The procedure for the final shutdown of reactor 1 of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant (Haut-Rhin) was started as planned around 8:30 p.m. Friday, we learned from EDF.
The first 900 megawatt pressurized water reactor of the oldest operating French nuclear power plant must gradually slow down before being disconnected from the national power grid around 2 am Saturday.
In the night shift which was to take up duty at 9 p.m. and includes fifteen people, several agents were likely to refuse to continue operations, pushing the deadline by several hours, according to concordant sources.
"A very heavy atmosphere"
An EDF employee arriving by car at the power plant in the evening to participate in the shutdown of the reactor, while acknowledging having "the balls", noted: "There is a decree that came out, it is necessary we are not going to go to court ”.
"For all shift personnel, that night of shutdown of reactor no. 1, making the gestures to decouple it definitively will be something very difficult to live with," explained a union member.
"There is a very heavy atmosphere at the plant, the employees are on edge," also said the mayor of Fessenheim, Claude Brender. They experience "a feeling of revolt [...] the impression of a mess".
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Pending the shutdown of the reactor, the town plunged into darkness Friday evening to symbolize the dark and uncertain times that await it.
The second reactor of the plant should be shut down on June 30. The entire dismantling process will be long: EDF plans to close Fessenheim completely by 2040.
This closure was a campaign promise from François Hollande in 2012, which recalled that the plant's lifespan was 40 years. An announcement that had triggered several attempts by EDF to extend the deadline.
The decision will also upset the economy of the region. The plant employed more than 700 agents in 2018. There are now only 500. And there will only be about sixty to follow the dismantling of the site.
Friday, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Élisabeth Borne, confirmed the project of "Technocentre" devoted to metallic waste on the site of the plant after its closure, even without German support. She promised that there would be "no job loss".