BRITTANY

BRENNILIS (EL4, MONTS D’ARREE) -- shut down

Purpose : production of electricity

Type : heavy water reactor

Location : within the Parc naturel régional d’Armorique

Operators : CEA and EDF

Period of operation : 1967-1985

Raw materials : normally uranium oxide enriched to 1.4%; heavy water

Nuclear materials : uranium, plutonium, deuterium, tritium

Nominal capacity : 70 MW electric net

According to an EDF/CEA folder, the site of EL4, "the vast Yeun depression," is a "mythic place, where the Celts located the gates to hell."

EL4 "emitted much too much radioactive gas for its slight production. This plant was certainly outside the norms,"according to professor Pierre Pellerin of SCPRI [Libé 11 xi.87]. Brennilis began operating before procedures for authorizations for INBs had been put into place, and the lack of emission limits was never solved [Gaze xi.88].

EL4 was moderated with heavy water and cooled with pressurized carbonic acid. The reactor was loaded with 21 t of UO2 fuel (18.5 t of uranium). The fuel remained for five years in the reactor and was replaced while the reactor was in operation. The uranium was normally enriched to 1.4% [CFDT 80], but, according to an American report, the United States exported at least 46 kg of uranium enriched to 93% for EL4’s fuel [USNRC 88]. A part of the EL4 fuel was reprocessed by APM and by UP1 at Marcoule, but 50 t remains in long-term dry storage in the Cascad installation at Cadarache.

Decree 96-978 (31 October 1996) authorized the CEA to create the installation EL 4D (INB 162) to preserve the plant in an intermediate stage of dismantling.  In the first phase of dismantling (at level 1), the core was emptied of the fuel, the fuel cooling pools were drained, and the heavy water was removed. The tritium extraction plant at Grenoble removed most of the tritium that had accumulated in the 100 t of heavy water. The heavy water is now stored at Cadarache.

The second phase (at level 2) began in September 1997. In the reactor building, only the heavy water circuits, the old electric circuits, and the maintenance machines for fuel elements were to be dismantled. At the same time, the reactor core container and the protective mechanisms were to be improved. The building for storing irradiated fuel, the storage area for solid waste, and the station for treatment of liquid effluents will be cleaned up and then dismantled [LeMo 21.i.98].

For the reactor building, the guiding scenario was a final dismantling (at level 3) some fifty years after the reactor stopped operating.   However, the decree authorizing the CEA to create INB 162 asked that the CEA submit "to the ministers of the environment and of industry a study defining the various possible options for a faster final dismantling [JO 8.xi.96]. The CEA submitted a study at the end of 1999.

Also at the end of 1999, the CEA and EDF submitted to the ministers of environment and industry a joint request for a change of operator. EDF wished to have the experience of guiding the dismantling [DSIN 99].

By a decree of September 19, 2000, EDF was authorized to manage the installation [Con i.01]. Following the conclusions of the study furnished by the CEA, EDF agreed, October 16, to dismantle the site more rapidly than initially planned, and thus to release it for others uses 15-20 years from that date [Con i.01].  An authorization for complete dismantling was granted 9 February 2006 (decree 2006-147) [JO 12.2.06].  

However, 7 June 2007 the Conseil d'Etat, acting on a request from the organization Sortir du Nucléaire, annulled the decree authorizing complete dismantlement, on the basis that the environmental impact statement in regard to that action was not released to the public before the authorization was granted.  Sortir du Nucléaire explained that it is not opposed to dismantling according to the original plan but is opposed to complete dismantling at this time due to the increased risk to workers, the public, and the environment, and the lack of a site for permanent disposal of the waste with long-lived radioactivity in the reactor itself.

WASTES

The 1996 decree asked the operator "to reduce the volume of wastes produced," "while taking care to add value to them or to treat them whenever possible, permanent storage being reserved for ultimate wastes".

Andra calculated that dismantling to level 2 would produce the following wastes:

--of medium or low activity: 180 m3 of concrete with contamination greater than 100 Bq/g (of which 18 m3 will be contaminated with tritium at less than 7400Bq/g), and 230 t of metal at less than 30,000 Bq/g;

--of very low activity: 1200 tons of metal, 700 cubic meters of fiber glass insulation, 70 tons of lead, 120 tons of electric cables, and 500 tons of decontamination rubble [Andra 00].

In 1999 the DSIN inspectors "noted the progressive saturation of the storage areas for wastes." Consequently, the DSIN asked the CEA in September 1999 for a precise plan for the removal of wastes [DSIN 99]. In 2001, following authorization from DSIN, an initial convoy of very weakly radioactive waste left Brennilis for the incinerator of Centraco in the Gard. Eight transports of this type were planned for 2001. The metal will also go to Centraco but for melting. In 2001, 400t of scraps metal were expected to leave the site [Ouest 29.iii.01]

In 2003 a disposal site for very weakly radioactive waste (CSTFA) opened at Morvilliers.  Short-lived "weakly" and "moderately" radioactive wastes are packaged and sent to the Centre de Stockage de l'Aube (Soulaines).  There is no disposal site for the long-lived moderately radioactive waste, anticipated to amount to some twenty to forty tons, essentially of metal, from the dismantling of the reactor itself [Ener 3.viii.04].

The 5000 m3 of rubble produced by the dismantling of the nuclear buildings (apart from the reactor building), which took place after the dismantling of the circuits and equipment inside the buildings, will be used to fill the empty spaces in the site, before the surface is reconstructed using materials from quarries outside the site [Reynard 99; Ener 3.viii.04].

                                                                                                                   --revised June 25, 2007

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