![]() We try to make the job safe and finish the works on time but there are plenty of hazards," the source said. "People are working in a constrained area, repairing pipes that are 30 centimetres wide in sites that aren't bigger than a Paris studio apartment. One of the sources who spoke to Reuters said workers fixing the reactors operated in challenging conditions. Klervi Leuraud, a radiation expert at the French institute for radio-protection and nuclear safety IRSN, said the threshold of 14 millisievert remained well beneath levels considered as posing a health risk. BELOW RISKY LEVELSĪccording to the United Nations scientific committee on the effects of atomic radiation, exposure below 200 millisievert is considered weak and below 20 millisievert is very weak. One of the sources who spoke to Reuters said it was rare for EDF employees to reach an exposure level of more than 9 millisievert. Three of those did not reply to a request for comment, one declined to comment and one was not immediately available for comment.Īn adviser to the energy ministry, who asked not to be named, said France's agency for nuclear safety ASN acted in a "strictly independent manner" to ensure the protection of workers in the sector, adding that an exposure of 14 millisievert was the equivalent of two chest scans.ĮDF said 14 millisievert was the existing maximum radiation exposure the company allowed for its staff and the reference for its contractors, although some had opted for lower limits. On top of Monteiro, Reuters contacted five other French contractors employed by EDF. Millisievert is a unit measuring the radiation dose accumulated over a certain period of time by an individual. "We try to respect our principles and it is not because we are in a crisis that we are going to let people burn," said one of the two sources, who both work in the nuclear industry. This was still comfortably below the French legal limit for workers in the nuclear sector of 20 millisievert, they added. To help EDF stick to the schedule, Monteiro - which supplies welders to EDF - raised the annual radiation exposure limit for its workers to 14 millisievert from 12 previously, the two sources said. 18, though some analysts say that is too optimistic. Workers checking and repairing the plants are required to operate in a part of the reactor where radiation is high, so they can only spend a limited amount of time in it, EDF Chief Executive Jean-Bernard Levy said last month.ĮDF has said it expects to meet its schedule to restart the 29 reactors currently offline by Feb. The company has blamed a shortage of skilled professionals and radiation risks for a maintenance schedule that has left France, long Europe's biggest electricity exporter, importing power from neighbours even before temperatures fall. ![]() EDF said on Thursday it expected lower production to shave 29 billion euros off its 2022 core earnings - its fifth profit warning of the year. French nuclear output is at a 30-year low.
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