France - Marcoule Nuclear plant explosion - 12 Sept 2011

****** Explosion of 2011 to SOCODEI ******* see below:
***** SOURCE WIKIPEDIA.ORG ************************
12 September 2011 to 11 h 45, the explosion of a furnace installation Centraco SOCODEI operated by a subsidiary of Areva and EDF, causes the death of an operator (found charred), and made four injured with a severe to hospital by helicopter from Montpellier for burns importantes. This explosion is followed by a incendie.
- The company processes waste of low and very low radio-activity.
- As a precaution, the internal emergency plan (PUI) is triggered on the site, and the staff are confined because of the risk of dispersion of radioactive materials8.
- The Nuclear Safety Authority indicates that no release of radioactive material has taken place outside the installation.(perimiters?) *************
- Today, numerous nuclear activities are met in Marcoule: production of MOX fuel - formerly a treatment plant for spent fuel - radioactive waste storage - center study radioactive waste study center. - nuclear weapons facility operated by Areva NC - The Marcoule site hosts nuclear facilities like:
Phoenix: experimental reactor for fast neutron chain;
Atalanta (laboratory) Laboratory processing of spent
fuel and study on the management of high-level radioactive waste and half-life period; Melox: manufacturing MOX nuclear fuel; Centraco: central processing and packaging of radioactive waste.
- Military activities:
Celestin reactors, two nuclear reactors at Marcoule entered service in 1967 and 1968, AREVA (formerly COGEMA) ensures the production of TRITIUM for the purposes of National Defence. The military use of TRITIUM in warheads and thermonuclear warheads and also in studies of inertial confinement fusion. Because of the relatively short half-life of TRITIUM, the military must periodically replace the tritium in nuclear weapons stored.
- MOX:
Since 1995, the plant manufactures fuel assemblies MELOX - MOX (Mixed Oxide), made from a mixture of uranium oxide and plutonium. The MOX recycles plutonium from nuclear fuel recovered during processing operations of spent fuel reprocessing plant at The Hague.

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