France's and Europe's Next Pressurized Water Reactor?

In preparation for replacing its current park of nuclear reactors, which in 1999 average about fourteen years in age, EDF has invested in development of a European Pressurized water Reactor, a Franco-German project. In 1989 Framatome and the group Siemens created a common subsidiary Nuclear Power International (NPI) to design a nuclear plant that would be safer than currently operating plants and could be licensed in both France and Germany. In 1992, their likely customers, EDF and the majority of German electricity-generating companies joined the project. The early planning completed, EDF and the German utilities in 1995 charged Framatome, Siemens, and NPI in 1995 with developing the basic design of an evolutionary reactor based on the newest French and German reactors.. EDF through the Centre National d'Equipement Nucleaire (CNEN) joined in the work. ⁽¹⁾

The basic design for a 1495 MWe EPR was completed in June 1997 and submitted to French and German safety authorities. A cost estimate showed that the reactor would generate electricity at a lower cost per kilowatt hour than French N4 nuclear plants, but would not be competitive with combined-recycle gas turbine plants. To be competitive with the latter the per kilowatt hour cost would have to be reduced by an additional 10% to below 18 centimes. The project participants subsequently embarked on an "optimization" phase of study. The optimization study achieved the needed decrease in cost for EPRs (provided they are built as part of a series) mainly through a 15% increase in the reactor's power. ⁽²⁾

The designers of the now-1750 MWe reactor intend that up to 50% of the core be composed of Mox fuel (plutonium oxide and uranium oxide), that the uranium in the standard fuel be enriched to up to 4.9% uranium 235, that the fuel be discharged at a burn-up of up to 60 GWd/t, that the plant remain in service 60 years, that fuel reloads and regular maintenance require less than 20 days of down time, that plant availability average at least 90%. Special features would lessen the effects of a core meltdown. They include means of retaining within the double walls of the confinement building any gaseous effluents released; catalytic recombiners to prevent explosions by absorbing hydrogen; a compartment in which melted corium would be trapped and cooled; and inside the reactor building a reservoir of water, that would be released by passive means to flood an over-heated core. Critics of the EPR note that such safety features would be more impressive had not EDF's N4 class of plants (the Civaux and Chooz B reactors) on which the EPR's design is in part based, experienced serious safety-related problems .

Given a German government pledged to phase out nuclear power, an initial EPR would have to be constructed in France, presumably at the site of a current nuclear plant. It is not clear what role, if any, German safety authorities would play in reviewing the reactor design. According to a German source cited by Nucleonics Week, German utilities, led by PreussenElektra AG, are likely to take a 30% share in the first French EPR. German companies would then receive contracts for 30% of the work on the plant. ⁽³⁾ In July, 1999, Framatome and Siemens signed an agreement with EDF giving structure to their cooperation on the reactor.

Developers of the EPR view EDF's construction of an initial reactor in the first decade of the 2000s as essential to the continuation of nuclear power in France and also an assurance of nuclear power's future in Europe. F. Bouteille and B. Appell represent this point of view in "L'EPR: un projet pret pour une réealisation," in the March/April, 1999, issue of Révue Générale Nucléaire. "A commitment in the relatively near term in anticipation of the renewal of the park, would respond to a strong industrial rationale. The decision, if it is made rapidly, is likely to make the French nuclear industry more attractive and to reinforce the guarantee that EDF's nuclear park will endure." The introduction to this article notes that the reactor obviously adapted to the needs of electricity producers who operate in the industrial nations equipped with large, widely interconnected [distribution] networks.

Christian Bataille and Robert Galley in the parliamentary report L'aval du cycle nuclé aire: Vol. II: Les coûuts de production de l'é electrité (1999) recommend that EDF order an EPR, but they want it to be a 1495, not a 1750 MWe reactor. The smaller reactor, they say, would avoid pushing to the limit equipment designed for a reactor of lower power, would make better use of experience gained from the N4 plants, and would better accommodate the needs of possible foreign clients.