AQUITAINE Purpo se: production of electricity Installatio ns: Blayais 1, 2, 3, and 4 (class CP1) Type: pressurized water reactors Locati on: Braud-et-Saint-Louis (Gironde), on the border of the Gironde, about 15 kilometers to the north of Blaye Operator: Electricité de France Period of operati on: since 1981 (1981, 1982, 1983, 1983 respectively) Fuel: low-enriched uranium oxide and mixed uranium-plutonium oxides Nuclear materi als: uranium, plutonium, tritium Nominal capa city: 3640 MW electric net (each reactor 910 MW) Actual product ion: in 2000, 417.7 TWh (106.4,107.5,102.0,101.7 TWh respectively) Blayais 1 and 2 use Mox fuel. The plant is located in a 5000-ha marsh. Largely as a result of this location, the storm of December 27, 1999, was able to compromise the safety equipment of the installation. At 9:00 pm on the 27th, reactors 2 and 4 shut down automatically because the storm had felled the high tension lines linking the plant to EDF's transmission network. (Reactor 3 was not operating on the 27th because it was undergoing maintenance.) Reactor 1 stopped operating at 00:30 am on the 28th, because debris carried by the waters of the Gironde had clogged a pump in the cooling system. Earlier in the evening water from the Gironde had flooded over dikes protecting the plant (designed to withstand thousand-year floods) and flooded underground tunnels. From the tunnels, water moved into several areas of the plant that were below ground level. Reactors 1 and 2 were most directly impacted. Equipment that became useless included certain pumps in the cooling water system. The DSIN which authorized the restart of Blayais 2 May 5 and Blayais 1 May 28, had ordered EDF to reinforce its flood-protection arrangements at Le Blayais before the incident. Since, the technical galleries have been compartmented, the dike beside the Gironde has been raised a meter, and a protective wall above the dike constructed. - updated August 2001 | |||