What Does the French Nuclear Regulatory System Learn from the 2003 Heatwave and Drought?

• In Event: Infrastructure: Mitigate, Sustain or Vacate?

Abstract

In 2003, an unprecedented heatwave led to the hottest summer on record in Europe and in France. Apart from the health crisis triggered by this event, many French nuclear power plants, the older part of the French nuclear fleet, had to shut down or to reduce their production because of thermal pollution (Létard, Flandre & Lepeltier, 2004). As global warming strengthens, heatwaves and droughts are becoming more likely, with more extreme, more frequent and longer events in the future. The 2003’s heatwave triggered a political acknowledgement and technico-economic concerns about the consequences and difficulties of the adaptation of the French nuclear electricity production infrastructure in face of climate change (Linnerud & al., 2011).
In this communication, we will present a socio-historical analysis (Noiriel, 2006) of how, from 2003 to nowadays, the actors of the French regulatory system, including the nuclear operator, have adapted existing regulatory tools and designed a brand new one dedicated to risks posed by heatwaves. Our socio-historical analysis is based on the analysis of numerous archives and testimonies of the work led during fifteen years by the French actors regulating nuclear safety (Chanton, Mangeon, Pallez & Rolina, 2017).
Mainly based on technical safety and risks issues, the shared vision constructed by these actors is the product of a combination of existing techno-scientific tools (models and statistics) aiming at drawing various types of predictions, concerning various problems, from climatic hazards to the calculation of the reliability of technical barriers. We will show that a regulatory work (Mangeon, 2018) led to what could be viewed as “blind spots” and “limits” in the way the issues at stake are tackled. Moreover, our analysis shows how “uncomfortable knowledges” (Rayner, 2012), knowledges that contradict important regulatory beliefs, are managed through regulatory arrangements based on normative and strategic ideas about what should be done and by whom, in face of climatic hazards. Some of these ideas are consequences of a strategic reframing of the uncertainties about the predictability of extreme (and moderate) climatic events and their consequences. Furthermore, we will show that the treatment of uncertainties and the use of models to predict some of the consequences of a heatwave are differentiated depending on the fact that older vs new NPP (that is EPR technology) are concerned. This differentiation produces ignorance that can affect the ability of the regulatory system to adapt the older part of the existing infrastructure in face of a global warming. Ignorance appears to be the product not only of a specific technico-economic context but also the result of a continuous, systemic and functional process (Luhman, 1998, 2010) shaping organizations (Dedieu & Jouzel, 2015; Frickel et al., 1992) and shaping the socio-materiality of the nuclear technology, from its beginning (in France) to nowadays. We will conclude our presentation by drawing some of the implications of our work concerning adaptation to climate change of nuclear electricity production infrastructures.

Author

• olivier chanton, IRSN