Injuries feared after blast at French nuclear power plant

[casper]

Quote:
"France Ouest newspaper reported that the blast, which happened at 9.40am, had occurred in the engine room of the Flamanville plant.

Flamanville is on the English Channel coast, about 20 miles from Jersey, 25 miles from Guernsey and close to Cherbourg.

According to the regional authorities, an emergency plan of action called the Special Plan of Interventions (PPI) has not been triggered as there is no nuclear risk.

The fire brigade told the newspaper the explosion and a fire was reported inside the plant but outside the nuclear zone.

M6 radio said five people were slightly injured.

Officials at the Paris headquarters of EDF, which runs the plant, confirmed the incident had taken place but claim the fire was "under control" and there had been "no injuries and no safety or environmental consequences".

EDF said the fire occurred in the Flamanville 1 reactor in a non-nuclear zone and the 1,300Mw reactor was being taken off-line as a result.

The nuclear safety authority ASN said it had no information and could not immediately comment.

The existing power plant houses two pressurised water reactors that have been in service for about 30 years, Flamanville 1 and 2.

A new European Pressurised Reactor, Flamanville 3, is being built on site to a similar design as that due to be constructed at Hinkley Point in Britain.

The reactor was due to begin operations in 2012 but in 2016 EDF said that after a reassessment the start up would be delayed until 2018.

EDF said the overall project cost, meanwhile, will now be €10.5bn, up from the initial estimate, according to World Nuclear News, of €3.3bn.

A spokeswoman for the local government said the explosion did not take place at the construction site for the new reactor."

http://news.sky.com/story/injuries-feared-after-blast-at-french-nuclear-power-plant-10761037

 

[angelburst29]

“Massive blast” rips through nuclear plant
http://enenews.com/massive-blast-at-nuclear-power-plant-smoke-billowed-from-building-as-explosion-led-to-massive-fire-expert-incident-very-serious-number-of-people-have-been-left-feeling-unwell

West Australian Feb 9, 2017 (emphasis added): ‘Massive’ blast at French nuclear power plant… Emergency services are on the scene…

Zee News (India), Feb 9, 2017: Eyewitnesses said that smoke billowed from the building as the explosion led to a massive fire.

The Sun, Feb 9, 2017: POWER PLANT BLAST Explosion rips through French EDF nuclear power plant… after a fire in one of the reactor engine rooms… Jacques Lepetit, Mayor of Les Pieux in Flamanville, said the smoke was now “under control” at the plant… “The release of smoke is controlled, the operations are under control,” he told 20 Minutes.

The Independent, Feb 9, 2017: Neil Hyatt, professor of radioactive waste management at the University of Sheffield, said the incident was “very serious”…

BBC, Feb 9, 2017: Flamanville reactor blast… Five people reported feeling unwell…

Evening Standard, Feb 9, 2017: Emergency services rushed to the power station… According to initial reports there were thought to be several injured and five people left “moderately intoxicated”.

Daily Star, Feb 9, 2017: Massive explosion at nuclear power plant near British coast leaves several injured; MULTIPLE people have been injured after a huge blast ripped through a nuclear power plant… Local reports are stating the explosion happened in the engine room and a number of people have been left feeling unwell. Firefighters and paramedics rushed to the scene but the extent of the damage and injuries remains unclear.

Yahoo 7 News, Feb 9, 2017: Explosion rocks nuclear power plant in France… Emergency crews have raced to the scene…

Sky News, Feb 9, 2017: Several people have suffered “intoxication” after an explosion at a French nuclear power plant… a cordon has been set up around the site as a precaution.

News.com.au, Feb 10, 2017: Flamanville plant in northern France has been hit by a massive explosion… Neil Hyatt, a professor of radioactive waste management at Sheffiled University said… “Any incident of this kind at a nuclear power plant is very serious”…

Daily Sabah, Feb 10, 2017: 3 nuclear reactor blasts within 10 days raises security concerns in France… the Flamanville blast is the third explosion in French nuclear power plants in the past week and a half… The previous explosion at Cattenom nuclear power plant occurred on February 1, French media outlets reported on Friday, while also noting that the three explosions had occurred within 10 days of one another.

 

[bjorb]

Sometimes an accident is just an accident of course.

But drones where once spotted at this nuclear power plant, and police helicopters weren't capable of intercepting those. Maybe it's a warning brought to the next level?


Thursday 6 November 2014

Three arrests fail to staunch mystery of drones flying over French nuclear plants
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/06/arrests-myster-drones-flying-french-nuclear-plants

Sources tell the Guardian that there have likely been more than 13 drone incidents that nuclear operator EDF has admitted to

Three people have been arrested with drones near a nuclear power plant in the Cher region south of Paris, as sources told the Guardian that the true number of French nuclear facilities being targeted may have been underplayed.

The three twentysomethings, detained near Belleville-sur-Loire plant on Wednesday night with two drones, are thought to be model plane enthusiasts and unconnected to the recent spate of drones spotted over nuclear reactors in recent weeks by mystery operators.

Blueberry Radio, a local station, reported that they had inadvertently strayed into a plant security zone during a post-birthday trip to film a remote-controlled boat on a lake.

The three, who include a locksmith and student couple, now face possible one-year prison sentences and €75,000 fines.

“These people do not have any link with the other flights done in the last weeks,” Yannick Rousselet, Greenpeace France’s nuclear campaigner told the Guardian. “It looks like they wanted to play with their drones close to the plant, which was not a good choice.”

The French nuclear operator EDF admits 13 drone incidents in the last month, but the Guardian has learned that other nuclear facilities may have also been targeted for surveillance by the drones.

Sources say that drones also overflew sites including an Areva spent fuel reprocessing plant in Flamanville on the Cotentin peninsula on 27 October and nuclear research centres in Saclay, south of Paris, and Cadarache, in Bouche-du-Rhone.

“I think there have been more than 13 drone flights,” said Yves Marignac, the director of World Information Service Energy-Paris, and an advisor to France’s nuclear safety authority and environment ministry.

“There are also reports of flights in Saclay, south of Paris and other facilities. Greenpeace have been saying for days that EDF is not the only nuclear operator affected by these flights and this has not been denied by other operators or by the government. So this is not strictly speaking a targeting of EDF sites.”

EDF maintains that its plants are immune to “external stresses” and the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve has said that measures to “neutralise” the drones were in place. Le Figaro has reported that police officers have been given orders to shoot down any aircraft that could threaten the plants.

But Rousselet, who lives close to the Flamanville plant, said that two army helicopters failed to intercept drones there on 27 October. “They were efficient and high speed helicopters,” he said. “They tried to follow the drones, but lost them.”

“Immediately after Cazeneuve’s statement, there were two overflights and the day after that, there were seven,” he added. “That means there is some kind of provocation to the French government taking place.”

In the aftermath of the first mysterious drone flights, some suspicion fell on Greenpeace, despite their denials, as the group has previously entered French nuclear plants to expose what they say are ongoing security failings.

The group used drones earlier this year to film illegal coal mining in China and usually trumpets such activities. The Guardian has learned that Greenpeace activists flew a drone over the Sellafield nuclear plant after 11 September 2001, which the group has never publicly admitted.

But that action was launched in the context of a bid to have the High Court overturn a government decision to proceed with the licensing of a Plutonium Mox plant in Sellafield, and photos taken in the operation were never put online to avoid revealing sensitive information to groups with malicious intent.

Few experts believe that Greenpeace has the capacity or motive to engage in a campaign as sophisticated, sustained and technically-complex as the one unfolding in France, involving up to four drone missions aimed at different sites at the same time.

Marignac said that he believed there were three possible culprits.

“One is that anti-nuclear people have formed an underground group although the operation seems to involve too much capacity for a really secret group,” he said. “The second option is a group like Anonymous or an anti-government group, trying to defy the government and show that there are breaches in security.”

“The third and most worrying possibility is that it is a malevolent and potentially terrorist group really challenging the government, saying ‘These are the means we have.’”

He declined to speculate on whether lax security exposure, blackmail, warnings or reconnaissance were the most likely motives, but noted that many of the sites surveilled contained spent fuel pools and that drones were particularly useful for acquiring “precise on-site information”.

The French environment minister Segolene Royal recently admitted that she did not “have any lead” on who was behind the drone operations.

Rousselet said that in the absence of laser-based weaponry, the French government lacked a technological solution to the problem and so had no option but to find the culprits quickly.

“We have direct and indirect contacts with the security services and my sense is that it looks like there’s some kind of panic developing as they don’t have any idea of who might be responsible,” he said.

A spokesperson for the European Commission said that it was “too early to determine the implications the drone events might have for the security of nuclear power plants in Europe.”

“However, given the nature of the installations concerned and, notably their relevance to energy supplies in Europe, the European Commission will follow closely any developments,” she added.