Chinon Nuclear Power Plant

Operation

Performance

Events

• During the unusually cold 1986-87 winter, the water intake from the river, as well as several other important pieces of equipment and machinery, froze.
• On December 21, 2005, sand accumulated inside the tertiary cooling circuit, threatening to block it. This could have stopped cooling of all the reactors.
• On September 4, 2008, some industrial oil was accidentally discharged to the river in a maintenance operation. It was not radioactively contaminated.
• On April 30, 2009, a bomb alert caused an evacuation of the plant and an intervention by several units of army security forces.

  Other info

• Since 1986, the closed Chinon A1 reactor has been redeveloped to hold the French Atom Museum.
• The INTRA group, a national nuclear event emergency intervention group equipped with remotely guided, radiation hardened machinery, has its headquarters at the plant.

  Reactors