Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant

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Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant
Sunflowers and the nuclear power station Saint-Laurent
Sunflowers and the nuclear power station Saint-Laurent
Data
Country France
Operator EDF
Built 1963
Start of commercial operation March 24, 1969
Reactors
Reactors active 2 (1.912 MW)
Reactors shut down 2
Power
Total power generation in 2006 12.918 GWh
Average annual generation (last 5 yrs) 12.210 GWh
Net generation 363.287 GWh
Other details
Website
Site c/o Betreibers
As of July 22, 2007

The Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Station is located in commune of Saint-Laurent-Nouan in Loir-et-Cher on the Loire River. The town of Blois is 28 km downstream and the town of Orléans is 30 km upstream.

The site houses two operating Pressurized water reactors, which began operation in 1983 and are a power of 900 MWe each. They are cooled by the water of the Loire. Two other UNGG reactors used to exist at the site, which were brought into service in 1969 and 1971 and were stopped in 1990 and 1992.

The site employs approximately 670 regular workers.

[edit] Incidents

On October 17, 1969 50 kg of Uranium in one of the gas cooled reactors began to melt. This event was classified at 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) by EDF.

On March 13, 1980 there was some annealing that occurred in the Graphite of one of the reactors, causing a brief heat excursion. This was also classified as 4 on the INES and has been called the worst nuclear accident in France. Much later, the Institute of Marine Biochemistry at the l'École normale supérieure de Montrouge school claimed that they found traces of Plutonium in the river which they believed was released in the 1980 or 1969 accident many years ago.

On January 12, 1987 around 9:30, another accident occurred related to the cooling water.

Coordinates: 47°43′12″N 1°34′39″E / 47.72, 1.5775

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