The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) suspended concrete pouring operations at the Flamanville EPR site, following the discovery of anomalies.
Since May 23, these operations have been interrupted for an indefinite period, after irregularities have been noted in the iron reinforcements of the reactor support island.
If it does not jeopardize the safety of the installations, these anomalies reflect, according to ASN, an "unacceptable lack of rigor" on the part of EDFfor the second time in a few weeks. On March 5, a first inspection had already found similar problems.
On the side of Greenpeace, this decision confirms the suspicions expressed for several weeks: "Many problems have been accumulating on the EPR construction site since the start of the work", deplores Yannick Rousselet, head of the energy campaign of Greenpeace France .
The ecological association points out that ASN has already identified a certain number of "recurring problems": "use of unsuitable quality concrete, cracks in the concrete of the reactor support platform, non-compliant welds carried out by a supplier, non-qualification certain operators, in particular welders responsible for producing the "liner" (internal protective steel shell), non-existent or inadequate quality controls, unauthorized variations between the "paper" plans of the initial project and the implementation, inability to repair these errors satisfactorily. "
Greenpeace believes that the Flamanville site "is taking the same catastrophic path as the Finnish site", which has accumulated two years behind schedule.
Sources: Ouest France, Le Monde, Greenpeace ...
