Allow the public to know the issues linked to the future establishment of an EDF technocenter, next to the Fessenheim power plant (Haut-Rhin). This is what the public debate is proposing which opens on October 10 and will end on February 7, 2025. It is carried out by the National Commission for Public Debate, at the request of EDF. Several themes will be addressed during this period, starting with the industrial issues of the project. The technocenter is intended to recycle very weakly radioactive metals (TFA) resulting from the dismantling of nuclear installations. It must also allow the maintenance of the production park, to transform them into cast iron or conventional steel ingots weighing around twenty kilos.
A possible recovery since the decree of February 14, 2022. “This is a major industrial issue : melting metal classified as weakly radioactive is already being done in an EDF sector in Sweden, but on this scale, in this territory, it would be a first», Underlines Jean-Louis Laure, president of the special commission for public debate.
The opening of the consultation aims to inform the public as widely as possible. Several meetings and public meetings are planned for this purpose, visits to the site of the Industrial Regrouping, Warehousing and Storage Center (Cires) in Aube and the planned technocenter site are scheduled. Specific information modules will be developed for the elderly, students and middle school students. The public debate is also open to the Germans, concerned by this project close to the border. A webinar scheduled for October 17 will detail the decision-making process. At the end of the debate, the special commission will publish a report and make recommendations to EDF. The company will then produce its own analysis and announce its decision. “Public consultation does not give decision-making power to the public, but allows it to be associated with that which will be taken by the authorities.», recalls Jean-Louis Laure.
Nearly 200 potential jobs
To discuss the project, whose location is planned on an area of 15 hectares next to the power plant currently in the pre-decommissioning phase, around a hundred stakeholders were involved in the preparation of the public debate. Among them, local authorities, state representatives, anti-nuclear and environmental protection associations, nuclear players such as Orano and the CEA. Several questions have already been asked by the associations on public health issues, and the possible environmental impacts on the water table, biodiversity and air quality. The debate will also make it possible to address the question of transporting materials from different nuclear installations in France and other European countries to the technocentre.
The economic stakes are obviously significant. The regional project which was to prepare for the “after” power plant has not kept all its promises and local elected officials are waiting for an activity which could compensate for the definitive shutdown of the power plant in 2020. The technocentre could create 200 jobs, estimates EDF and the deposit are estimated at 500,000 tonnes over approximately 40 years. “We have a strong desire to remain a major player in the region, on the theme of post-production nuclear, with on the one hand, the dismantling and on the other hand, the recycling of low-radioactive metals», Underlined Laurent Jarry, director of the EDF Fessenheim site and of the public debate on the technocentre project.
Source: www.usinenouvelle.com
