Serious fuel defects on new reactors

Posted: 30th November 2021

 A whistleblower reveals new information about the incident that led to thes hutdown of the Taishan EPR reactor. Serious fuel defects could be found on all EPRs. The Nuclear Safety Authority is questioned. Reporterre 29th Nov 2021  https://reporterre.net/Le-defaut-du-reacteur-chinois-pourrait-remettre-en-cause-tous-les-EPR Last July, in China, the Taishan nuclear power plant was shut down. A few weeks earlier, an incident had taken place in the only EPR plant in service in the world, designed jointly by the Chinese CGN and the French EDF. At the end of November, perhaps finally an explanation: the incident was due to a fault in the design of the vessel, according to a major French association specializing in nuclear safety. The incident which led in July to the shutdown of a reactor at the EPR nuclear power plant in Taishan, in southern China, is believed to be due to a design flaw in the vessel, the French association CRIIRAD said on Saturday. The Commission for IndependentResearch and Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD) would get itsinformation from a “whistleblower”. “This is a Frenchman who works in thenuclear industry, having access to very precise technical information on the situation of the Taishan 1 reactor core,” a CRIIRAD official told AFP. Taishan is the only pressurized water reactor (EPR) plant in the world,with two reactors. Four other EPR reactors are under construction, all in Europe: one in Finland, one in France in Flamandville and two in England. It is a tank design problem that would be the cause of the incident in Taishan reported on June 14, 2021. This is a first explanation. TV5Monde 28th Nov 2021  https://information.tv5monde.com/info/nucleaire-l-accident-la-centrale-epr-de-taishan-serait-du-un-defaut-de-conception-434319  Nuclear incident at the Taishan EPR in China: the cause identified. An independent commission relies on a whistleblower to discuss a design flawin the reactor vessel. Le Parisien 28th Nov 2021  https://www.leparisien.fr/economie/incident-nucleaire-sur-lepr-de-taishan-en-chine-la-cause-identifiee-28-11-2021-BWIE3XOXCJC3VP7ANYQYPWYGAY.php