CLOSING OF THE FESSENHEIM POWER PLANT

CONCESSION MADE TO ECOLOGISTS

A FRENCH ABERRATION

The operation should start at 8:30 p.m. on Friday and finish at 2 a.m. on Saturday. "A shift team, made up of ten to fifteen people", A harrowing night for the shift team which will launch the shutdown process of reactor n ° 1, carrying out the actions to decouple it definitively.

But some employees threaten to disobey and not apply the shutdown procedures for the 900 megawatt (MW) pressurized water reactor.

Reactor n ° 2 shut down on June 30

If the procedure follows its normal course, the power of the reactor must decrease progressively and it will be disconnected from the national electricity network when it has dropped to 8% of its usual power.

The procedure is identical to that of a conventional maintenance operation. But this time, no return to service will take place. Reactor 2 is due to be shut down on June 30.

A decree published in the Official Journal on Wednesday "repeals the authorization to operate the Fessenheim nuclear power plant owned by EDF", putting the final character of this judgment black and white.

The evacuation of fuel from the plant will, according to the planned schedule, be completed in 2023. Then must continue the phase of preparation for decommissioning, a process unprecedented in France on the scale of an entire plant which should begin on the horizon. 2025 and continue at least until 2040.

For Matignon, the closure of Fessenheim "constitutes a first step in France's energy strategy, which aims for a progressive rebalancing" between the different types of energy, with a gradual decrease in the share of nuclear power - currently by 70%, the largest in the world - and an increase in that of electricity from renewable sources.

But the controversy over the merits of this closure will not stop with the shutdown of reactor n ° 1. Indeed there is no economic justification for this closure, the unit being in perfect working order and certified by the independent nuclear safety authority. It brings in more than 200 million euros net per year and its dismantling will surely cost more than half a billion according to the Court of Auditors.

But the shareholder state bowed to the political state and shot itself in the foot. We must offer a symbol to environmentalists who promote nuclear risk and waste management. But environmentalists conceal the fact that nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gases and that it is therefore one of the solutions in the fight against global warming, renewable energies currently unable to take over. sufficient quantity and inherently unstable.

On the other hand, the Fessenheim judgment will force Germany, for example, to produce more electricity from coal.

An irresponsible choice ?

The deputy LR of the Haut-Rhin Raphaël Schellenberger asked the employees "sorry for this irresponsible choice of which you are the first victims". If the minister of ecological transition Elisabeth Borne assured that there would be "no loss of employment", the local elected officials fear that the State abandons this watered territory for forty years by the taxes paid by EDF. They fear that hundreds of families with comfortable incomes will leave it.

Right now, shutting down this profitable and socially safe business is clearly a decision made to please environmentalists.