Cattenom plant - Report on the complementary safety assessment of nuclear facilities in the light of the Fukushima accident

This CSA (Complementary Safety Assessment) analyses the robustness of the Cattenom plant to extreme situations such as those that led to the Fukushima accident and proposes a series of improvements. Robustness is the ability for the plant to withstand events beyond the level for which the plant was designed. Robustness is linked to safety margins but also to the situations leading to a sudden deterioration of the accident sequence. Safety is not only a matter of design or of engineered systems, it is also a matter of organization. So issues like EDF's crisis organization, the organization of radiation protection, and work organization via subcontracting are also taken into consideration. The creation of a nuclear rapid action force (FARN) is proposed: this will be a national emergency force made up of specialized teams equipped to intervene in less than 24 hours on a nuclear site hit by an accident. This report is divided into 8 main chapters: 1) features of the site, 2) earthquake risk, 3) flooding risk, 4) risks due to other extreme natural disasters, 5) the loss of electrical power supplies and of heat sink, 6) management of severe accidents (accidents with core melt), 7) task subcontracting policy, 8) synthesis and list of improvements. 4 following appendices review: EDF's crisis organization, the FARN, radiation protection organization and accidental event trees. (A.C.)