ok, here is a "real" info as I hear it, the passages in bold to better understand the role of an independent body, yes we are still talking about the provision of information and communication:
Risk of explosion at the Cruas-Meysse nuclear power plant (Ardèche) - Press release dated November 18, 2008
The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) has just informed the media of the notice which it addressed on November 13, 2008 to the director of the EDF power station of Cruas-Meysse.
CRIIRAD has read the ASN documents and publishes a first level of reaction below. An in-depth analysis requires more time to obtain the necessary documents and information from the operator and the authorities.
The malfunctions highlighted at Cruas-Meysse are presented by the Nuclear Safety Authority - the authority in charge of controlling nuclear installations - as particularly serious.
According to ASN, they indeed concern a “risk of explosion” likely, moreover, “to damage elements essential to maintaining safety or to lead to a breach of containment”. The formal notice published by ASN signals poorly maintained, oxidized and corroded pipes while they are used for the transport of explosive fluids, denounces the absence of periodic checks to check their condition and identify leaks, specifies that these pipes do not appear on the plans made available to the fire departments (1) ... All this in violation of a regulations dating from 1999 (2).
In these conditions,
1. How is it that ASN granted EDF a period of 1999 years (!?) in 6 to comply
with the prescriptions of this decree?
2. How is it that after such a long period, ASN apparently contented itself with a letter from EDF stating that, with one exception (but which did not concern the risk of explosion), all of the compliance actions had been carried out and that it had still waited 2 years and 7 months to carry out an inspection intended to check whether EDF's statements were substantiated and compliance brought into effect?
3. How is it that the inspection of 25 and 26 September did not give rise to an injunction, that it took a second inspection on 24 October, then another 3 weeks for a formal notice to be sent to the operator, ie a total of one and a half additional time?
4. And how is it that the formal notice of November 13 still gives EDF a period of 3 months to comply ... with prescriptions dating from 1999?
5. And how is it that did the obligation to ensure the watertightness of pipelines carrying radioactive, corrosive, flammable or explosive materials only date from 1999? Did this obligation not exist when the 4 Cruas-Meysse reactors were commissioned in 1984 - 1985? If it existed, that means thatEDF has been operating for more than 23 years without properly controlling this key parameter and without the supervisory authorities being upset by it. If this is not the case and it was not until 1999, 15 years after start-up, that these basic but essential controls were mandatory, it is truly scandalous. We do not know which of these two options is the most worrying.
Once again, the field observations suggest a operation of the French nuclear power plant very far from the advertising discourse of operators and from a “high tech” technology subjected to draconian controls: corroded pipes, monitoring and signaling faults… one can only wonder about the operator's sense of his responsibilities. How is it that it neglects controls that are so crucial to the safety of its installation?
Obviously, at least 3 other nuclear power plants are concerned: Le Blayais in Gironde, Civaux in Vienne and Golfech in Tarn-et-Garonne. For the other nuclear installations, we are expecting: are they absent from the list because the risk of “explosion” is properly managed there… or because Has their compliance with the 1999 regulations not yet been checked?
Given the major consequences of a nuclear accident, above all in terms of health but also environmental, agricultural, tourist and economic, such serious dysfunctions should be the subject of an in-depth investigation relating to the management of the operator but also on the reliability of regulatory framework. We should wonder about the central place given to self-monitoring, on the bridges built between operators of risky activities and controllers, on the arbitration between profitability and safety ... Unfortunately, the law of June 13, 2006 organized the quasi impunity of the ASN. As for the operator, the successive deadlines for compliance speak volumes about the "rigor" of the controls to which it is subject. The law has also strictly limited, and for a long time, its responsibility in the event of an accident. It is the people who will bear the consequences, and on all levels. It is therefore in its interest to be demanding and to demand accountability for the way in which nuclear activities are managed and controlled.
(1) Fires occur regularly at nuclear sites. The fact that the emergency services do not know the location of pipes that could explode and make the situation considerably worse, suggests the worst if there is a problem. However, this is the BA BA for the management of risky sites.
(2) Decree of December 31, 1999 setting the general technical regulations intended to prevent and limit nuisance and external risks from the operation of basic nuclear installations.
Will we be content with information relayed by the media, or by an independent body such as CRIIRAD, which has been involved since 1986 in public information on nuclear energy?
here is a difference, but brief:
we still ask the question of the performance of control bodies! especially for this sensitive and fragile technology.
the passage in blue shows well how the sham lobbyist secrecy of state / transparency, voted, is organized.
so if it gets the hell out, will we be well informed, and by whom?
yet this point should have been essential, it is not.
This in fact explains all the black spots of this lobby ("lobby" because it is self-controlled and present in the state bodies).
With their exercises, they risk starting an unforeseen scenario and if they do not manage it correctly ...
