Construction on the third reactor at the Flamanville nuclear power plant in northern France was approved in 2007 and should have been operational five years later, in 2012.
But the project is dragging on and is expected to take at least 17 years to complete, at an estimated cost of 19.1 billion euros – nearly six times the original estimate. In December, the owner-operator EDF announced its postponement to the first quarter of 2024 because of work to repair welds with questionable quality.
It seems the construction of a further European pressurised water reactor, designed to revive nuclear energy after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, is a real challenge.
