By KUNA,
Paris : Greenpeace Organization welcomed here Tuesday the decision to suspend construction on the concrete base slab of the new European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) “Flamanville 3” in northern France, which would be the worlds largest reactor.
The French nuclear safety agency, ASN, has ordered construction to be suspended following the agencys discovery of chronic problems affecting the quality of construction work since building commenced on Flamanville 3 in December 2007.
Energy campaigner at Greenpeace France Yannick Rousselet said in a statement that ASNs decision is considered “extremely important.” He stressed “Experience with the EPR in France and Finland proves that nuclear power is too risky, too late and too expensive,” calling on both countries to “abandon” the EPR immediately.
Furthermore, Jan Beranek, who is a nuclear campaigner in Greenpeace International, said that the European Pressurized Reactor is a “failed experiment” and that it is considered a “dangerous roadblock in the way of safe solutions to energy security and climate change.”
“In order to avert catastrophic climate change we need an energy revolution based upon clean renewable energy sources and energy saving,” he indicated.
The agencys call to halt construction follows a series of letters it sent highlighting a range of problems, such as non-conformities in the pinning of the steel framework of the concrete base slab. The EPR construction at Flamanville 3 had started in 2007 with operation scheduled for 2012, constituting the first version of a new generation of reactors.