2024-10-11 13:28:00
Greenpeace, “Exit Nuclear” and “Stop EPR” presented an appeal to the Council of State on Tuesday against the decree authorizing the “preparatory works” for the construction of the second new generation nuclear power plant.
Collectives against the atom are turning to justice to stop the relaunch of nuclear power in France. Greenpeace, the “Exit Nuclear” network (RSDN) and the “Stop EPR” collective have appealed to the Council of State against the decree authorizing the start of “preparatory works” for the Penly EPR (Seine-Maritime), the three organizations announced in a press release Tuesday.
Last June, the government gave the green light to EDF for this new phase of construction of this new next-generation nuclear power plant. The three anti-nuclear organizations denounce “many irregularities” in the procedure permitted by law “nuclear acceleration”.
The “foot in the door” strategy.
Intended to accelerate the renewal of the French nuclear fleet, this law promulgated in 2023 allows for the decoupling of the execution of preparatory works linked to the construction of new nuclear plants and those relating to the nuclear island itself. These are the first that decree no. 2024-505, adopted on June 3, 2024, made it possible to start.
These works mainly take place in the town of Petit-Caux, facing the English Channel. EDF started them at the beginning of July, they are expected to last three and a half years. For the moment it involves the development of the site, the carrying out of earthworks, the creation of roads and deforestation, but also the implementation of measures for the conservation of fauna and flora.
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However, anti-nuclear organizations denounce a strategy of “foot in the door”. “Under the cover of preparatory work, the EDF is already spending billions of euros, making it much more complicated for the authorities to prohibit the continuation of the work if the study of the dossier makes it necessary”specifies Pauline Boyer, head of the Energy Transition campaign at Greenpeace France.
Furthermore, organizations denounce the work of “large scales”the program includes in particular “the removal of the rock from the cliff (5 million cubic metres), the creation of a 20 hectare footprint on the seabed, the excavations and the construction of the first underground works”. For Lisa Pagani, RSDN lawyer, “this work is the guarantee of a hasty destruction of the land and seabed”.
Impact study questions
In his notice issued November 9, 2023the Environmental Authority, contacted by the prefect of Seine-Maritime and the general directorate of energy and climate, was concerned “The impact study [établi par le prestataire] no pre[nne] do not consider site restoration if the project fails”. A study which in the meantime has been completed by the EDF, but which anti-nuclear organizations still consider insufficient.
The two EPR2s at Penly will have to constitute the first pair of reactors that the French government intends to put into operation, by 2035-37, before another two at Gravelines (North) and then another two at Bugey (Ain), as part of the atom recovery program announced by Emmanuel Macron in February 2022 in Belfort. At the beginning of September, the reactors of the first EPR nuclear power plant, in Flamanville, were put into operation.
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