The Golfech Nuclear Power Plant is located in the commune of Golfech (

Tarn-et-Garonne Tarn-et-Garonne (; oc, Tarn e Garona ) is a department in the Occitania region in Southern France. It is traversed by the rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name. The area was originally part of the former provinces of Quercy and ...

), on the border of

Garonne The Garonne (, also , ; Occitan, Catalan, Basque, and es, Garona, ; la, Garumna or ) is a river of southwest France and northern Spain. It flows from the central Spanish Pyrenees to the Gironde estuary at the French port of Bordeaux – a ...

between

Agen The commune of Agen (, ; ) is the prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux. Geography The city of Agen lies in the southwestern department of ...

(30 km downstream) and

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. The city is on t ...

(90 km upstream) on the river

, from where it gets cooling water, it is approximately 40 km west of

Montauban Montauban (, ; oc, Montalban ) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, region of Occitania, Southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, ...

. The station has two operating nuclear reactors that are both

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 ...

s of the French P'4 design. The plant also has two 178.5-metre-tall cooling towersHydraulic works study of Golfech cooling towers, 1989, Goldwirt, F.; Ghuzel, M.; Lemoine, P.; https://inis.iaea.org/search/searchsinglerecord.aspx?recordsFor=SingleRecord&RN=21068176 that get water from the Garonne River, only using water to compensate for evaporation; the cooling loop is closed and water is never released back into the river. In 2002 the plant produced nearly half of the electricity used in the area. It employs nearly 700 full-time workers.

History

In 1965, the

Midi-Pyrénées Midi-Pyrénées (; oc, Miègjorn-Pirenèus or ; es, Mediodía-Pirineos) is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region of Occitania. It was the largest region of Metropolitan France by are ...

announced its intention to construct a nuclear plant near Malause. EDF then went about securing a site for the station. In 1967 a board of inquiry initially laid out plans for two UNGG reactors with an output of 800 MWe each. Due to falling

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...

prices and conflicts between EDF and CEA, the project was delayed, with a decision made between 1967 and 1969. In 1969 after the departure of Charles de Gaulle, CEA gave up on the UNGG plans. In 1973, a nearby hydroelectric plant of 63 MW was completed and the regional manager for EDF announces plans for PWRs at the same site to be finished by 1985. In 1978, EDF announces that Golfech would be the site for 4 PWRs eventually of 1300 MWe each. On 17 June 1979, 5000 protesters walked on the future site and released balloons.

Events

These are all 1 on the INES scale and occurred in 1998. * on 28 September 1998 at the time of an operation check of the measuring equipment of the neutron flux in the middle of the reactor, the operator did not respond to one of the signals that should have been investigated. * on 4 November the Autorité de sûreté nucléaire discovered that on 14 October, EDF ran the reactor with an overpower of 7% for 30 hours. * on 27 November 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 ...

is evacuated following an alarm due to an atmospheric detection of radioactivity. Ten workers are slightly contaminated.

References

{{Authority control Nuclear power stations in France