make it through the winter.
In order to conserve power, President Macron’s government is moving ahead with France’s biggest energy conservation measures undertaken in decades. This is part of a broader conservation effort in Europe. The plan calls on citizens and businesses to make major lifestyle changes. These include lowering thermostats, car pooling and turning off lights after hours.
Analysts say that there will likely be a recession in Europe next year. Though undesirable, such a recession could help lower energy demand by leading energy-intensive businesses to cut production. The drop in available power has already forced steel, chemical and glass makers to cut output and furlough workers in France and elsewhere in Europe.
Regardless of economic conditions, France will still need to repair its reactors. Most of them were built in the 1980s and have been neglected for decades by a lack of investment. Experts say that France has lost valuable engineering expertise over the year. This trend has had serious repercussions for EDF’s ability to maintain existing nuclear power stations.
As part of its broader repair and maintenance effort, it has brough on hundreds of skilled engineers to make up for a serious lack of hands in France’s nuclear work force. The experts hired include welders and pipe fitters from Westinghouse, as well as from French and Canadian contractors.
However, event critical repairs must be carefully monitored. EDF said that a radioactive leak occurred this month during a hydraulic test on the main cooling circuit of the Civaux 1 nuclear power plant. EDF has spent months working to repair the cooling pipes. They are using new advanced technologies including ultrasound and welding robots that don’t have any radiation exposure limits.
EDF claimed that there was not safety risk from the Civaux 1 leak, and that no radioactivity was detected outside of the plant. However, the episode will probably delay the reopening of the plant. It was originally scheduled to open on January 8th of 2023.
Le Creuset is a huge foundry in France. For many years, they were the only foundry capable of forging the huge containment vessels needed for nuclear reactors. Besides providing vessels for French nuclear reactors, they also exported many vessels to other countries. A few years ago, they had forged a vessel for the Hinkley Point C plant being constructed in England. When a duplicate vessel was tested in France, it turned out that the steel in the vessel was about half as strong as it was purported to be because only half the required carbon was added to the alloy. These substandard reactor vessels had been shipped to other countries with over twenty to the U.S. alone. All the tainted reactors had to be shut down so the vessels could be checked. A number of reactors had been previously shut down in France to repair substandard welding.
The maintenance being undertaken by EDF is certainly important if long overdue. France may have a huge nuclear fleet which provided three quarters of their electricity before many plants were shut down recently, but their problems far predate the current energy crisis.