4 ms·
France standardized all of their reactors. You could swap components in and out of any number of their nuclear reactors. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/f
by pookha 3y ago
France standardized all of their reactors. You could swap components in and out of any number of their nuclear reactors.
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t...
That's not how most other countries handled their nuclear power architecture and I think it's one of the main reasons why France has had major success with no issues. There's nothing flashy about how their nuclear reactors operate but they're very easy to staff and maintain long-term.
- jl6 3y agoIt’s not all good news though - more than half of the fleet were offline at one point last year, to repair cracks that had developed. Arguably the standardized design led to all these reactors having the same problem at about the same time, where some diversity of design might have limited the “blast radius” of this flaw.
- calaphos 3y agoNoticably when encountering issues with welds last year they also shut down all reactors with shared components for inspection/maintenance. While this has been a real problem and got them into some supply tight spots over winter it definitely speaks for their approach to safety.