Visit to a nuclear power plant for students of the Energy, Environment and Sustainability policy stream

In December 2021, the students of the "Economics and Regulation of Electricity Markets" module, accompanied by their teachers and the academic team of the Energy, Environment and Sustainability stream of the School of Public Affairs, were invited by EDF to visit the nuclear power plant in Nogent-sur-Seine (Aube, France).

After a semester spent studying the functioning of the electricity market with Laurent Joudon (Director of Economic Studies at EDF) and the regulation of electricity and nuclear markets with Guillaume Dezobry (a lawyer specialising in Energy and Regulation law at Fidal), the visit to the power plant allowed the theoretical concepts from the classroom to be put into practice and answered a multitude of students’ questions.

The Nogent-sur-Seine Nuclear Power Plant (CNPE), opened at the end of the 1980s, consists of two identical nuclear units of 1300 MW each.

While visiting unit 1, the students were able to see the nuclear reactor building from the outside, which stays closed when the plant is in operation. The engine room, on the other hand, held no secrets from the students. In this huge and noisy hall, the steam from the secondary circuit, after being heated in the reactor, drives a turbine at 1500 revolutions per minute. This rotation is transformed into electric current by the alternator at the other end of the building. Finally, the water from the Seine, after being filtered, cools and condenses the steam from the secondary circuit, which returns to the reactor.

On leaving the engine room, you cannot miss the two huge cooling towers, from the top of which great white plumes rise. In these 165-metre high buildings, the wind cools the water in the cooling circuit so that it can be returned to the Seine at a temperature of no more than two degrees higher than the initial temperature of the river. It should be noted that the water in the Seine, the water in the secondary circuit and the radioactive water in the primary circuit never mix, instead they circulate in closed circuits.

After passing the radioactivity safety test (which all the students successfully passed), the group went to a replica of the power plant's control room. This is used as a simulator for training and education exercises. The emergency shutdown procedure caused alarms to roar and dozens of red lights to flash, but the reactor, which is designed to shut down automatically, was not damaged.

For many of the students who will be doing an internship next semester, this was the very last day of their studies. This visit, which had the feel of an end-of-year class trip, was the perfect conclusion to a master's course devoted to the subject of energy transition and environmental issues.

Account by Marc-Antoine Leprince, a second year student in the Master in Public Policy, Energy, Environment and Sustainability policy stream.

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• The Energy, Environment and Sustainability policy stream at the School of Public Affairs