The Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant is a

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...

located in

Grand Est Grand Est (; ) is an Regions of France, administrative region in northeastern France. It superseded three former administrative regions, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine, on 1 January 2016 under the provisional name of Alsace-Champagne-A ...

in the Cattenom commune,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, on the

Moselle River The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A small part of Belgiu ...

between

Thionville Thionville (; ; ) is a city in the northeastern French Departments of France, department of Moselle (department), Moselle. The city is located on the left bank of the river Moselle (river), Moselle, opposite its suburb Yutz. History Thionvi ...

(7 km upstream) and

Trier Trier ( , ; ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( , ) and Triers (see also Names of Trier in different languages, names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle (river), Moselle in Germany. It lies in a v ...

(48 km downstream). It is close to the city of

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

(22 km) and

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

(32 km). It is France's second most powerful nuclear power plant, and the twelfth largest nuclear power station in the world.

Description

The site consists of 4

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

s that were all built between 1979 and 1991 and have an electric output of 1300 MW each. The plant is a relatively modern and large nuclear power plant. In 2006 it produced the third most electricity (34 TWh) of the nuclear plants in

behind

Gravelines Gravelines ( , ; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Nord (French department), Nord departments of France, department in Northern France. It lies at the mouth of the river Aa (France), Aa southwest of Dunkirk, France, Dunkirk. It was form ...

(38.5 TWh) and Paluel (34.9 TWh). The plant employs about 1200 regular employees and about 1000 more during outage times. The station received its

ISO 14001 The ISO 14000 family is a set of international standards for Natural environment, environment management systems. It was developed in March 1996 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations ...

certification in 2005, and gained its

ISO 9001 The ISO 9000 family is a set of international standards for quality management systems. It was developed in March 1987 by International Organization for Standardization. The goal of these standards is to help organizations ensure that they meet ...

and OHSAS 18001 in 2007.

Cooling

The site uses 4 separate

cooling tower A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream, to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove heat and cool the ...

s which use of water from the Moselle annually. Additionally, a water reserve on site, Lake Mirgenbach, was created. The creation of this lake has led to the flooding of the subterranean portions of Ouvrage Kobenbusch, part of the

Maginot Line The Maginot Line (; ), named after the Minister of War (France), French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by French Third Republic, France in the 1930s to deter invas ...

. In 1985 an artificial lake was also created in the Pierre-Percée valley in the Vosges. During the 2003 European heat wave the plant was permitted to pipe the

waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility ...

water used for cooling directly into the Moselle river. The heating of the water in these cases is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius by prefectoral decree. Heating to 2.2 degrees was accidentally caused once.

Events

*In March 2001, the reactor building of Unit 3 was evacuated with 131 people, apparently due to a false alarm. No one was hurt and there were no radiation releases.ASN on evacuations in March 2001
* Eight workers were exposed to radiation (6 workers at 1/100 of the annual regulatory limit) in March 2005.CNPE Contamination de 8 personnes intervenant dans le bâtiment de traitement des effluents
/ref> * On 12 March 2008, an employee was exposed to about 1/20 of the annual maximum allowed dose.
/ref> * On 28 February 2013, two contract workers have died and a third seriously injured in an accident during maintenance work in a reactor building. They were working on a platform which appears to have become detached, dropping the workers several meters to the floor below. * On 7 June 2013, the

power transformer Power may refer to: Common meanings * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power, a type of energy * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events Ma ...

of unit 1 caught fire. The block turned itself off automatically and nobody was hurt. * On 11 June 2013, the power transformer of unit 3 caught fire.

Polychlorinated biphenyl Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are organochlorine compounds with the formula Carbon, C12Hydrogen, H10−''x''Chloride, Cl''x''; they were once widely used in the manufacture of carbonless copy paper, as heat transfer fluids, and as dielectri ...

has been used in the construction of the transformer, which is known to be toxic and carcinogenic when inhaled. * On the evening of 31 January 2017, around 10pm, an administrative building caught fire. The reactors were not shut down and continued normal operation after the fire. ''This list is not meant to be complete. The references include the official ASN list,the pages of the french ASN (French)
/ref> which names 81 events between March 2000 and March 2008 (of which 7 are INES level 0, 57 are INES level 1 and 2 are INES level 2).''

Earthquake resistance

The Ministry for Ecology has declared the area around Cattenom to run a very low risk of earthquakes. The Moselle prefect declared in late 2018, the area around Cattenom to have a very low risk of earthquakes.

In the Media

The station is mentioned in ''

Shadowrun ''Shadowrun'' is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in an alternate future in which cybernetics, magic in fiction, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and crime fiction, crime, wit ...

'', a fictional video game in which the facility undergoes a catastrophic

nuclear meltdown A nuclear meltdown (core meltdown, core melt accident, meltdown or partial core melt) is a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term ''nuclear meltdown'' is not officially defined by the Internatio ...

, resulting in the release of a massive cloud of radioactive gas. In this imaginary adventure, the northern half of the province of

Lorraine Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...

, the German state of

Saarland Saarland (, ; ) is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the smallest in ...

and the entire nation of

are evacuated, resulting in the creation of an exclusion zone known as the Saar-Lorraine-Luxembourg Special Administrative Zone, or S.O.X. The video game presents the S.O.X. as under direct control of mega-corporations and serving as a testing ground for the effects of radiation on the setting's magic.

References

{{Authority control Nuclear power stations in France Moselle (department)