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The probe comes after the nation was compelled to close down half of its reactors amid a mounting worldwide power disaster
The French authorities is trying into whistleblower allegations {that a} state-run utility company tried to hide issues of safety at a nuclear energy plant, with prosecutors confirming they’re following up on complaints filed late final 12 months.
Officers in Marseille launched an investigation into the alleged security issues final month after an nameless whistleblower stated circumstances on the Tricastin nuclear plant in southern France had been “endangering the lives of others,” French newspaper Le Monde reported on Wednesday.
An engineer on the facility, the whistleblower additionally accused officers on the plant of “harassment,” in addition to “violations of the prison code, the environmental code, the labor code and the rules referring to nuclear installations.” Whereas they stated they’d repeatedly warned superiors of these points – together with a mysterious energy surge at one reactor in 2017 and a flood inside the identical station one 12 months later – no motion was taken.
The largely state-run agency which operates the plant, Electricite de France (EDF), confirmed the continued investigation to the Wall Road Journal, saying it’s conscious of the probe and would assist to “shed all crucial gentle on the alleged info and thereby present the reality.”
Talking to Reuters on Thursday, a lawyer for the whistleblower, William Bourdon, stated the grievance was initially filed in November, however famous that the following investigation just isn’t but concentrating on EDF straight. As an alternative, a probe “in opposition to X” has been launched, permitting prosecutors to look into the actions of a number of completely different events.
The brand new investigation marks one other blow for the French utility, which has taken half of the nation’s nuclear reactors offline in latest months on account of scheduled upkeep and refueling, and even outages brought on by corrosion and harm at some amenities. The spate of shutdowns coincided with hovering power costs throughout Europe and elsewhere, pushed partially by the raging battle in Ukraine, in addition to Western sanctions on Russian gasoline and oil exports.
Prices for repairs and inspections at French nuclear crops might exceed €4.5 billion ($4.8 billion), based on latest EDF estimates, effectively past earlier expectations. France derives round 70% of its electrical energy from nuclear energy, and has seen a leap in costs all through 2022.
Previous to the whistleblower submitting, the Tricastin nuclear web site had encountered some issues of safety prior to now, together with two separate uranium leaks inside a matter of days in July 2008, which led to a short lived ban on using water from the world for consuming, swimming, and agriculture, and contaminated 100 workers on the plant.
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