The licensed radioactivity release levels of French nuclear facilities

In the recent past there have been disputes about the licensed radioactivity release levels of the Cattenom nuclear power station. For this reason, a rough outline is presented of the basic legal principles and a tabulated summary is given of the licensed maximum levels of releases into the air and, in particular, into the water at sites of French 'central nuclear installations', i.e., nuclear power plants, nuclear research centers, nuclear fuel factories, etc. It can be seen from the tables that the release levels of Cattenom do not exceed those of plants on other sites on the basis of unit power. Quite on the contrary: Cattenom, for instance, is only allowed to release 22% of the radioactivity into the river Moselle, per cubic meter of water, which the Le Blayais nuclear power plant is permitted to release into the river Gironde close to the Atlantic Ocean, although the latter plant has only 72% of the planned power of Cattenom. (orig.)