The Civaux
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 is located in the commune of
Civaux (
Vienne
Vienne (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Viéne'') is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.[Vienne River
The Vienne (; oc, Vinhana, ) is a major river in south-western France. It is long. It is a significant left tributary of the lower Loire. It supports numerous hydroelectric dams, and it is the main river of the northern part of the Nouvelle-Aqu ...]
between
Confolens
Confolens ( ; oc, Cofolents, ) is a commune in southwestern France. It is one of the two sub-prefectures of the Charente department. Confolens is the administrative center of a largely rural district, which has seen the development of tourism ...
(60 km upstream) and
Chauvigny
Chauvigny (; Poitevin dialect, Poitevin: ''Chôvigni'') is a Communes of France, commune in the Vienne Departments of France, department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regions of France, region in western France.
Chauvigny is located east of Poitiers ...
(14 km downstream), and 44 km south-east of
Poitiers
Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetà e'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...
.
It has two operating units that were the precursors to the
European Pressurized Reactor
The EPR is a Generation III reactor, third generation pressurised water reactor design. It has been designed and developed mainly by Framatome (part of Areva between 2001 and 2017) and Électricité de France (EDF) in France, and Siemens in Germ ...
, being the "N4 stage". 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 Watt ...
per unit, power was uprated to 1500 MWe in 2010. The Civaux plant uses ambient air and water from the Vienne River for cooling.
As of 2022, 1300 people work at the plant.
The
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 process heat and ...
s of Civaux Nuclear Power Plant are 178 metres in height, which are the highest among those of EDF's nuclear power plants.
Afsset">Document Agence française de sécurité sanitaire de l'environnement et du travail, Afsset
10 octobre 2007
Events
*On 12 May 1998 there was a leak on an elbow in a pipe of the RCS. Water leaked out at the rate of 30 cubic meters per hour. It was classified as an International Nuclear Event Scale, INES level-2 event.
*Civaux was a proposed target in the 1998 World Cup terror plot; it was planned that Armed Islamic Group terrorists would crash a hijacked aeroplane into the plant on 15 June 1998. The plot was foiled with a mass arrest of conspirators on 26 May.
Reactors
See also
*EDF EDF may refer to:
Organisations
* Eclaireurs de France, a French Scouting association
* Education for Development Foundation, a Thai charity
* Électricité de France, a French energy company
** EDF Energy, their British subsidiary
** EDF Luminus, ...
*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 ...
*Chooz Nuclear Power Plant
The Chooz Nuclear Power Station (french: Centrale nucléaire de Chooz) lies in the municipality of Chooz in the Ardennes department, France, on the Meuse River in a panhandle protruding into Belgium, between the French city of Charleville-Mézi� ...
References
Nuclear power stations in France
Buildings and structures in Vienne
2002 establishments in France
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