The Belleville Nuclear Power Plant is located in

Belleville-sur-Loire Belleville-sur-Loire (, literally ''Belleville on Loire'') is a commune in the Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. Geography A farming village with a nuclear power station situated by the banks of the river Loire, some ...

(

Cher Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the Honorific nicknames in popular music, "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female ...

) near Léré, along the river

Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhôn ...

between

Nevers Nevers ( , ; la, Noviodunum, later ''Nevirnum'' and ''Nebirnum'') is the prefecture of the Nièvre Departments of France, department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regions of France, region in central France. It was the principal city of the ...

( upstream) and

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and hectares The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

and is located on a flood-safe, 4.6-meter-high platform. Each year it produces an average of 19 billion kilowatt hours fed to the electricity grid, and thus covers about four percent of French electricity production. With the construction of the first reactor was started on 1 May 1980, and it began operation 14 October 1987. The second unit started construction 1 August 1980 and began operation 6 July 1988. The shutdown of the reactors is planned for the years 2028 and 2029 for unit 1 and 2 respectively.

Safety

In May 2001 construction-related defects were observed in this plant, along with four other sites. The emergency cooling system of the two-phase nuclear power plant has a reserve water tank at the bottom of the reactor building. In the event of a defect in the primary cooling circuit that causes it to no longer contribute to cooling, the water from the reserve tank is automatically fed into the cooling system. Inspections in May 2001 showed, however, that this automatic feeding of the water was unreliable, because under some circumstances the pressure of the heated water may block the water slide. The French nuclear regulatory authority ASN initially classified this disruption of the emergency cooling systems as stage 1 on the international scale of nuclear events (INES), but later assigned it the stage 2 classification. The operating company EDF then built the slider so that excess pressure can no longer lead to a blockage. In 2017 the French nuclear regulator

Autorité de sûreté nucléaire The ''Autorité de sûreté nucléaire'' ( en, Nuclear Safety Authority, ASN) is an independent French administrative authority set up by law 2006-686 of 13 June 2006 concerning nuclear transparency and security. It has replaced the General Direct ...

(ASN) placed Belleville under increased supervision because of "several failures by the operator in identifying and analysing the consequences of anomalies affecting certain safety-critical equipment". Belleville has had eight Level 1 events on the

International Nuclear Event Scale The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was introduced in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of safety significant information in case of nuclear accidents. The ...

. On 2 December 2021, the

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 195 ...

's Operational Safety Review Team (OSART), concluded an 18-day mission to Belleville and concluded the plant's operators had demonstrated a commitment to safety by introducing additional methods to prepare for accident management and using innovative approaches in the training of plant staff. OSART also identified areas for further enhancement, for example in operation, maintenance and operating experience. The mission was carried out at the request of the Government of France.

References

External links

EDF site operator Belleville

Centrale de Belleville - site de l'ASN Central Belleville - site of the ASN

* Vue satellite sur Wikimapia
WikiMapia satellite view: The power of Belleville-sur-Loire
* Belleville 1
INSC
* Belleville 2
INSC

Rapport 2007 Report 2007 under the Law of 13 June 2006 on transparency and nuclear safety
{{French nuclear power plants Nuclear power stations in France