The organisation filed a petition with the French State Council against the Nuclear Safety Committee
The French branch of the international environmental organisation Greenpeace submitted a petition to the State Council on Wednesday against the country’s Nuclear Safety Committee. In the application, France-Presse reported that the organisation is demanding an assessment of the extent to which the Committee’s programme to extend the life of a number of French nuclear power plants whose initial planned life span expires is affecting the environment.
“No environmental impact control was planned at the start of the current major inspections aimed at extending the operation of reactors that have reached 40 years of operation by 10 years”, – stresses Greenpeace in its application to the State Council. At the same time, the organisation recalls that the Court of Justice of the European Union, in a similar situation, has already pointed out to Belgium that “environmental impact assessments should be carried out in connection with large-scale work to extend the life of the nuclear power plant”. According to Greenpeace, France has “outlawed itself” by its current actions.
Verifications to extend the life of the reactors have already been carried out in France at the Tricasten nuclear power plant in the Drome region in the south of the country. They are already being carried out at Unit 2 in Budget (Département Orientale) and will start at Unit 4 at the end of November. The unit 1 reactor, which had reached its depletion point, was shut down back in 1994. Two of its four reactors are cooled by water from the Rhone River, one of the largest in the country.