The Chinon

Nuclear Power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

Plant (french: Centrale nucléaire de Chinon) is near the town of Avoine in the Indre et Loire ''département'', on 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 Rhône ...

(approximately 10 km from the town of

Chinon Chinon () is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department, Centre-Val de Loire, France. The traditional province around Chinon, Touraine, became a favorite resort of French kings and their nobles beginning in the late 15th and early 16th centuri ...

) in central France. The power station has seven reactors, of which three have been closed.

Operation

It employs approximately 1,350 full-time workers. The operator is

Électricité de France Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...

(EDF).

Performance

The site houses three of the first generation of French plants, of

UNGG The UNGG (''Uranium Naturel Graphite Gaz'') is an obsolete nuclear power reactor design developed in France. It was graphite moderated, cooled by carbon dioxide, and fueled with natural uranium metal. The first generation of French nuclear ...

-type (similar to the Magnox design), which have now closed. Four of the first French PWR series were later built on the site. The site has four cooling towers, designed to be low-profile in order to minimise the visual impact on the Loire. It is larger than most French plants and feeds approximately 6% of French electricity demand.

Events

*During the unusually cold 1986-87 winter, the water intake from the river, as well as several other important pieces of equipment and machinery, froze. *On 21 December 2005, sand accumulated inside the tertiary cooling circuit, threatening to block it. This could have stopped cooling of all the reactors. *On 4 September 2008, some industrial oil was accidentally discharged to the river in a maintenance operation. It was not radioactively contaminated. *On 30 April 2009, a bomb alert caused an evacuation of the plant and an intervention by several units of army security forces.

Other info

*Since 1986, the closed Chinon A1 reactor has been redeveloped to hold the French Atom Museum. *The INTRA (INTervention Robotic on Accidents) group, a national nuclear event emergency intervention group equipped with remotely guided, radiation hardened machinery, has its headquarters at the plant.

Reactors

External links