Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant

Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant

Nuclear Power Station Cattenom
Location of Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant in France
Official name Centrale Nucléaire de Cattenom
Country France
Location Cattenom, Lorraine
Coordinates 49°24′57″N 6°13′5″E / 49.41583°N 6.21806°E / 49.41583; 6.21806Coordinates: 49°24′57″N 6°13′5″E / 49.41583°N 6.21806°E / 49.41583; 6.21806
Status Operational
Construction began 1979
Commission date November 13, 1986 (November 13, 1986)
Operator(s) EDF
Nuclear power station
Reactor type PWR
Reactor supplier Framatome
Cooling source Moselle River
Cooling towers 4
Power generation
Units operational 4 x 1,362 MW
Make and model Alstom
Nameplate capacity 5,448 MW
Average generation 34,084 GWh
Website
Site c/o EDF

The Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located in Lorraine in the Cattenom commune, France, on the Moselle River between Thionville (10 km upstream) and Trier (80 km downstream). It is close to the city of Luxembourg (35 km) and Metz (40 km).

Description

The site consists of 4 pressurized water reactors that were all built between 1979 and 1991 and have an electric output of 1300 MW each. The plant is a relatively modern and large nuclear power plant. In 2006 it produced the third most electricity (34 TWh) of the nuclear plants in France behind Gravelines (38.5 TWh) and Paluel (34.9 TWh).

The plant employs about 1200 regular employees and about 1000 more during outage times.

The station received its ISO 14001 certification in 2005, and should have its ISO 9001 and OHSAS 18001 in 2007.

Cooling

The site uses 4 separate cooling towers which use 890,000,000 m3 (3.1×1010 cu ft) of water from the Moselle annually.[1] Additionally, a water reserve on site, Lake Mirgenbach, was created. The creation of this lake has led to the flooding of the subterranean portions of Ouvrage Kobenbusch, part of the Maginot Line. In 1985 an artificial lake was also created in the Pierre-Percée valley in the Vosges.

During the 2003 European heat wave the plant was permitted to pipe the waste heat water used for cooling directly into the Moselle river. The heating of the water in these cases is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius by prefectoral decree. Heating to 2.2 degrees was accidentally caused once.

Events

This list is not meant to be complete. The references include the official ASN list,[9] which names 88 events between March 2000 and March 2008.

Earthquake resistance

The Ministry for Ecology has declared the area around Cattenom to run a very low risk of earthquakes.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cattenom nuclear power plant.
  1. Eléments de diagnostic de la partie française Agence de l'Eau Rhin Meuse, published April 2005, accessed 2011-03-30
  2. ASN on evacuations in March 2001
  3. Notification of the ASN concerning the radiation of eight workers in March 2005 (french)
  4. Disclosure by the EDF concerning the radiadion of an employee in March 2008 (french)
  5. transformer of unit 1 caught fire (German)
  6. transformer of unit 3 caught fire (German)
  7. PCB in transformer of unit 3 (German)
  8. the pages of the french ASN (french)
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