The site includes two operating pressurized water reactors each MWe , which began operation in They are cooled by the water of the Loire River. Two retired UNGG reactors exist at the site, which were brought into service in and and were shut down in April and June On 17 October , 50 kg of uranium in one of the gas-cooled reactors began to melt [ citation needed ].
On 13 March , there was some annealing that occurred in the graphite of one of the reactors, causing a brief heat excursion. This was also classified as 4 on the INES and has been called another worst nuclear accident in France.
On the morning of 12 January at am, due to the exceptional frost of Loire, ice clogged the water intakes from the central A1 GCR and resulted in the loss of normal cooling. This caused the automatic shutdown of the gas-graphite reactor. The cooling system needed to remove the residual power failed as the diesel generators failed to start. It was necessary to feed it by the western power grid of France. The generators were eventually returned to service, just before the collapse of the power grid which took place around noon after a failure of the thermal power plant at Cordemais.
On 12 May , radioactive sodium was released into the atmosphere during a leak test of new steam generators of one of the reactors at the B plant. The incident, which resulted in the automatic shutdown of the reactor, was of no consequence for the environment according to EDF.
On 19 August , reactor 1 stopped after a failure. The initial report following the Blayais Nuclear Power Plant flood , identified the Saint-Laurent plant as being at risk of flooding, and called for its safety measures to be re-examined. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history.
