Whoops - an EDF issue

[biffvernon]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... nobyl-risk

Sortir du Nucléaire, a protest network, says leaked confidential documents show that tests on the third generation pressurised water reactor present a potentially catastrophic scenario.

The network has eight internal papers showing the results of tests on the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) that, it claims, reveal defects in the mechanism that controls the nuclear reaction. These defects, it says, could cause an explosion sending a massive cloud of radiation into the atmosphere.

The documents, leaked by an insider at French electricity firm EDF, which will run the new Flamanville 3 power station, date from between 2004 and 2009. "They show the main arguments in favour of the EPR ... are false," a spokesperson for Sortir du Nucléaire said

[2 As and a B]

No nuclear power station could, by its very nature, ever be claimed to be 100% catastrophe-free.

[biffvernon]

Is that really true? If so then nuclear power must be unacceptable, since catastrophe is unacceptable. But I thought the pebble bed reactor idea was fundamentally catastrophe proof, thus removing some (but not all) of the objections to nuclear power.

[2 As and a B]

Nothing in the field of human endeavour is free of human error or unpredicted coincidences. Expect the unexpected. Not a pleasant prospect for a contained nuclear fission reaction and the heat it generates.

[biffvernon]

For sure, but I think the pebble bed design removes the possibility of the whole caboodle going off bang, which is what the leaked documents from EDF suggest could happen with the power stations being built in Finland and just off-shore from England (Normandy).

[PS_RalphW]

If it can be made to work....


http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/C ... x?id=95044