Asked on LCI on Wednesday evening about the development of renewable energies which he wishes to accelerate, Yannick Jadot justified his proposals by pointing out the danger of nuclear energy. According to the EELV candidate, compared to wind energy, “the risk is not the same. A wind turbine falling on a rabbit – I defend rabbits so I would be very unhappy – but it’s just a rabbit. »
And Yannick Jadot to pronounce this shocking sentence: “a reactor that is aging, it can also explode, and it is a region that is devastated. A questionable assertion, as explained by several experts. We take stock.
French power plants designed not to explode
If the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) is rather lapidary, specifying that “French nuclear power plants are designed not to be able to explode”, the public establishment adds that “an accident would be possible if all the procedures safety were breached and safety systems were unreliable. In other words, the explosion due to the aging of the reactor is a priori ruled out, it is the safety procedures that need to be upgraded.
The French Nuclear Energy Company (SFEN) gives more details, confirming the impossibility of the explosion: “no, a power station is not an atomic bomb! Unlike an atomic bomb, a nuclear power plant uses uranium enriched to around 4%, which is totally unsuitable for making a bomb. While an atomic bomb uses almost pure uranium and plutonium. »
Hydrogen implicated
At Chernobyl in 1986, after only nine years of operation, it was not the nuclear fuel that exploded, as the IRSN reports. It was a combination of physical and chemical factors that caused the explosion.
In Fukushima, which had 40 years of operation, the 2011 explosion was triggered by the massive accumulation of hydrogen in the plant, after a failure of the cooling system. In France, hydrogen recombiners have been installed by EDF in buildings to eliminate the gas and therefore the risk of explosion.
Precautions in the event of a meltdown
Last existing risk, that of the melting of the heart of the reactor. This is the operating principle of French nuclear power plants: in the event of a runaway during the fission of uranium, the materials are melted to avoid the explosion, which can lead to the melting of the vessel.
Here too, IRSN tells our colleagues to France Info that the fission of uranium (generated by a neutron) can be stopped by control rods and borated water.
To conclude, the explosion of a nuclear reactor due to its age seems impossible. The only possible accidents may be related to poor safety procedures or poor safety systems. In France, everything is done to limit the risks in the event of a reactor core melting, or in the event of an accumulation of hydrogen in the power plant. Provided that the theory remains valid in practice.