FRANCE BUILDING BIG ATOMIC REACTORS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28435, 15 November 1957, Page 23

FRANCE BUILDING BIG ATOMIC REACTORS

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

MARCOULE (Southern France), i ' Three giant atomic reactors ‘ rising on the banks of the Rhone river near the ancient picturesque , town of Avignon, will soon pro- s duce plutonium fissile material to * give France the first nuclear ( economy in continental Europe. , The three reactors known as I Gl, G2, and G 3, together with 1 a plant for the chemical extrac- ( tion of plutonium from uranium j irradiated products, are expected to turn out about 2201 b of plutonium a year. Scientists estimate that 2.2041 b of plutonium, which is slightly bigger than a golf ball, will produce as much nuclear energy as 2800 tons of coal, or 1500 tons of fuel oil. France intends to use her plutonium in fast breeders for the production of nuclear energy for industry. The £6 million atomic centre at Marcoule is alongside the traditional route from the industrial area round Lyons to g new industrial zone which has grown up round the Etang de Berre, near Marseilles. But the French Government’s defence programme includes building an atomic-powered submarine, and plutonium could also be used to make atomic bombs. Special Graphite Each reactor requires more than 1500 tons of special graphite of 90 per cent, purity. The bars are cut with 1200 channels to take the uranium rods, the nuclear fuel within which fission takes place, producing both atomic energy and plutonium. The three reactors, when in full operation in the course of next year, will develop heat equivalent to 350,000 kilowatts to drive three electric generators. A surplus 50,000 kilowatts will be fed on a high-tension grid to the country’s general mains through a 60-kilo-watt transformer station. The pride of Marcoule is its plutonium extraction plant, the most complex unit of the group. Outwardly, it has the appearance of an aircraft carrier with portholes and decks. Inside, there are about four miles of corridors, and about 62,000 miles of pipes in addition to a mass of condensers. The irradiated fuel material from Gl, now being kept in crucibles underground to allow the radioactivity to die down, will be treated with nitric acid and tributyl phosphate solvent by an automatic system qf suction pumping and gravity falls. “Death Chamber” Within the next few weeks, the plutonium extraction plant, the “death chamber” as it is called, will be walled up to a thickness of about 9 feet 9 inches and the massive lead doors will be closed to man forever. A staff of 30 engineers and 300 technicians, working in three shifts 24 hours a day, will control the operation from the outer corridors. About 10 stations, including mobile units all over the country, control whether there is' any

radioactive fall-out from the Marcoule industrial centre and the experimental group at Saclay. France has big deposits of uranium ore from metropolitan sources and her overseas territories. From domestic supplies, she has a known reserve of 75,000 tons of uranium ore, and big deposits have been discovered in Madagascar and the Gabon territory in West Africa. After a slow start, France is today catching up in the atomic race.