Following an earlier funding round, France’s EDF and private equity specialist Siparex have announced a second round of funding to strengthen strategic companies in the country’s nuclear industry supply chain.

The first round of financing was known as the Fonds France Nucléaire (FFN). It was launched in October 2021. When that round concluded at the end of 2024, one hundred and twelve million dollars had been investments in eleven nuclear companies, with contributions from EDF, Framatome, Orano, TechnicAtome, major clients in the nuclear industry, as well as Siparex Associés, sponsor of the Siparex Group funds.

A second round of funding is named Fonds France Nucléaire 2 (FFN2). It has just been launched as a continuation of FFN with the target of raising EUR300 million.

EDF said, “The aim of FFN2 is to support SMEs and mid-sized companies with significant expertise in the nuclear sector, in order to address the growing needs of the sector, which contributes to the challenges of energy sovereignty and defense. The FFN2 aims to invest tickets up to EUR50 million, alone or in co-investment, in a majority or minority position.”.

EDF also said that FFN2 will bring together new leading institutional, industrial, and private investors “seeking to invest in the challenges of industrial and energy sovereignty, reindustrialization, and the decarbonization of the economy, and benefit from the associated strong momentum. Indeed, with more than 2000 companies and 220,000 employees contributing to the economic vitality of the regions, the French nuclear industry is the third-largest industrial sector in France”.

EDF noted that the FFN2 fund has already made its first investment in the Ekoscan Integrity Group which is a global provider of advanced non-destructive testing solutions for critical industrial and infrastructure applications, along with the company’s founder and management team, Eurazeo, and ALIAD (Air Liquide Venture Capital).

Benoit Desforges is a Managing Partner at Fonds France Nucléaire. He said, “The establishment of the Fonds France Nucléaire 2 is in line with what the first fund successfully implemented, demonstrating the value of targeting both strategic objectives for industry players and financial performance objectives. I am very pleased to see the industry’s major clients subscribing to the FFN2 alongside EDF, and to see institutional investors joining them, thus strengthening the support system as well as the investment capacity.”.

Xavier Ursat is the Executive Director of the EDF Group, in charge of the Strategy, Technologies, Innovation and Development Department. He added, “With the Fonds France Nucléaire 2, the objective is to prepare for the future by working alongside companies in the nuclear sector and giving them the means today to develop, innovate and gain sovereignty.”.

In February 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the time was right for a nuclear renaissance in France. He said that the operation of all existing reactors should be extended without compromising safety. He unveiled a proposed program for six new EPR2 reactors, with an option for a further eight EPR2 reactors to follow. The first three pairs of EPR2 reactors are to be constructed, in order, at the Penly, Gravelines and Bugey sites. Construction is expected to start in 2027.

Électricité de France

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)

It has two layers of internal and external cladding around the main steel structure – about thirteen yards apart – with both layers being breached in the drone incident. The NSC was designed to allow for the eventual dismantling of the ageing makeshift shelter from 1986 and the management of the radioactive waste that it contained. It is also designed to withstand temperatures ranging from minus one hundred- and nine-degrees Fahrenheit to plus one hundred- and thirteen-degrees Fahrenheit, a class-three tornado, and an earthquake with a magnitude of six on the Richter scale.

According to the World Nuclear Association, the hermetically-sealed NSC allows “engineers to remotely dismantle the 1986 structure that has shielded the remains of the reactor from the weather since the weeks after the accident. It will enable the eventual removal of the fuel-containing materials in the bottom of the reactor building and accommodate their characterization, compaction, and packing for disposal. This task represents the most important step in eliminating nuclear hazard at the site – and the real start of dismantling”.

The NSC was financed via the Chernobyl Shelter Fund which is run by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It received one billion seven hundred million dollars from forty-five donor countries and the EBRD provided five hundred and thirty-six million dollars of its own resources.

On the 4^th of March, the EBRD allocated four hundred and forty-seven dollars from the administrative budget of the continuing fund for specialist-led damage assessment.

The IAEA reported that the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost one of its two remaining external power lines on Wednesday. The Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy told them that the loss of the power line was the result of Russian military activity. Before the war, the plant had ten external power lines.

Grossi said, “A secure supply of off-site power from the grid for all nuclear sites is one of the seven indispensable pillars of nuclear safety and security that we outlined early in the war. It is obvious that this supply is far from being secure. The vulnerability of the grid remains a deep source of concern for nuclear safety.”.

The Zaporizhzhia plant has been under Russian military control since March 2022. It is located on the line between Russian and Ukrainian forces and has lost access to off-site power on eight occasions during the war The plant has to rely on emergency diesel generators to provide the power needed for safety functions.

Grossi said that he has been in touch with both sides in the conflict as he seeks to organize the next rotation of the IAEA experts stationed at the plant. Differences over the route to be taken – via Ukraine or from the Russian side – and the safety situation has resulted in the current team now being at the plant for over two months.

The IAEA teams currently based at Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants and at Chernobyl “have continued to report about air raid alarms on most days over the past week”, the IAEA added.

Zaporizhzhia

Part 1 of 2 Parts

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reviewed the scale of the damage caused by a Russian drone strike and subsequent fires to the giant shelter built over the ruins of Chernobyl’s unit 4. Chernobyl shelter’s drone damage includes 330 openings in outer cladding. Hundreds of openings were cut during efforts to extinguish fires.

The IAEA said that investigations continue to determine the exact extent of the damage sustained by the arch-shaped New Safe Confinement (NSC) shelter following the drone strike on the 14^th of February.

The impact caused an eighteen square yard hole in the external cladding of the arch, with further damage to a wider area of about two hundred forty-square-yards, as well as to some joints and bolts. It took about three weeks to completely extinguish smoldering fires in the insulation layers of the shelter.

In its update on the situation, the IAEA said, “It took several weeks to completely extinguish the fires caused by the strike. The emergency work resulted in approximately 330 openings in the outer cladding of the NSC arch, each with an average size of 30-50 cm.”. According to information provided to the IAEA team at the site, a preliminary analysis of the physical integrity of the large arch-shaped building identified extensive damage, for example to the stainless-steel panels of the outer cladding, insulation materials as well as to a large part of the membrane – located between the layers of insulation materials – that keep out water, moisture and air.”.

The main crane system, including the maintenance garage area, was damaged and is not currently operational. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are functional but have not been operating since the strike. Radiation and other monitoring systems are also still functional. There has been no increase in radiation levels detected at any time during or since the drone strike.

General Rafael Mariano Grossi is the IAEA Director. He said, “We are gradually getting a more complete picture of the severe damage caused by the drone strike. It will take both considerable time and money to repair all of it.”.

Chernobyl Unit 4 was destroyed in the April 1986 accident with a shelter constructed in a matter of months to encase the damaged unit. This allowed the other units at the plant to continue operating. The encased Unit still contains the molten core of the reactor and an estimated two hundred tons of highly radioactive material.

However, the shelter was not designed for the very long-term. The New Safe Confinement (NSC) was constructed to cover a much larger area including the original shelter. The NSC has a span of two hundred and eighty yards, a length of one hundred and seventy-seven yards, a height of one hundred and eighteen yards and a total weight of thirty-six thousand. It was designed for a lifetime of about one hundred years. The NSC was constructed nearby in two halves which were moved on specially constructed rail tracks to the current position, where it was completed in 2019.

Chernobyl

Please read Part 2 next