The Chooz

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 ...

Station (french: Centrale nucléaire de Chooz) lies in the municipality of Chooz in the

Ardennes The Ardennes (french: Ardenne ; nl, Ardennen ; german: Ardennen; wa, Årdene ; lb, Ardennen ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Be ...

department, France, on the

Meuse River The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a ...

in a panhandle protruding into Belgium, between the French city of

Charleville-Mézières or ''Carolomacérienne'' , image flag=Flag of Charleville Mezieres.svg Charleville-Mézières () is a commune of northern France, capital of the Ardennes department, Grand Est. Charleville-Mézières is located on the banks of the river Meuse. ...

and the Belgian municipality of

Dinant Dinant () is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On the shores of river Meuse, in the Ardennes, it lies south-east of Brussels, south-east of Charleroi and south of the city of Namur. Dinant is situa ...

, near the comune of

Givet Givet () (german: Gibet Walloon: ''Djivet'') is a commune in the Ardennes department in northern France surrounded on three sides by the Belgian border. It lies on the river Meuse where Emperor Charles V built the fortress of Charlemont. I ...

. The first reactor, Chooz A, was an early

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 and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is ...

(PWR) design by Westinghouse, built and operated by French ( EDF) and Belgian (SENA) grid operators. It was shut down in 1991 after an operational life of 22 years. The

containment building A containment building is a reinforced steel, concrete or lead structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radiation, radioactive steam or gas to a maximum pressure in the range of . The con ...

of this unit was underground. Decommissioning was authorised in 2007. After preliminary work, decommissioning of the

reactor pressure vessel A reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in a nuclear power plant is the pressure vessel containing the nuclear reactor coolant, core shroud, and the reactor core. Classification of nuclear power reactors Russian Soviet era RBMK reactors have each f ...

began in 2016. As of 2022, vessel’s internal equipment was being dismantled under water. Two units of the N4 reactor design are currently in operation, Chooz B1 and Chooz B2. Designed for a net power output of 1450

MWe The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

, power was uprated to 1500 MWe in 2003. This was the highest nameplate capacity for any reactor design worldwide until the

Taishan Nuclear Power Plant The Taishan Nuclear Power Plant () is a nuclear power plant in Taishan, Guangdong province, China. The plant features two operational EPR reactors. The first unit, Taishan 1, entered commercial service in December 2018, but was shut down fro ...

in China began operation. The Taishan plant is an EPR design reactor with a net power output of greater than 1,600 MWe per reactor. The plant employs around 1000 full-time workers. The Chooz reactors were a source of

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...

s for the Chooz neutrino oscillation experiment; a new experiment,

Double Chooz Double Chooz was a short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in Chooz, France. Its goal was to measure or set a limit on the ''θ''13 mixing angle, a neutrino oscillation parameter responsible for changing electron neutrinos into other neut ...

, was also operating nearby.

Reactors

References

External links

Chooz B
Nuclear Engineering International wall chart, February 1985 {{Authority control Nuclear power stations in France Buildings and structures in Ardennes (department)