Ascó Nuclear Power Plant

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Data
Ascó Nuclear Power Plant
View of the cooling tower of the Ascó nuclear power plant
Country	Spain
Owner	Endesa, S.A.
Operator	Asociación Nuclear Ascó-Vandellòs A.I.E. (ENDESA/ID)
Built	1971
Start of commercial operation	1984-12-10
Reactors
Reactors active	2 (2060 MW)
Power
Capacity	MW
Total power generation in 2006	15,387 GWh
Average annual generation (last 5 yrs)	15,474 GWh
Net generation	307,970 GWh
Other details
As of July 25, 2007

Ascó Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power station at Ascó in Spain.

It consists of two PWRs of 933 and 943 MWe.

[edit] 2007 leak

An INES level 2 accident ocurred on November 2007 at the Unit 1 reactor. The Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) was not advised of the leak until April 4. Although the leak happened in November, particles were not detected outdoors until March 2008.^[1] On April 5, 2008, Greenpeace reported a leak, believing radioactivity linked to cobalt, manganese and other elements had been detected on roofs, fences and other places around the Ascó plant and said the leak had not been properly cleaned up.^[2]

CSN initially estimated that total radioactivity detected was about 235,000 becquerels. The council operating the plant later estimated that a maximum of 84.95 million becquerels of radioactivity were spilled. CSN announced it was changing the classification of the leak from Level 1 to Level 2 because of inadequate control of radioactive material and of providing incomplete and deficient information to the controlling body. An investigation was opened and the director of the plant was fired.^[3] ^[4]