The Cruas Nuclear Power Station is a

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 located in

Cruas Cruas (; oc, Cruàs) is a commune near the river Rhône in the Ardèche department in southern France. The village has a Romanesque abbey with a crypt. Population Sights and monuments Cruas has two notable '' monuments historiques'' * Ab ...

and

Meysse Meysse (; oc, Mèissa) is a commune in the Ardèche department in southern France. Population See also *Communes of the Ardèche department The following is a list of the 335 communes of the Ardèche department of France. The commune ...

communes,

Ardèche Ardèche (; oc, Ardecha; frp, Ardecha) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It is named after the river Ardèche and had a population of 328,278 as of 2019.Rhône River The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

in France. The site is 35 km north of

Tricastin Nuclear Power Center The Tricastin Nuclear Power Plant (french: link=no, Centrale Nucléaire du Tricastin) is a nuclear power plant consisting of 4 pressurized water reactors (PWRs) of CP1 type with 915 MW electrical power output each. The power plant is located ...

and near the town of

Montélimar Montélimar (; Vivaro-Alpine: ''Montelaimar'' ; la, Acumum) is a town in the Drôme department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in north Provence, Southeastern France. It is the second-largest city in the department after Valence. In 2018, ...

. The site contains 4

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...

s of 900 MW each, totaling 3600 MW total. The construction began in 1978, the reactors were built between 1983 and 1984. The power station accounts for 4 to 5% of the electric energy production in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, and 40% of the annual usage by the Rhone-Alps area. The site employs about 1,200 workers and has an area of 148

hectare 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 a ...

s. Cooling water comes from the Rhône river.

Incidents

On 1 December 2009 reactor 4 was shut down after vegetation blocked the intake of the cooling system. The nuclear safety authority

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) classified the incident as level 2 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 s ...

. On 5 December 2011, two

anti-nuclear The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...

campaigners breached the perimeter of the Cruas Plant, escaping detection for more than 14 hours, while posting videos of their sit-in on the internet. A 4.8M

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

in the Ardeche region on 11 November 2019 meant that

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 ...

was required to halt production and check equipment at the plant. This period offline will mean that EDF will not meet its annual power production projection.France's EDF cuts nuclear output forecast after quake
SpaceWar.com, 2019-11-14

Mural

In 1991 it was decided by the owners of the plant to carry out a

Mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

project on the cooling towers focusing on the topic of ecology. Author of the mural on the

Tignes Dam The Tignes Dam, also known as the Chevril Dam, is an arch dam on the Isère in the municipality of Tignes in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. In planning since the 1920s and under the protest of locals, the dam was constructed betw ...

, Jean-Marie Pierret was selected to design the painting, 9

mountaineers Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, an ...

helped to actually paint the structure. The painting reflects the basics of

Water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

and

Air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...

and is titled ''Aquarius'', and was inaugurated in December 1991. It took 8,000 working hours and 4,000 liters of paint to complete the project.

References

{{French nuclear power plants Nuclear power stations in France Électricité de France Montélimar Buildings and structures in Ardèche