Abstract
Superphenix reactor construction has been achieved within approximately seven years from March 1977 up to the beginning of the filling-in with sodium in August 1984. D0 being the beginning of the construction site (March 3, 1977), the reactor sodium infilling was completed at D0 + 89 months instead of D0 + 55.5 months, i.e. a 33.5 month slippage. The overnight construction cost was approximately 7.7 billions € 2012. The delay taken during construction has two main causes:
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The novelty and the specificity of fabrications. In particular, many manufacturers have had to create workshops and train their personnel for this prototype construction.
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A European organization, which was making the governance cumbersome, which was enforcing some task distributions among the countries and which was making more complex the works follow-up and the general quality assurance.
However, this construction site has been a technological feat, with the development of techniques specific to the sodium-cooled fast reactor type, in particular, with on-site fabrication and transportation of very large diameter parts, an integrated fast reactor feature.
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Notes
- 1.
The report of the Court of Auditors states that this figure does not include any costs for dismantling.
- 2.
This is the formula P = P0 (1/3 AICC + 1/3 TP01 + 1/3 ICHTTS), which prevents:
– The underestimate led by a simple use of the consumer-price INSEE index.
– The overestimate related to sharp indicators for raw materials (copper, rolled steels) that are volatile indices giving too much weight to market effects, which are dependent on supply and demand.
- 3.
The construction period generates costs (interest paid during this period) that reach a significant amount of the total cost. The overnight cost is the one without these interests, so it is the building cost that should have been paid if the plant had been built “in one night” (hence the term overnight).
References
The Court-of-Auditors Report in 2012, on the nuclear power costs.
The Court-of-Auditors Report in October 1996: “NERSA, the financial statements and management: European fast neutron nuclear power plant (Superphenix).”
N◦1018 Report of the Enquiry Parliamentary Commission on Superphenix and fast reactor type, registered on June 25, 1998 and published in the Official Journal on June 26, 1998.
“Superphénix. Pourquoi ? ”Georges Vendryès. Chapter 7 on Superphenix cost.
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Guidez, J., Prêle, G. (2017). Construction Review. In: Superphenix. Atlantis Press, Paris. https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-246-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-246-5_2
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