Last Tuesday, I woke up early. At 6h50 A.M., I had a meeting at Porte Maillot with my HEC EMBA Energy Major fellows to take a bus to Nogent-sur-Seine to visit EDF's nuclear power plant (NPP) in Nogent-sur-Seine.
After
roughly 2 hours in the bus, it is now 9h50 A.M. and I am sitting in a
conference room in Nogent-sur-Seine. A charming blonde women
introduces herself: „My name is Anne-Sophie – Welcome to EDF!“
Outside, it is cold and cloudy. It starts raining. Nonetheless, the
Anne-Sophie is smiling all over her face.
Sometimes,
my brain thinks faster than it actually should: „Anne-Sophie,
well-dressed and probably around 30 years old, must undoubtedly work
in EDF's marketing or communications department. She will now tell us
how great EDF and nuclear power are.“
EDF
and its focus on nuclear energy
„What
is EDF doing?“, asks Anne-Sophie and gives herself the answer:
„the whole range of energy products, from generation, over
transmission and distribution, over marketing, to trading.“
Then
she decribes EDF's nuclear energy stance in France:
- EDF runs 17 nuclear power plants in France, all of them pressurized water ractors.
- 89 % of EDF's energy mix in France consists of nuclear power.
- The most recent NPP is Flammanville and has adopted the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) technology. Its construction costs account for 6 BEUR.
Supplementary
to nuclear energy, EDF is also one of Europe's leading producer of
renewable energy. This
will be the only time Anne-Sophie talks about energy forms other than
nuclear. This seems logic – After all, we came to visit a nuclear
power plant!
Functioning
of a pressurized water reactor
The
NPP in Nogent-sur-Seine consists of three separate circuits:
- 1st circuit: Inside the reactor, the nuclear fission heats pressurized water (155 bar) up to 2000° Celsius.
- 2nd circuit: Heated water of the first circuit generates steam in the second circuit. This steam drives a turbine that will generate electricity.
- 3rd circuit: The steam condensates and is then either reused or ejected in the air, via the cooling tower.
On
sight, we can distinguish these
three cycles easily, as they correspond to the 3 buildings (reactor,
turbine building, and cooling tower) of each unit of production.
Nuclear
Chain Reaction
Anne-Sophie
describes the nuclear chain reaction which happens
in the reactor.
I
admit that I don't really understand what she is talking about. At
the same time, I start feeling bad. No, Anne-Sophie cannot belong
to the marketing or communications
department... Can these people explain a nuclear chain reaction? Probably
not – Shame on me!
Fuel
Production and Fuel Charging Process
The
next topic in Anne Sophie's presentation is the production and
charging of uranium fuel. Showing pictures and citing figures, she expands on the steps of nuclear
fuel production:
One
nuclear reactor contains 110 tons of uranium;
the service life of a fuel assembly and its uranium is 5 years.
At
this stage of her presentation, Anne-Sophie has definitely convinced
me. Forget about marketing and
communications! She must be an engineer!
Unfortunately,
it is just a few minutes after having convinced me that Anne-Sophie
pronounces, still smiling, this phrase that will definitely disclose
her real identity: “We don't hide anything in the nuclear
industry.” I turn to my group and see many people smiling. They
suddenly seem to trust Anne-Sophie less than before...
The
Cooling Tower
It's
time to go for a walk. Before facing the rain outside, I take helmet,
earphones, and earplugs. Our group is subdivided in two groups.
Disappointed by Anne-Sophie, I join the group lead by
Alexandre.
The
earphones turn out very useful. Everybody can easily walk around and
follow Alexandre's explanations without gathering constantly
next to our guide but still
understanding only half of his talk.
First
some basic facts: 900 people on sight during operations, up to 2,000
people during outage, due to fueling and maintenance.
We
arrive at the security checkpoint. Each of us
validates his badge and, in
addition, enters his specific security
number.
After
crossing the checkpoint, you can read the slogan “Sûreté et
Sécurité: Nos priorités pour mieux produire” which means
“Safety and Security: Our priorities to better perform.”.
Not being an engineer, I ask a colleague what is the
difference between safety and security. “Safety is for people,
security is for material”, is his
short answer – or was it the other way around? Anyway, I got the
message: “Don't worry, nuclear energy is safe because everybody
pays attention to what he is doing here.”
When
walking towards the cooling tower, Alexandre has another way to
explain the functioning of the nuclear power plant: “Thermal
energy is transformed into mechanical energy which
is then transformed into electrical energy”. That
seems easy, even for me.
We
arrive at the cooling tower of the first unit. Standing in front of
it, it is simply huge! Alexandre adds some figures:
- Height of the cooling tower: 100 m
- Width of the concrete wall: 1.50 m on the bottom and 0.60 m on top
The
cooling tower is build on 20 m high pillars. On the bottom, it is
partially open to guarantee an efficient
flow of air inside the tower.
The
Steam Turbine
The
next step of our visit leads us into a factory that is approximately
100 m long. Inside, we can see a tremendous yellow
box containing
the 57 m long turbine. As maintenance works will start soon, the case
is sparsely open and we can see the turbine running inside. Alexandre
tells us that the steam must have a constant pressure of 70 bar to
produce electricity of 50 Ohm.
“Unfortunately”,
reactor and control room cannot be
visited. That's why we face again the rain outside and our visit will
finish soon. Before leaving the site, everybody has to pass through a
control system to be sure that nobody has captured radioactivity.
In
two hours, I will be in Paris again. Time enough to think and discuss
a little bit about nuclear energy. Whatever
you think about it, one thing is clear: Our visit at EDF premises was very well
organized, our guides were very competent, and EDF has given a very
professional and safe image of its nuclear power plant in
Nogent-sur-Seine.
