The below is from France – the same applies here in the UK – EDF is complicit in the nuclear armaments industry in many ways including the production of tritum…
FULL ARTICLE HERE https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/air-defense/nucleaire-militaire-accord-entre-edf-et-la-defense-pour-produire-du-tritium-dans-la-vienne-2083443
TRANSLATION VIA GOOGLE BELOW:
By Hadrien Valat, Sharon Wajsbrot
Published on March 18, 2024 at 9:08 p.m. Updated on March 19, 2024 at 4:52 p.m.
An isotope of hydrogen with one proton and two neutrons: tritium is only present in very small quantities on Earth but its radioactivity makes it a gas “indispensable for deterrent weapons”. It will now be produced in the EDF power plant in Civaux, in Vienne.
In a press release, the Ministry of the Armed Forces announced a “collaboration between EDF and Defense consisting of installing a materials irradiation service on the site. This involves exploiting the power of the two Civaux reactors to, alongside unchanged electricity production, irradiate special materials containing lithium into the reactor cores.
Irradiated materials
“Once irradiated, these will be transferred to a CEA site”, the Atomic Energy Commission, “in order to produce tritium”, details the press release.
“This collaboration has been under study since the 1990s and is part of long-standing planning, usual for Defense industrial tools,” says the ministry, which specifies that an agreement between the State, the CEA and EDF “will be signed, setting the scope of activities, the rights and obligations of each party in compliance with governance rules”.
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For EDF, this additional activity will provide limited income and will have no impact on electricity production. “This request from the State has no impact on the operation of the Civaux power plant and its purpose” and “there are no plans to extend this complementary activity to other reactors in the park”, detailed Etienne Dutheil, director of the nuclear production division at EDF.
The ASN opinion
However, the increase in load will be gradual. To verify that this activity does not alter safety and production capacity, the material to be irradiated on behalf of the State will be introduced very gradually into one of the nuclear cores of the Civaux power station, during the shutdowns planned in 2025 in this plant. “This modification will have to be the subject of a safety assessment by the ASN”, also specifies Etienne Dutheil.
For EDF, this is a first, but other similar irradiation activities on behalf of third parties must develop. “We have an agreement with Westinghouse to manufacture cobalt-60 used in medicine. The power plant used for this service has not yet been identified, it should start in 2027,” Etienne Dutheil further clarified.
RADIATION FREE LAKELAND 