Farewell Flamanville? French reactor may be toast

Such serious flaws have now been found in the French prototype EPR reactor still under construction at Flamanville in France (pictured) that the project may have to be scrapped. Authorities have found that the project has a faulty steel reactor vessel at risk of splitting, a 100% unacceptable outcome. But because the reactor vessel is already encased in a concrete well it would be laborious and very costly to replace. The alternative is to scrap the project.

Pierre-Franck Chevet, president of France's nuclear safety authority (ASN), told the French daily newspaper, Le Parisien, the anomalies were in the "base and lid" of the vessel, which is "an absolutely crucial component of the nuclear reactor on which no risk of breakage can be taken."

The major setback is just the latest in a string of disasters for the EPR once touted as the poster child of new nuclear reactors. Enormous delays and equally vast cost-overruns have plagued the Flamanville project as well as the EPRs under construction in Finland and China. China recently stopped loading fuel into its EPR reactors over safety concerns. More.