5 New safety challenges and safety objectives to be adapted 2. Time during which safety can be guaranteed with no intervention being required (for example the time for which – in the event of total loss of electrical power – safety can be guaranteed passively, pending the restoration of a back-up power source). Whereas the siting of a new power generating reactor is one of the aspects of the project which can to a certain extent be a choice, this is not the case for numerous SMR projects. If the particular target is the industrial heat production market, then the siting of an SMR is determined by the location of the customer to whom it will be delivering the energy. Numerous SMR projects are thus aiming for deployment on industrial sites located near to or even within urban areas. This type of siting near to densely populated or industrial areas is being envisaged by the project developers, because these SMRs are likely to be able to achieve safety levels significantly better than those of today’s large power generating reactors. With these SMRs, the low power to be removed in the event of an accident should make it possible to combine passive and active safety systems, leading to increased diversification of the safety provisions, longer grace periods(2) and better protection of the containment barriers. In addition, some of the new technologies proposed have specific characteristics (such as the intrinsic containment performance of the particular fuels of HTR), which also make it possible to envisage a significant reduction in radioactive releases in the event of an accident, even the most severe. Even if these SMRs can in principle achieve safety levels higher than those of high-power electricity generating reactors, ASN considers that the safety objectives to be attained must be defined before envisaging siting close to population centres and existing industrial facilities which may themselves present risks. ASN thus set up a pluralistic working group to consider the reinforced safety objectives to be defined before envisaging such siting choices. The initial results of these discussions, which reflect society’s expectations with regard to the reinforced safety level required for such reactor siting projects close to urban areas, were used by ASN in the harmonisation work undertaken with its European counterparts. Creation authorisation application for the first small modular reactor in France On 3 May 2024, the Jimmy Energy company submitted a creation authorisation application for its first SMR, called “Fermi”, to the Minister responsible for nuclear safety. This is a project for an HTR reactor with a power of 20 Megawatts thermal (MWth) designed to provide decarbonised industrial heat to a plant of the Cristal Union Group located on the Bazancourt site (Marne département), at a distance of about 15 km from Reims (see map below). This reactor technology is notably characterised by the use of a particular ball-shaped fuel, called “TRISO particles”. These particles about 1 mm in diameter consist of a kernel of uranium oxide with successive coats of ceramic and silicon carbide. The advantage of using these TRISO particles is that their strength and leaktightness characteristics are claimed to provide intrinsic guarantees that the radioactive materials they contain will be confined in all accident situations liable to affect the reactor. With the support of IRSN, ASN in 2024 completed an analysis of the acceptability of the dossier submitted. The conclusions and the follow-up by the Minister responsible for nuclear safety regarding the acceptability of the dossier are expected at the beginning of 2025. Triso particles (TRi‑structural ISOtropic) Pyrolitic carbon Porous carbon Silicon carbide Pyrolitic carbon Uranium oxide kernel 13.66 km REIMS “Fermi” reactor project 330 ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2024 The emergence of small modular reactor projects
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