Chinese backers yesterday signed important financial agreements connected to the construction of Suffolk’s yet-to-be-approved Sizewell C nuclear power station.
Ipswich Star 29th Sept 2016 read more »
In late 2014, AREVA notified Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) of the results of material tests carried out on a component manufactured at the Creusot Forge. These tests were undertaken by AREVA as part of the much-delayed Qualification Technique (QT) of components for the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) presently under construction at the Flamanville 3 (FA3) nuclear power plant (NPP). The part tested was a supernumerary equivalent of each of the two components, the upper and lower head shells, that had already been incorporated into the FA3 reactor pressure vessel (RPV) now installed within the nuclear island at the NPP site. To much consternation the test results revealed that the material characteristics, particularly the impact or fracture toughness, did not conform to the design-basis specification and, moreover, it arose from a small but nevertheless significant increase in the carbon content across a large zone of macrosegregation present throughout most of the thickness of the equivalent head shell – this is the so-called ‘carbon anomaly’.
Greenpeace 26th Sept 2016 read more »