France defends reactor design

Nathalie Gillet and Chris Stanton

• Last Updated: November 04. 2009 7:56PM UAE / November 4. 2009 3:56PM GMT

A nuclear power plant in Australia: the UAE hopes to have its own atomic energy plant by 2017. Ian Waldy

A French government official has dismissed concerns about a nuclear reactor design that the country’s firms hope to build in the UAE, after European regulators asked for changes.

The regulatory agencies of France, Britain and Finland on Monday asked Areva, the builder, to make improvements to the design of the French reactor, known as the EPR, by June of next year. It highlighted the potential for interference between two reactor control systems, which could compromise safety.

Anne-Marie Idrac, the French minister of state for foreign trade, said on a visit to Abu Dhabi the letter was “quite banal, a quite ordinary one in the process of constructing plants”.

A French consortium including Areva, Electricite de France (EDF), GDF Suez and Total is one of three teams vying for an estimated US$39 billion (Dh143.24bn) contract to build and operate a fleet of nuclear reactors in the UAE. The initial contract is expected to be awarded soon.

Ms Idrac said the changes outlined by regulators would apply to the reactor under construction at Flamanville, France, which “is a reference in our offer for the project for the UAE”. France would answer the regulators’ concerns this year, she added.

The first reactor in the UAE would not be operational before 2017.

In a letter, the regulators said: “The issue is primarily around ensuring the adequacy of the safety systems … and their independence from control systems.

“Independence is important because, if a safety system provides protection against the failure of a control system, then they should not fail together.

“The EPR design, as originally proposed … doesn’t comply with the independence principle, as there is a very high degree of interconnectivity between the control and safety systems.”

The French consortium, which presented its bid in July, is competing against groups from South Korea and Japan for a contract to build an initial pair of reactors in Abu Dhabi that is likely to be expanded to include a fleet of the same design. US firms have a minority interest in both bids.

Ms Idrac characterised the regulators’ concerns as a question, not a problem, and said it did not relate to the core of the system, but only the instrumental control.

“It is of course important but it is not the core,” she said.

Mr Idrac said the public release of the letter showed the French commitment to transparency in the nuclear process, a requirement stressed by UAE officials.

“The letter signed by the three nuclear safety authorities of Finland, the UK and France is a new proof of transparency in terms of safety and security,” she said.

ngillet@thenational.ae

cstanton@thenational.ae