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Conference Article: Concept, development and reliability of French CO₂-cooled reactor fuel elements

Abstract

The natural uranium-graphite-gas reactor series consists of 8 power plants in France, 6 of which are still in operation, and one reactor in Spain. The first, Marcoule G.2, whose first criticality took place in 1958 and that was shut down on February 1st 1980, had a capacity of 40 MWe. The last one to start up in 1972, BUGEY 1, is 540 MWe net. Improvements of the nuclear steam supply system have been accompanied by successive transformations of the fuel elements which have now reached a high degree of reliability

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Reference:

Specialists' meeting on gas-cooled reactor fuel development and spent fuel treatment Moscow (Russian Federation) 18-21 Oct 1983

International Atomic Energy Agency, International Working Group on Gas-Cooled Reactors, Vienna (Austria); State Committee on the Utilisation of Atomic Energy of the USSR, Moscow (Russian Federation)

IWGGCR--8, pp:51-55