News of the world

This document gathers pieces of news from the nuclear industry around the world. The most relevant are the following. EDF has inaugurated a logistic hub for the supply of spare parts for its 58 operating reactors. Russia has opened a new site to store spent fuels from RBMK reactors. This site is located at Zheleznogorsk near Krasnoiarsk in Siberia. The capacity of the La Hague fuel reprocessing plant is 1700 tonnes a year but the plant processes only between 800 and 1000 tones because most of its foreign contracts have come to an end and have not been renewed. In 2012 the plant is expected to process 1003 tonnes for EDF and 12 tonnes for The Netherlands. AREVA has delivered to the CNNC Chinese company 700 fuel assemblies and 800 control rod clusters. The French Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said that there was neither health nor environmental hazards on French soil due to the Fukushima accident. The French Academy of Sciences has highlighted the least sanitary impact of nuclear power compared to other energies. The American Nuclear Safety Association has stated that the American nuclear power plants are safe and that the probability of a severe accident is very low. A new study shows an excess of cases of leukemia near nuclear power stations in France. This study rests on very few statistical cases. An opinion survey in the United Kingdom shows that the construction of nuclear power stations is considered as the best investment in infrastructures. EDF has planned to recruit in 2012 about 6000 people essentially in the nuclear sector. The Netherlands government has given its consent for the construction of the high flux reactor Pallas on the Petten site, this reactor will replace the HFR whose lifetime is over 50 years. (A.C.)