France's oldest nuclear reactor to finally shut down: Report

France's oldest nuclear power plant is all set to shut down on June 30, after 40 years in operation. The Fessenheim plant was established in 1977 and faced huge criticism by anti-nuclear campaigners after the catastrophic meltdown at Fukushima in Japan in 2011. According to the reports, the decision to shut it down was given a green light by the French President Emmanuel Macron. Run by state-owned energy company EDF, one of Fessenheim’s two reactors was disconnected in February, as per reports.

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Govt to shut more reactors

The second reactor is expected to be taken down early on Tuesday but it takes a lot of time for the entire process to get completed and the plant is not expected to be fully dismantled before 2040 at the earliest. Anne Laszlo, Fessenheim union representative reportedly said ahead of the closure that, "We hope, above all, to be the last victims of this witch hunt against nuclear energy".

As per reports, at the end of  2017, Fessenheim had more than 1,000 employees and service providers on site. In the 1990s, several safety failures were reported at the nuclear power plant including an electrical fault, cracks in a reactor cover, a chemistry error, water pollution, a fuel leak, and non-lethal radioactive contamination of workers.

The French government in January said that it is aiming to shut 12 more reactors nearing or exceeding the 40-year limit by 2035, when nuclear power should represent just 50% of the country’s energy mix in favour of renewable sources.

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Image: Fessenheim/Twitter