Does the EPR project, launched in 1993, take recent events into account (attacks, heat wave, flooding, earthquakes, etc.)?
The EPR’s main safety aims were already ambitious to begin with, and have not been put into question since. But this does not mean that the project is not evolving. In fact, it is profiting from feedback experience in operating present-day nuclear reactors and is progressively integrating the improvements considered necessary. Thus, the analyses carried out following the flooding of the Blayais power plant, the heat wave of summer 2003 and the measures taken or being prepared for existing reactors will be transposed into EPR design. The events of September 11th also instigated new studies. Therefore, the external protection structures of buildings containing the reactor, the fuel and safeguard systems, will be strengthened beyond the project’s initial plans.
